Chapter 28
ROWAN
The first note of the Noctis vibrates through the glass pavilion and settles somewhere deep beneath my ribs while candlelight fractures across crystal and polished marble, black iron arching overhead beneath the winter-dark sky.
Beyond the glass walls, Caervast’s gardens stretch toward the dark line of forest bordering the estate. At night, the trees feel close enough to swallow the lights whole.
Everything looks beautiful. Wrong.
Or perhaps that’s just my fragile mind, fracturing with visions of the past that always come back when I’m too scared to face the present.
Sometimes it’s easier to lose yourself in old fears than confront the ones waiting in front of you.
Outside, black hover SUVs continue arriving along the winding drive that cuts through the gardens, their windows dark enough to hide the silhouettes inside while guards move quickly between vehicles and the entrance.
More guests drift through the pavilion every few minutes, expensive coats brushing marble while conversation moves low and controlled beneath the sound of the Noctis.
Too many people are watching me too closely tonight.
The Virels turned the evening into something ceremonial, not just another performance but a presentation, and every time another old family enters the pavilion, I can feel the atmosphere shifting around me all over again.
The glass pavilion feels smaller than it should, the candlelit air pressing against my lungs while another car glides up the drive outside and more strangers step into the light.
Nothing is happening. I know that. And yet my attention keeps drifting toward the entrance, tracking unfamiliar faces and dark windows while something cold settles between my shoulder blades.
The feeling is familiar somehow, a faint unease I can’t seem to shake no matter how hard I focus on the music.
I keep playing anyway. Stopping now would mean looking too closely at the hundreds of eyes watching me beneath all that light.
The notes move automatically beneath my hands after weeks of rehearsals with Halvern, the opening progression smooth enough now that I no longer have to think about where my fingers land. The sound carries through the glass hall in slow waves that seem too large for the instrument itself.
I focus on the music. On the resonance as it hums through the pavilion. It never sounds soft, not really. Even the quieter notes feel weighted somehow, slipping beneath the audience in a way that almost reminds me of cathedral bells carrying through the Ward.
Wake up.
My fingers nearly miss the next transition. For a second, the dream refuses to let go. Footsteps echo through markets and side streets while the feeling of somebody watching from just far enough away to avoid notice tugs at the edge of my memory before disappearing again.
The crowd beyond the stage lights keeps blurring every time I glance toward them for too long, their faces half hidden beneath crystal reflections while people watch me from their tables with the kind of attention that keeps unease dragging slowly beneath my skin.
Ciaran hasn’t answered a single one of my messages since I arrived.
When one of the Virel guards escorted me to the venue instead of Ciaran about an hour ago, I told myself not to read too much into it, but I haven’t stopped thinking about it since.
Especially because normally he’d already be leaning over the back of my chair, his hand finding the back of my neck while he whispered something smug enough to make me roll my eyes in front of half the room.
He praises me constantly when I play, sometimes so openly it still leaves me flushed afterward, his voice low against my ear while he tells me I sound beautiful or impossible or made for the Noctis itself.
But tonight he sits several rows away beside his family and hasn’t once come near me.
I hate this. I hate him sitting that far away from me.
Somehow, the silence feels worse than if he were angry. I hate how badly I want him beside me as the pavilion keeps growing louder and stranger.
Usually one look from Ciaran is enough to steady me whenever the panic starts climbing too high. But tonight, he only watches me from across the room like he already knows something I don’t, and the longer that silence stretches between us, the harder it becomes to trust my own footing.
I finish the progression Halvern assigned for tonight and let the final note fade before lowering the bow, silence lingering beneath the glass dome while the forest watches from beyond the lights before applause finally begins.
Then Angela Virel lifts one elegant hand, and the entire room stills. “Play that again.”
I blink toward her from the instrument. “Which part, ma’am?”
“The opening progression.”
Confusion pulls through me. “The piece I just played?”
“No.” Her gaze never leaves the Noctis. “The notes from before the performance started.”
“The warm-up?”
“No.” She curls her fingers around the silver cane resting beside her chair. “The other one.”
I try the progression Halvern made me repeat earlier that afternoon, letting the notes move carefully beneath my hands while the pavilion stays silent around me.
Angela Virel shakes her head. “Not that.”
Then understanding clicks into place as I realize she means the sequence I always play without thinking whenever my hands start shaking too badly before performances.
It’s the same progression I’ve used for years, so familiar now that my hands find it before I decide to.
Something about the repetition always eases my breathing whenever panic starts clawing too high beneath my ribs.
I play it again.
When the final note fades, Angela lowers her head slightly. “I haven’t heard those notes in a very long time.”
The sudden attention it draws sends a flicker of unease through me. Too many memories seem tangled up in those notes, and the way Angela says it makes me feel like she’s mourning something I don’t understand.
“It’s only a warm-up sequence,” I murmur, fingers hovering over the strings.
“Play it again.”
Something shifts around the pavilion. Conversations die completely as the strange intensity of everyone’s attention presses on the Noctis until the hairs rise along my arms.
This time, when my hands touch the instrument, the sound rising through the pavilion feels different. Maybe it’s because my head is still tangled up in old memories, but the notes seem older than they did a moment ago, heavy enough to drag the room into silence.
Angela Virel rises slowly to her feet, her mouth parting slightly as the final notes fade. Something fractures across her expression, relief and disbelief colliding so hard she looks almost frightened by whatever she’s just confirmed. “You—”
Movement spreads through the entrance behind the audience. Guards along the pavilion walls straighten one after another, the kind of movement that makes an entire room realize someone important is arriving before anyone has actually seen them yet.
The massive glass doors at the far end of the hall open, and a sharp murmur moves through the pavilion. Several Virel guards shift position before anyone has even stepped through the entrance.
I look up, and the second I see who steps through the entrance, the breath leaves my lungs.
Sola steps into the pavilion wearing black silk and diamonds sharp enough to look dangerous, and for one impossible second all I can see is my sister finally standing alive in front of me after years of searching for her, even after everyone else gave up.
She looks exactly the same, yet nothing like the girl who left.
Older. Sharper. Draped in a life I know nothing about. But it’s her. It’s Sola.
Every dead end I ever chased rushes back at once.
The photograph in the library. All the nights I told myself I’d built a ghost out of grief, that I wanted her back so badly I’d started seeing her in strangers’ faces.
Everyone said people from the Ward don’t come back.
That I should stop looking before it broke me.
I never stopped.
And now she’s here, close enough to cross the room and touch, and the realization locks around my ribs harder than any attack ever has. I was right. She was alive this whole time. She was out there, somewhere, breathing.
Don’t let go, I begged her once.
Never, she promised.
Apparently, she never did.
“Thank you for taking care of my brother,” she declares, her voice carrying cleanly through the silence as armed men spread through the entrance behind her. “The Marrow family appreciates your hospitality. I’ll take Rowan from here.”
The name doesn’t register.
Marrow.
My gaze locks onto Sola. What is she talking about?
Whoever the Marrows are, the Virels recognize them.
For the first time all evening, Angela Virel’s composure shatters. Her mouth parts in disbelief, and she rises so abruptly her chair scrapes against the marble. Her fingers tighten around the silver cane as she stares blindly into the distance. “I should have known. The sequence. Christian!”
Her husband is already moving.
The change ripples through the pavilion. Guards straighten. Conversations die. Security teams begin repositioning themselves while guests look around in confusion.
Then chaos detonates. Guests shove back from their tables as hands disappear beneath jackets and guards surge into motion across the pavilion floor.
“What the fuck is this?” Lucan barks.
Two of Sola’s guards reach me, positioning themselves between me and the Noctis.
Lucan shoves his chair back, nearly crashing it into the table behind him, and Rafe is already on his feet.
Beside him, Marius drags another guest out of the way before the growing chaos spills across the pavilion floor. “Why the hell is the Marrow family standing inside a private Virel event, armed and all?”
Nobody answers him.