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The headmaster was assessing Darien, his expression stuck somewhere between fear and admiration. “If anyone asks, we called you.” The pleading look in his eyes was clear as daylight. He seemed to be saying, Can you do that for me?

When Darien’s lips twitched up at the edges, Loren caught herself staring at that mouth for a long time. He gave one sharp nod. “You called us,” he said.

“Good,” Osborn said, looking relieved. “Great. We’ll clean this up. You can head out.”

Darien was heading back over to Loren before Osborn had finished speaking, entirely disregarding him and the words he’d meant to be orders. He took her face into his hands, thumbs rubbing what she presumed was blood and dirt off her cheeks. Her hand still burned, but it was dull enough now to suggest that she hadn’t broken anything.

“Darien,” she croaked. “I’m okay.”

“They tried to drown you.” Darn, he was good. “What else did they do?” When she tried to duck her head, he lowered his, forcing her to look up at him, the blue of his eyes bright against the fringe of his inky eyelashes. “What else did they do?” he repeated.

“Nothing.”

“Did they touch you?” Those blazing eyes scanned every part of her, searching for damage. “Loren, if anyone touched you, I will break every bone in their fucking body—”

“No!”

“You’re lying to me.”

“I’m not!” she hissed, being careful to keep her words muted. The professors were observing out of the corners of their eyes, clearly not knowing what to think of the exchange. Loren persisted, “Darien, I don’t want any trouble, okay? This is my schooling we’re talking about. I just want to go about my classes and not have to even remember that any of this happened.” Those boys weren’t worth it, not with everything else going on. And the last thing she needed was for Darien to cause a scene in the school and attract the imperator.

“It’s not that easy.” But he stopped, because he could see that her eyes were shining. Her mouth wobbled, and she watched as the sight of her pain thawed the ice in his veins, the anger in his expression shifting into an unwilling calm. “Fine,” he bit out. “We’ll forget about it for tonight.”

“Thank you.”

“But you need to tell me if they ever try anything again, do you understand me? I don’t care if you’re still not talking to me, if they so much as look at you, I want to hear about it.”

“Darien—”

“Promise me, or I’m never leaving your side again, and you’ll have to bail me out of jail for killing every student in this school until I find out who it was.” Even though the threat wasn’t directed at her, Loren felt a chill lick down the length of her spine.

“I promise.” But he didn’t look like he believed her, so she repeated fervently, “I promise, Darien.”

When Darien let go of her, she caught sight of the droves of students filling the hallway outside the doors to the library. Faces peered in, and frantic whispering began, causing the headmaster to walk out of the library and start directing students back to their houses.

Among those students, Loren spotted Klay. Watching her. His eyes were cold with accusation, his mouth set in a hard line of disapproval. The sight of him had Loren temporarily forgetting that Darien was standing right in front of her, still staring down at her with a level of concern so deep, it broke her heart.

And then her heart broke further as he said quietly, “How long is this going to go on for?”

She blinked up at him. “How long is what going to go on for?”

The question caused his hands to curl into fists at his sides, tattoos stretching across his knuckles. “For god’s sake, Loren, I’m going crazy over here. Just give me something I can work with—a date when I can see you or something, I don’t know.” His breathing turned ragged. “Are we ever going to get back to what we used to be?”

Her eyes flashed to Klay again. He was still watching, the threat in his eyes clear. One phone call, and the imperator would act. “Darien, it hasn’t even been a week—”

“Do you want me on my knees? Do you want me to beg, is that it? Because I will. I’ll crawl for you.”

Griffith wasn’t even pretending not to watch anymore; she was flat-out staring, and so was the other professor. Jack and Max were watching too, where they stood beside Dallas and Sabrine. Even their Familiars, Twitch and Grim, were staring.

Loren swallowed the thick feeling in her throat, the kind that told her she had seconds left before she would burst into tears. “I don’t want that—”

“Then what do you want, Lola? I know I’m pretty new to this whole dating thing, but I seem to missing how we can go from being glued to the hip after Kalendae to barely even messaging each other.”

“I can’t—” The words got stuck again, stilled by that stupid spell.

His brows shot up. “Can’t what?”

“Just give me a few more days.”