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I guess I’d known it for a while, but I hadn’t been ready to admit it, given our painful history, but it was becoming more undeniable with every passing day.

Itwaslove.

I loved Ariana Martel.

In truth, I always had.

But with everything that was happening, now wasn’t the time to throw out those sorts of revelations. She’d had enough shock to absorb.

And things were good between the four of us.

Really good.

I couldn’t stand the thought of doing anything to jeopardize that.

Because what they meant to me, what they brought to my life… it couldn’t be replicated by anything else.

It was beyond special.

It was untouchable.

Unrepeatable.

And it needed protecting in every possible way.

“My boys,”I heard Ari murmur.

It was already happening.

The narrative was shifting.

For Ariana and Nyx both.

Word had spread of Ariana’s heroic efforts during the Guardian Compound attack.

And I might have had a little something to do with spreading word about Nyx’s actions of him providing a warning that had worked to save so many lives, that his special abilities that people had only seen as negative—mostly because of hisallure—had proven invaluable during that dangerous and difficult situation.

As the four of us had walked the halls toward our next class, eyes had been all over the two of them, wondrous looks and impressed expressions and utterings inundating us.

Nyx had been giddy with it, looking all around and taking it in,feelingit fully, no doubt, as was his way. He’d kept clutching V’s bicep excitedly.

Ari had been another matter. I’d had my arm wrapped around her, tucking her into my side, as she’d been much more uncomfortable with it than Nyx. Knowing her, a lot of that had to do with her struggling to accept it as being the new status quo, of allowing herself to fall into it through fear of it possibly being taken away. She’d spent so long believing she would never be accepted for who she was, because ofwhatshe was, that recognizing that could actually be different wasn’t an easy thing to reconcile.

That was made heavier by the fact that her Celestial coercion had been used to force Caius to attack in the first place.

Something I would absolutely get to the bottom of.

As if I’d trust in Cassius to accomplish that.

Despite Nyx witnessing what he had in regard to Cassius healing Velra, we didn’t know his true motives. It might not have been a selfless, caring act. There could have been more to it, more driving it, perhaps even an overarching strategy that we weren’t privy to.

And, as for the suggestion that Cassius wasn’t the threat that the Rift Mark had warned of, that had to be proven, not just settled upon as actual fact through mere speculation.

The four of us now sat in the classroom forWar Strategy and Supernatural Diplomacy, a subject taught by a Dark Fae, Professor Thalric Voss. He was a former member of the Dark Fae War Counsel who’d since defected due to disagreementswith more aggressive policies that the realm had been intent on implementing, policies that served to cause friction between the Dark Fae Realm and the Guardian Movement. One such policy was the Dark Fae King refusing to outlaw dangerous magic that threatened to violate free will in their own people so that they’d fall in line. Worse than coercion, the dark magic in question could actually rewrite somebody’s personality. Something like that had existed beforehand to a deeper and more fucked-up degree and it had almost been used on Lucian Black before Gabriel Morgan had destroyed it. But the Dark Fae ruler had then taken the essence of that to create something similar. There were rumors that the Guardian Movement had developed an antidote should that magic ever leave the Dark Fae Realm and impact supernatural beings on this plane. But still, the fact that it existed at all was beyond troublesome. Something that Voss had recognized to a significant degree.

“That was insanely awesome,” Nyx exclaimed, as he got distracted with setting up his tablet by looking all around the classroom as students filtered in, eyes all over him and Ari.

We were sitting in the back row, the way Ari and Nyx preferred it. I was all for sitting front and center, but it made them uncomfortable, so we went with this instead. I was on one end by the wall with Ariana beside me. Nyx was next to her on her other side, while V sat beside him, his big body essentially forming a barrier to deter anyone from deigning to sit too close or engage with us.