Page 64

“Silas—”

“I’m just saying, if we die in here, I want to go out knowing your eyeliner game was strong.”

Riven groans from up ahead, muttering something about murdering us allafterwe survive.

But me? I’m already in. Heart steady. Magic humming. Because whatever waits inside this chapel… it’s old, it’s hidden, and it’s about to learn I’m not here to knock.

I’m here to take.

It feels wrong, being back in these halls. Not dangerous. Not even haunted. Just... wrong. Like the place is holding its breath, waiting to be useful again. Waiting for something it won’t get.

The marble beneath our feet is too clean, too untouched. Like time skipped this wing entirely. Dust doesn’t gather here. Paint doesn’t peel. The torches flicker, obedient as ever, and the walls hum with the same low throb of restrained magic—but the soul is gone. Students. Chaos. Noise. Gone.

Even the shadows look bored.

I glance to my left, where Caspian walks a pace behind the others. He doesn’t realize it. He’s always trailing lately. Always there, but not quite in it. Shoulders hunched like the weight of silence is heavier than battle, and it probably is. His hands are jammed into his pockets, his usual swagger muted down to a shuffle.

He doesn’t look at me. Hasn’t looked at much in days.

This is the same corridor he once dragged me through with an infuriating smirk, narrating every painting with commentary that could’ve gotten us expelled. He taught me the underground tunnels, the ways to dodge Professors, where to find contraband chocolate cake in the kitchens after midnight.

He made this place feel like mine.

Now he barely makes a sound.

I slow my steps and let the others move ahead. Riven catches my movement, his eyes dark in the half-light, but he doesn’t stop me. Ambrose doesn’t even glance back—he’s too focused, too locked in on whatever secrets he thinks Blackwell kept from him.

But Caspian needs someone to notice him. And he’s too proud to ask for it.

I reach out and loop my arm through his, ignoring the way he stiffens at the touch. For one breath, he doesn’t move. Then he sighs, a sound that’s too exhausted for someone who used to thrive on being shameless.

“You’re being weird,” he mutters, his voice low, rough.

“And you’re being quiet,” I reply. “We’re both off-brand tonight.”

That earns me a small twitch of a smile—barely there, but enough.

“I used to know every creak in this place,” he says softly. “Now it just feels… echoey.”

“It’s not the school that changed.”

I can feel the ache in him, not just through the bond, but through the way he holds his jaw too tight, the way his shoulders never fully relax, like his body’s stuck in a fight he can’t punch his way out of. He’s Lust, and right now, all he wants is numbness.

I tighten my hold on his arm just a bit. “You don’t have to pretend with me.”

He finally looks at me then. There’s gratitude in it, but something else too. Grief, maybe. Shame, even. He doesn’t let it stay long. Caspian always covers it with something—humor, seduction, flippant charm. But this time, he just lets it be.

“I don’t know how to be this version of me,” he says, voice barely above a whisper.

“Then let’s figure him out together,” I answer. No softness, no pity. Just truth. Just us.

Ahead, the others vanish into the next hall, and the magic stirs again—Blackwell’s wards peeling back layer by layer as Riven decodes them. I don’t rush to follow.

Neither does Caspian.

Because maybe, just maybe, this time… he doesn't want to walk through the dark alone.

Elias