Chapter 30

"Melle," I started.

"Here."

She pushed the orchids into my arms and scurried off.

Shit. I turned to Sylvie and was just about to hand her the orchids so I could go after Emelle when a silky voice said, "Torturing the symbol of our house, are we now, Drey?"

I jumped. Kimber was gliding toward us, bedecked in… I blinked. Ladybugs?

Yes, I realized as she came to a halt in front of Sasha, Sylvie, and me. A thousand or more of the black-spotted yellow beetles clung to her figure, twitching and stretching their shelled wings whenever she moved. The parakeet on her shoulder was eyeing them hungrily, but never made a move to peck at one. Yet.

Jenia and Dazmine stopped on either side of her, but I couldn't stop staring at Kimber herself. She'd always talked around me, but never to me.

I frowned at the orchids in my arms. They were, indeed, screeching faintly. Probably because their link to the lifeline of their existence had been snipped.

"They're not mine," I began lamely. What else was I supposed to say?

Kimber, however, was already turning her attention to Sasha and Sylvie, and when her teeth flashed through a forced smile, I had the feeling she hadn't stopped here for me at all.

"How lovely you look this year, girls. Much better than last year."

"Perhaps that's because last year you tore our dresses to shreds," Sasha replied.

What the hell? My heart dropped. Something was definitely taut between Kimber and the twins, but surely Kimber hadn't actually touched them in any way…

"Did I?" Kimber slapped a hand to her heart—crushing some of those ladybugs in the process. I heard their dying whimpers even over the din of the party. "I don't remember. Things get crazy when you're having fun, am I right?"

She smirked at Jenia, who smirked back. Dazmine remained stone-faced.

I thought that was going to be the end of it. That Kimber would turn on her high-heel and leave us alone then. But she pulled a contemplative face and asked Sylvie, "So, are you sharing my ex with this little girl?" She didn't even gesture at me, as if I were no more than the dirt between her parakeet's talons. "I would have thought he'd be satisfied with two girls, but maybe he got bored and asked for a third?"

Clearly, I was missing something, although the pieces were starting to stitch themselves together in my mind. Coen had never mentioned hooking up with either of the twins, but perhaps he had after his breakup with Kimber…

"Oh, did they not tell you?" Kimber barely glanced at me. "I bet you've just been swept head over heels, huh, Drey? Not realizing that Sasha and Sylvie will always be Coen Steeler's number one and number two. Interchangeably, of course. You will never be more than the third most important thing in his life."

I didn't hear her mutter a command to the ladybugs on her dress, didn't see anything more than the flash of her teeth as she whisked together another smile. But suddenly, her parakeet was laughing, and a frenzy of wings exploded around us, forming a dotted cloud of yellow, and the multiple conversations died down just enough for everyone to gape.

By the time Sasha, Sylvie, and I had swatted away the swarm, Kimber was already leading Jenia and Dazmine away, the dress beneath where the ladybugs had been semi-transparent. Leaving her entire naked body on display through the sheer nylon.

"What—?" I started, turning toward the twins.

"My question exactly," came a voice.

I whirled to find Coen, Terrin, and Garvis emerging from the crowd, the latter two sneaking glances behind them to gape at Kimber's retreating bare form. Coen, however, kept his eyes on me, Sasha, and Sylvie, a frown slipping over his face as he no doubt swept through the thoughts of all three of us.

I'm so sorry, he said suddenly in my mind. Terrin was showing Garvis and me his new fireproof pants and we were testing it out, but—it doesn't matter. I should have been by your side the moment you stepped through the door.

I didn't answer him with my thoughts. The fact that he hadn't been waiting for me at the Element Wielder front door didn't bother me; he'd asked if he could escort me to the formal a few days ago, and I'd told him I was going to show up with Emelle and Wren.

But I still folded my arms around the orchids and said, "Would anyone care to explain what Kimber was talking about? And why she set a bunch of ladybugs on us?"

"Yeah." Sylvie's magic flicked a stray ladybug off her chest. "Kimber's a possessive psychopath who wanted Coen to break off his extremely non-romantic friendship with Sasha and me."

I did a double take, my arms falling to my side again.

"Really?"

"Trust me," Sasha said, rolling her eyes, "we grew up with Coen. He's like a brother to us. I'd rather kiss that giant octopus in the Element Wielder lake."

Coen's jaw twitched—with both annoyance and a hint of laughter. "You'd rather kiss an octopus? Really, Sash?"

She shrugged, a wicked smile creasing over her face.

"So," I said before she could respond, desperate to make sense of this, "Kimber didn't like that you were all friends and wanted you to break ties even though none of you have ever had anything romantic going on?"

Sylvie sighed. "That about sums it up."

Coen's pleading gaze nestled into mine. It's why we broke up, he said in my head. I should have ended it a year ago, when she physically attacked them during this same exact party… but she convinced me we belonged together. It wasn't until she gave me an ultimatum—her or the twins—that I picked the twins.

Does she know? I asked, my gut suddenly clenching. If Emelle already knew about my own heritage, I couldn't blame Coen for telling a girlfriend of three years.

No. She knows I'm childhood friends with Sylvie, Sasha, Terrin, and Garvis, but she doesn't know anything about our childhood years at sea. Or how we have to suppress our other powers. Coen's frown deepened. Which just goes to show how much I trusted her even when I thought I was in love with her.

I tried to keep my face impassive, even as a bit of awkwardness crept through me. After all our time together, all our kissing and exploring each other's bodies and hanging out on the weekends, that word, love, had never even come up.

"I've got to go find Emelle," I said, clutching the orchids tighter in my hands.

Coen didn't miss a beat. "I'll come with you."

He'd probably rifled through my memories already, seen what had happened with her and Lander and Quinn. And for some reason, that bothered me, that he could just invade me on a whim.

"Sure," I said, because I couldn't think of a good enough excuse to say no.

You don't have to have an excuse. If you don't want me—

It's fine. But can you stay out of my head for a bit?

I didn't mean for my thoughts to carry such a… bite to them, but Coen's usually tan face seemed to whiten as he nodded and followed me away from the others.

Where was Emelle? My dress swished coolly around my thighs as I scoured every corner of the room, winding between groups of people and avoiding the throng that Kimber had attracted entirely. Would she have really gone home?

"Do you want to check the roof?" Coen asked hesitantly.

I almost stopped. I'd forgotten that the Element Wielder roof, flat and gated, was practically made for stargazing… and escaping for a good cry. God of the Cosmos, please don't let me find Emelle crying all alone. And please keep some sense in Lander's head.

But I feared that if Quinn wanted to get back together with him, if that's why she'd asked to talk, Lander wouldn't hesitate. And Emelle would be… disappointed? Devastated? I didn't know. Only suspected.

"Yes," I told Coen, hating the dying screeches of the orchids. "The roof."

He didn't put a hand on the small of my back like I'd expected, but instead jerked his head toward the back of the room and led me to a spiral staircase covered in wreaths. Up and up we went, passing people lounging against the corkscrew railing, until we'd reached a wooden ladder shooting up through the roof.

"After you," Coen murmured.

I clambered up awkwardly, one hand still clutching Emelle's orchids, until I'd emerged onto the roof where those enchanted snowflakes grazed my cheeks.

Coen climbed up beside me, and we both looked around.

The roof was packed. Far busier than the foyer below, although nobody was dancing here. They were just clustered around braziers sporting flickering flame, drinking and talking to each other on chintz stools and chairs. The snowflakes that fell on the fires, I noticed, disappeared in a sizzling flash once they hit the flames.

I didn't have to look twice for Emelle. As soon as an older girl shifted her weight forward, I saw her in the far corner—wrapped around a guy who was definitely not Lander. I could barely make out where her face ended and his began.

"Oh." I fell back and looked at Coen. "I suppose she can do what she wants?"

There was no way I was about to break her and the guy apart. But I really hoped she knew what she was doing, because if Lander saw her…

Not my business, I reminded myself. They might be my closest friends, and sure, maybe I'd been hoping they'd get together after all those side looks and blushes, but in the end it wasn't up to me to steer the direction of their relationship.

Coen cleared his throat. He'd turned to lean against the wraparound gate.

"Have you ever seen Bascite Boulevard from a rooftop, Rayna?"

"No, I haven't." Wrenching my gaze from Emelle, I wafted to Coen's side.

From up here, the street looked even smaller than it did from my bunkroom's balcony. Stray partygoers swayed drunkenly down below, and I could see the bridge winking with starlight over the estuary.

Silence quivered between us. I frowned down at the orchids.

"They're dead."

"What?" Coen looked startled.

"The orchids… they must have just died. I can't hear them anymore."

I pressed a kiss onto the canopy of petals, muttered sorry, and tossed the bouquet over the gate, watching it spiral down until it hit the ground below. I had a feeling Emelle wouldn't want their wilting corpses anymore anyway.

Coen was staring at me as if he'd only just noticed me. His eyes dragged down from my face, paused at my breasts, and swept down to my feet.

I thought for sure he'd comment on the dress, then, something snarky or coy or anything to fix this… clumsiness between us, but he just grabbed a fistful of his hair and said, "Listen—I wish you were a Mind Manipulator right now."

"Excuse me?" I felt my eyebrows furl.

"Not permanently," he rushed on. "Just in this instance, so that you could feel how… guarded my heart is after her."

Her as in Kimber. I didn't particularly want to talk about Kimber right now, but I'd told him to stay out of my head for a bit, so of course he couldn't know that.

"After we broke up, I swore to myself I wasn't going to get involved with anyone," Coen said softly. "At least not until after I'd passed or failed my Final Test."

I tried to smile. "And then I showed up with a mystery for you to solve."

Because even if he didn't love me… he was definitely involved with me, right? Or did all this kissing and touching and hanging out mean nothing to him?

Coen surprised me with a firm, "No." When I cocked a brow at him, he repeated it. "No. It was before that. When I wanted to test the limits of my magic on my first official day of being an Institute prince. I invaded every new mind in that courtyard, and I was absolutely… astonished when I hooked onto yours." Finally, he ran a hand down my arm, and I closed my eyes at the touch. "Beneath all those layers of fear and worry and self-doubt, Rayna, your mind… it's the most beautiful and compassionate thing I've ever seen."

I opened my eyes to find Coen leaning closer to me. There was no hint of mockery in the smoky quartz of his eyes, nothing but the rippling reflection of my own face as I stared back at him.

"I wanted to sink into your mind right then and there," he said. "To lose myself inside you." I didn't miss the innuendo, though I wasn't sure he'd intended it this time. Still, my thighs clenched as he went on. "But of course, that would have been ridiculous, to reach out to a first-year when you didn't even know me, all because I'd found your mind infatuating, so I refused to even look at you longer than that first glance… until you nearly blasted your tent apart and… well, became a mystery for me to solve."

The hint of a smile played on his face at that.

I reached up to brush a snowflake off his hair. "And do you feel like you've solved me yet?"

Now Coen's smile lit up his face with a familiar wicked delight.

"Not even close."

I closed the gap between us, rising up on tiptoe to take his lips in mine.

He responded with a deftness that scared me, cupping the back of my neck with one hand and my thigh with the other, lifting me an inch off the ground so that he could take my kiss fully.

We melted into each other, then, like we had so often these last few weeks—only now it was out in the open, beneath the sky that poured enchanted snowflakes and in front of anyone who wanted to goggle and gossip about it.

The way he wasn't hiding me anymore—it meant more than any words.

Coen, however, knew just the right words to say anyhow. He dragged his lips to my ear and whispered through my hair, "I wouldn't have picked that dress for you if I'd known how badly I would just want to rip it off."

I pushed him away, attempting to roll my eyes, but he yanked me back and pressed his forehead against mine.

"You're slowly becoming everything to me, Rayna Drey."

Before I could think of a response to that, a series of commotions stirred behind us. People were jumping up from their seats around the various fires and rushing toward the ladder—not in fear, but in excitement. As they went, I could make out fragments of their conversations.

"A fight downstairs—"

"Someone tried tripping—"

"—got his tooth knocked out."

I had no interest in watching people pummel each other to bruised and broken bits, and was about to suggest to Coen that we ignore it when his face went pale for the second time tonight.

"What?" I asked abruptly, casting around for signs of Emelle. She was still wrapped around her hookup in the corner, completely oblivious.

"It's…" He winced, and I knew he was scouring the minds of everyone downstairs. "It's Fergus." And now his eyes widened. "And Gileon."