The tallest of them has to duck under the cave wall and is looking down as he enters the Crystal Cavern. A shock of chestnut-brown hair falls over what I know are eyes that are not quite blue, not quite green, but something like sea glass held up to a dusky sky, surrounded by a frame of thick lashes. A small lightning-shaped scar cuts across the corner of his jaw, the white of it shining as the torchlight dances across his face. His eyes flick over to us. My breath hitches when he catches my stare, and his eyes widen in utter shock and surprise. He leans down and whispers something to his companions as they start to walk toward us.
“Cadet, what do we have here?” he says, not taking his eyes off me. The silent and glaring question in them is apparent. His easygoing swagger I know so well is only betrayed by the stiffness in his arms, as if he’s trying to contain some emotion he doesn’t want to give away.
“Just giving a tour of the Cavern to the first-years, Officer Gallegher,” Magnus replies.
He smiles at our group—thatsmile, the cocky but ridiculously endearing smile that I know by heart—and I swear I hear every first-year girl gasp just as I feel every first-year boy try to stand as tall as physically possible.
“Squads, you have the honor of meeting Officer Noa Gallegher. First in his class and the winner of pretty much every Whittaker school challenge ever invented,” Magnus says with a hint of awe.
Noa.He’s here. Not even ten feet away.
I can hear whispers from my squad and some of the others around me, hurriedly talking all at once.Everyonein the magick world has apparently heard of Noa Gallegher. His magick is as deadly as his looks are sinful.
His golden-tan skin peeks through a black muscle tee. I suddenly have the urge to reach for his chest and run my hands down that slick fabric, curling myself around his body like a cat.
Gods,get it together, Farris.
Summer is long over, and a lot has happened since then. At least that’s what I try to remind myself.
Noa cocks his head at me and then addresses Magnus. His fingers tap at his sides like he’s willing them not to reach forward. “I know first-years don’t get to see the private caves until they’ve earned it, but you have among your group anold family friendwho I’mverysurprised to see here in our establishment right now,” he says with an intense, pointed look in my direction. “I’d like to keep Initiate Farris for a bit, if that’s alright with you, Magnus?”
Magnus looks like he might faint that Noa even knows his name and hurriedly agrees, ushering the rest of the group back toward the Cavern’s main entrance.
I don’t move from where I stand as the group disperses, sending curious looks in my direction. I’m suddenly hyper-aware of everything around me—the hard stone beneath my feet, the wafts of steam caressing my body, the beads of sweat sliding down my back from the heat I can feel pulsing from behind the next room.
“InitiateFarris?” Noa says with a hint of a question as he extends an arm forward, clearly wanting me to follow.
His three companions are other fourth-year officers, as noted by the four tiger stripes on the pentagon patches sewn onto their uniforms. The tall, sandy-haired officer on Noa’s left gives him an inquisitive look, but I catch the smirk that follows as he tugs his other two companions toward the front entrance. “Right… Noa, we’ll meet you at the commons later?” He looks at me curiously and gives me a wink before disappearing out the front archway with the others.
I follow Noa down the wooden walkway toward the back of the cave, and we enter the next room. The space feels more like the hold of an old ship than a cave. There is a bowed ceiling with torchlight highlighting two dozen polished wood doors oneither side, each decorated with a carving representing an element—air, fire, water, earth, and a few others I don’t recognize. The air in here is steamy and ridiculously warm, smelling of cedar and citrus. I can hear breezes of overlapping conversations and muffled laughter from the other sides of those doors, as well as the sound of water echoing off what sounds like stone, or maybe wood.
A door on the left opens and two girls walk out just as Noa reaches for my hand, pulling me toward one of the doors on the right—the one marked with a flame carved into the wood. I catch their surprised glances as they see me with him before I’m pulled into the room and the door is shut firmly behind me.
Suddenly, it’s just us, the outside world vanishing—just the heat of the cave, the flickering torchlight, and space and time between us.
And then I can’t breathe.
Noa pushes me against the door, lips meeting mine in a kiss that is anything but gentle. He’s tasting me like he might never get to again, like he’s been waiting too long and now there’s no room for restraint.
I lose myself in it.
My hands find his arms, then his neck. I run them down the planes of his chest, just like I imagined doing earlier. I reach for the hem of his shirt and tug it over his head in one quick motion. We separate for a single heartbeat before crashing back together—teeth, tongues, hands. I want more. I want less clothing.
I wantis all I can think.
Fuck summer. Has this not been what I’ve thought about for weeks? His face, his lips, his skin. His body on mine. I want his heat to burn away everything that’s happened in the past month—the lake, the silence, the loss. Leaving just this moment. Just him.
I reach for the button of his pants, fingers trembling, but heleans in, stopping me. He holds us there until our breathing slows and my heartbeat remembers that it’s meant to keep a rhythm.
“Celeste…” His voice breaks off. “What the hell are you doing here?”
He draws back slightly, looking at me as if to confirm I’m not some sort of illusion. His hands find my arms, gripping like he’s checking that I’m real, eyes wide with disbelief. He scans me—gaze flicking over my face, my limbs—like he’s looking for bruises or signs of coercion. Anything to make this make sense.
“I applied to Whittaker… after my dad died,” I say softly. “My mom thought maybe coming here would help. She said my magick had just been waiting to surface.” I pause, swallowing. “When she found me—with him, in the lake…” My eyes close as I try to breathe past the knot forming at the back of my throat. “The water was still rippling,” I whisper, almost to myself. “Curved around us, like it didn’t want to let go.” A beat of silence. “She knew then. What I was.”
It’smostlytrue. Just not all of it.
Noa stares at me, his face clouded for a beat too long, like he’s trying to piece together a puzzle that doesn’t quite fit. Sensing the edges of a lie. But then something shifts in him and settles, like he’s letting himself feel it.
