I’d try to convince myself I was only imagining her reactions, but when Cole finally breaks his silence, he’s clearly fuming.
He glances over his shoulder the way we came and then stalks across the parking lot, his shoes rapping out a staccato beat. “She pulled Worth back to talk to him alone. Already drawing lines between the matches she wants and the ones she’s disappointed by.”
He glares at the sleek silver BMW parked a few spots over, the car I assume Byron arrived in before he caught up with us wandering through the massive park.
A surge of protectiveness propels a reply up my throat. “You don’t know what she wanted to talk to him about.You’rethe one who said we should get going. It’s not like you were trying to be friendly.”
Cole’s shoes hit the pavement even harder. “I’m not her friend. I’m her professor, and now through some joke of fate I’m her match and tied up in some ridiculous upper-crust murder conspiracy, when?—”
He cuts himself off and looks over at me. “It’s you I’m more concerned about. She’s just found out you’re her match, and she still can’t be bothered to give you the time of day? It isn’t supposed to be a situation for playing favorites.”
“She did just almost get stabbed to death followed by almost drowning,” I point out. “After being near-fatallypoisoned a week ago. I don’t think it’s fair to expect her to be completely in her right mind.”
Cole clicks the fob to unlock the doors and reaches for the driver’s side with a huff of breath. “I don’t know if there’s ever anything ‘right’ about where the Devines’ minds are at in general. But of course you’d be the one worrying about fairness.”
“It seems like someone has to.” I drop into the passenger seat and lean my head back against the worn leather.
As Cole brings the engine rumbling to life, my eyelids droop closed. A fog is rolling through my head like an echo of the clouds congealing over the moon.
In the interest of fairness, I have to voice one smallI told you so. “I did tell you I sensed that she was dealing with something.”
Cole yanks on the gear shift. “That was before she was even poisoned.”
“I’m sure a few things in her life weren’t exactly perfect before it got to the point of attempted murder.”
“Her family has more resources at their fingertips than we could ever grasp. She isn’t a stray dog that’s going to starve if you don’t give up half your supper.”
I suppress a wince. He wouldn’t even know about the latest stray if Elodie hadn’t snitched in class.
All the same, there’s only one possible answer. “No, she’s my match. And yours too.”
My brother doesn’t bother to answer. As he steers us out of the lot and down the streets gone quiet with the night, his silence fills the car like a weighted blanket, heavier than anything he could have said.
I peer at him sideways, my stomach twisting when I consider one specific peculiarity of our union.
Siblings sharing a core match isn’t unheard of, but it isn’t common either. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of it happening with such a large gap in age.
He’s been waiting seven years to stumble on his unknown match when it didn’t happen at his graduation ball… and now he has to share her with me.
I have to share her withhim.
I never imagined I’d become part of a union this size. That normally only happens for people with a particularly formidable glim, and then with the formidable person at the core.
With all his talent, Cole should have been the core of a larger union. Byron too, I’d bet. And Salvatore, with the power he’s learned to work so quickly…
How do I fit with any of them? I’m a middling lucent as reflected by my middling grades, barely impressive even in my main areas of focus.
It doesn’t make sense.
But, radiants help me, I want it to. If I found out tomorrow this bond mark is a mistake…
Just the thought wrenches at my chest. I rub my thumb over my palm through my glove.
I’ve also never heard of a match sparking and then turning out to be false. Why dwell on the incredibly unlikely possibility?
“I guess we’ll just have to see how the relationship unfolds when we’ve all had time to get used to the idea,” I say. “If it’s a little awkward at first, that shouldn’t stop us from keeping Elodie safe.”
Cole hums to himself with a skeptical note that niggles at my skin. The lamplight streaking through the windshield turns his skin sallow. “We’ll see. It doesn’t add up.”
