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Though in the end, she seems to have had a small epiphany. I wonder what his father did to him, why he flinches every time his sister touches him. Why he left home and how his sister proposes to protect their little brother.
Emrys’ arm around me is reassuring as much as it is restraining. I want to cling to him, inhale his sexy scent of crushed pine needles and wood smoke. I’ve really missed him, my broody demon boy.
I watch as Ashton’s sister kisses his cheek and gets up. Ashton looks wrecked, his face pale, his eyes dark with what looks like surprise and no little shock.
Was it something she said? Or seeing his brother like that? I need to go to him—but Jason is there, pulling him to his feet, wrapping an arm around him. It warms my heart to see them together.
“Let’s go,” Jason says and Ashton digs in his heels for a long moment, staring at the bed with the small form on it, his sister sitting in the chair on the side, an open book in her lap.
“Yeah,” he rasps eventually, “let’s go.”
Sindri pushes off the wall where he’s been oh-so-casually leaning against, hair falling in his face. He seems steady enough on his feet, so I let Emrys herd me out.
I feel kind of useless and I wonder if Ashton was right to ask me to stay at the Academy, but then I remember how hard he held my hand on the way here, how he asked me not to let go, and I think it was okay.
Seeing them all united has stitched my heart back together—even if I know that when we return to the Academy things are meant to go back to the way they were this morning, and whatever is holding me in one piece will fall away.
I don’t want to think about it. But as we hurry through the hospital, as Emrys’ hand on my wrist pulls me along so that I don’t fall behind, a bad feeling grips me. My stomach knots and my head pounds and I tell myself that it’s only the tension from everything that went down tonight—Ashton’s sadness, the things left unsaid between himself and his sister that hint at sinister memories, and let’s not forget that terrible bloodletting that had been necessary to break us out of the Academy—but it persists as we step outside, onto the street.
Nobody is speaking. We hurry across the square, a motley crew, Jason’s blond hair catching the light of the streetlamps, as do Emrys’ and Sindri’s earrings. Only Ashton seems to be in darkness, in his own private storm cloud, his face blank, his gaze unseeing. He looks as if he’s about to dissolve into gray mist and I ache to pull him into my arms, hold him, promise that his brother will be okay.
But I don’t know that. Does it matter? I don’t have to promise that. Only that I will be by his side, no matter what. That’s what comfort means. I’m taking a crash course in what binds people together.
And I know it’s ridiculous that I feel so much about these boys I barely know—but I do, no two ways about it. Call me naïve, like my cousin did, call me stupid. I know what I feel. Affection and lust, a heady mixture, but also protectiveness and worry. No idea what it all amounts to, but it’s not a crush like the ones I had on pictures of pretty boys Ophelia showed me.
This is way too real.
The bad feeling intensifies as we enter the narrow street through which Ashton took us earlier, distracting me from my thoughts. It doesn’t feel like magic, I don’t feel any tug inside my mind. This is more of a gut feeling, making me feel queasy. My breath catches. I turn my head to look right and left, then behind me.
“Everything all right?” Emrys growls. His grip on my wrist is so tight it hurts. I yank my arm and he releases me. “Mia?”
“Something’s wrong,” I whisper.
He glances over his shoulder. “Can’t see anything. You’re too damn jittery. Relax.”
“Can’t sense any magic,” Sindri who has slowed down to walk beside me says. “We’re okay. Not far from the Academy gates now.”
I swallow hard. “And you’ll have to, what, spill the rest of your blood to get us back inside?”
“Getting back inside from the same spot we exited isn’t hard. A drop of blood to reactivate what we spilled should be enough.”
“Well, good.” I force my gaze forward, walking stiffly between them, to where Ashton and Jason are leading the way. “I guess I’m stressed. Seeing Ash like that was awful. His sister sucks.”
Sindri snickers softly.
Emrys guffaws.
“What?” I mutter.
“His family doesn’t seem that bad to me, to be honest,” Sindri says.
“You haven’t metmyfamily,” Emrys says.
I glance from one to the other as we walk. They have fallen silent again, and they’re both frowning, as if caught by surprise by their brief moment of connection. “You two aren’t so different, you know that?”
“Never compare me to a demon,” Sindri says stiffly.
“I’m not some pansy fae princeling,” Emrys snaps.
