Elara and Kael had just finished dinner and headed back to the dorm to rest.
In the common room, Riven and Xera were chatting casually.
Elara caught bits of their conversation about tomorrow’s trip to Lunareth.
“You packed yet?” Riven asked Elara, who’d just sat down on the sofa across from him and Xera.
Kael settled in beside her, relaxed.
“Please.
You have no idea, she’s been bugging me all afternoon asking what to wear over there.” Xera huffed like she was annoyed, but she was grinning the whole time.
“This isn’t a vacation, remember.
We’re just going for the Rhaen ritual, then straight back to Ravencrest.” Kael nudged Elara’s shoulder gently.
Elara glanced over.
Kael’s expression looked more relaxed than it had that afternoon.
Then, a second later, it changed completely.
Xera was the first to notice something shift around them.
Her nose caught a scent Elara couldn’t detect.
“Rhyze.”
In an instant, the three of them were on their feet, tense, eyes locked on the dorm door.
“Is he really that out of ideas he has to show up on our turf?” Riven muttered.
A moment later the door opened, and Lucan Rhyze strolled in alone, that same faint, irritating smile on his face.
“What’s with the tension?” Lucan glanced around the room, then stopped on Elara.
“Except you, of course.
Still the picture of innocence.”
Elara rolled her eyes at the jab.
“What are you doing here?” Xera growled.
Lucan didn’t answer right away.
He just let his smile linger for a few seconds before saying, calmly, “I want to talk.”
“You know the rules.” Riven’s voice was flat.
“You don’t just walk into another clan’s territory uninvited.”
Elara caught the way Lucan’s eyes flicked upward, like he couldn’t be bothered to take Riven seriously.
Her gaze moved between Xera, Riven, and Kael.
None of them had looked away from Lucan once.
“What territory?
This is just a school dorm, not clan land.
You’re all overreacting.”
Kael growled low, like he’d been holding his tongue long enough.
“Showing up like this, uninvited, reads as a threat.
That’s clan law, older than either of us.
So unless you’ve got a good reason for this, I’ll tear you apart right now.”
“If I came here to threaten Rhaen, I wouldn’t be stupid enough to come alone.” That same maddening smile again.
Elara wanted, badly, to tell him to work on that smile.
“I know this dorm’s sealed with Magnus’s magic.
Figured it was the safest place to talk.” Lucan gestured at the empty sofa across from him.
“Mind if I sit?”
He dropped onto it like he already had.
“Talk,” Kael said flatly, taking a seat.
Xera and Riven followed.
Kael tugged Elara’s hand; she was still standing frozen.
“Sit,” he said, softer this time.
“It’s about the intruder.” Lucan’s opener earned him a tired sigh from Riven.
“You’re sure it’s the Blackthorn guard?” Lucan pressed when Kael stayed quiet.
“Did you come all this way just to second-guess Magnus?” Riven’s tone made it clear he wasn’t interested in playing along.
“I came because something doesn’t sit right with me.” Lucan’s voice stayed even.
“Arvei Vross has access to almost all of Ravencrest.
He knows the academy’s security inside and out.”
He paused.
“Which is exactly why it doesn’t add up.”
“If you’re here to throw Kael off his game before the competition, we already know your angle.” Xera cut in before Kael could speak.
Lucan leaned back into the sofa and raised an eyebrow, unreadable, like he might’ve just agreed with her or done the opposite.
“If Arvei really wanted to get to you,” his eyes settled on Elara, who was struggling to read his face, “he wouldn’t have needed the western forest or outside help.
He had you alone for twenty-four hours.
That would’ve been enough.”
Elara couldn’t argue with the logic.
It wasn’t that she thought Arvei was innocent, but she found herself looking at Kael again.
His jaw was tight, and whatever ease had been in his face earlier was gone now.
Something twisted in her chest watching that change.
Just minutes ago he’d been laughing about Lunareth, easy and light.
Now the crease was back between his brows, like the competition he was supposed to be focused on was already slipping down his list of priorities.
“Someone with that kind of access wouldn’t take the extra risk of bringing in an outside vampire,” Lucan went on.
“And there’s something else that doesn’t fit.” His eyes cut to Kael.
“Did you catch his scent anywhere in the western forest that night?
No.
You didn’t.”
“Nothing.
He said he never went that way.” Kael’s brow furrowed, and Elara felt her stomach drop, watching him get pulled further into this when he should’ve been thinking about the competition.
“We checked every other path too.
Not a trace.” Lucan said it with total certainty.
“So what, you’re saying it wasn’t Arvei?” Riven cut in, agitated now, and so were Xera and Elara.
Elara was pretty sure the two of them weren’t rattled about the intruder.
They were rattled watching Kael take the bait.
“I’m not saying that.
I’m saying the academy jumped to conclusions because he happened to be near the western forest the next night.” Lucan glanced at Riven, then back to Kael.
That wasn’t natural.
That was erased, unless whoever did this can fly and leave zero trace on the ground or the trees.”
“No guard, not even from a noble house, has that kind of ability.” Kael took a long moment before he said it.
“That takes an expert vampire.”
“Exactly.
That’s why I’m here.” Lucan held his gaze.
“You have a competition to focus on.” Riven let out a tired breath.
“Can this wait until after?
We leave for Lunareth tomorrow.” Xera nodded quickly beside him.
But Kael wasn’t listening to either of them anymore.
“I’ve been feeling it too,” he said.
“Like whoever’s actually behind this wants us looking the wrong way.”
Elara watched the corner of Lucan’s mouth curl, satisfied, at that.
She couldn’t tell what he was really after, bringing this up now, the night before Kael left for Lunareth, days before the competition.
Did he actually want to warn Kael, or was breaking his focus the whole point?
The longer she listened, the more she felt something shifting.
If Kael kept digging, kept questioning what he’d been told and finding Lucan’s logic harder to dismiss, his attention would land right back on keeping her safe.
The competition would be an afterthought again.
Elara cleared her throat, already doubting what she was about to do.
“Kael?”
One word, and every eye in the room turned to her.
“You remember the figure I saw from the balcony that night?” She held Kael’s gaze, and he was watching her closely.
Her eyes moved from Xera to Riven to Lucan, then back to him.
“The one watching me.” Her voice came out quieter than she meant it to.
No one spoke, so she kept going.
“It was Arvei Vross.
I remember the way he looked at me.
Like he hated me.”
Silence.
Kael didn’t say anything.
Riven and Xera were watching her, their expressions unreadable.
Lucan just looked at her, long and steady, like he was piecing together something she hadn’t said out loud.
“I’m sure of it.” Elara held her ground.
“I know what I saw.
It was him.”
She looked at Kael, hoping the nerves in her voice would be enough to sell it.
But when her eyes met Lucan’s, he gave her that same infuriating smile, tilting his head like he found something amusing.
“Guess I underestimated you.” His voice was almost soft.
“My mistake.”
No one else in the room seemed to catch what he meant by that.
But Elara knew.
Lucan was the only one who hadn’t bought a word of the lie she’d just told.