Chapter 94: The Boy From the Ball

Astrid

I was actually eating. Not picking at my food or pushing eggs around my plate to look normal, but actually eating and enjoying it, which felt like a small miracle after everything. Ivy noticed, because Ivy noticed everything, and she watched me take another bite with a smile that told me she was about to make my morning difficult.

"What?" I asked.

She took a bite of her toast, calm as anything. "Nothing."

I narrowed my eyes at her. "You’re doing that thing."

"What thing?"

"The thing where you know something and pretend you don’t."

Ivy grinned and leaned forward, and I immediately regretted asking. "The gossip is getting worse," she said.

I stopped chewing. "What gossip?"

She just looked at me like the question answered itself. "Astrid, do you actually walk around this academy with your eyes closed?"

"I know people talk."

"That’s not what I asked." She started counting on her fingers, clearly delighted with herself. "Someone said Xander came into your classroom because you were starving to death. Someone else said Reed’s been following you around campus."

"He walked me to the library," I said.

"Exactly." She pointed at me like I’d proven her point for her, then kept going before I could argue. Apparently Xander was the shameless one and Reed was the dangerous one, their words, not hers, and people had already started taking sides, some convinced Xander suited me better because he’d walked into my class and delivered my favorite drink in front of an entire lecture hall, others rooting for Reed for reasons Ivy refused to elaborate on no matter how many times I asked.

"They’re ridiculous," I said, crossing my arms.

"Says the girl dating two of the most talked-about students in Moonshade."

"I’m not dating them," I said, and then immediately regretted that too, because technically we were mates, we had mated, we were together in whatever strange shape that took, and Ivy’s raised eyebrow made it very clear she knew exactly what I wasn’t saying. I grabbed my bag and told her I had class before she could make me finish that sentence, and her laughter followed me all the way out the door.

I was still turning her words over on my walk to my next lecture, people are picking sides, as if I didn’t have enough to deal with without the entire student body voting on which of my mates they preferred, when a voice stopped me at the corner.

"Astrid?"

I turned, and for one full second I just stared. Damien Cross stood a few feet away, dressed casually instead of in the formalwear I remembered from the ball, more relaxed than I’d ever seen him, but unmistakably him.

"Damien?"

He smiled, and it reached his eyes in a way that made me feel briefly, stupidly pleased. "So you do remember me."

"Of course I remember you," I said, feeling heat creep into my face. He told me he hadn’t been sure, since I’d disappeared after the ball without a word, and I looked away because right, the ball, everything that had happened after it, Reed and Xander and the bond none of us had asked for. I told him things had gotten complicated, and he said he’d heard, which made me look back at him sharply until he reminded me, gently, that he’d been gone for weeks and had come back to find out I’d somehow become the most discussed girl at Moonshade.

The conversation that followed felt easy in a way nothing had in a long time. He asked how I’d been, I asked where he’d gone, and he told me about a family matter without making it sound like a secret, just something ordinary that had pulled him away. Then he said he’d actually hoped he would run into me, and when I asked why, he told me he’d enjoyed the ball, then corrected himself and said the dance, and I felt my cheeks warm as he laughed at his own slip. He said I’d been different from what he expected, and when I asked if that was supposed to be a compliment, he considered it seriously before deciding that yes, he thought it was.

I almost smiled. Then my stomach dropped, because I saw them before he did, Reed and Xander crossing the courtyard toward us, and there was no version of the next five minutes that ended peacefully.

Xander noticed Damien first and slowed his steps. Reed’s expression didn’t change at all, which somehow made me more nervous than if it had. Damien followed my gaze, his eyebrows lifting slightly, and when he looked back at me all he said was, "Well."

"Well what?" Xander asked, arriving just in time to hear it.

I closed my eyes for a second and prayed for patience. Damien, clearly enjoying himself now, told me I’d been busy, and I muttered for him not to start. Xander looked between the two of us and asked who this even was, and before Damien could answer for himself, Reed said his name like it was already an accusation.

"We haven’t met," Damien said, unbothered.

"I know who you are," Reed replied, and his eyes didn’t move off him.

Damien seemed more intrigued than offended by that, and asked if he should be flattered. Xander folded his arms and said no, flatly, and I turned to look at him just as he glanced at me with an expression of complete innocence that fooled absolutely no one. Damien laughed under his breath at that, which only made Xander’s mood visibly worse.

Damien turned back to me, unbothered by either of them, and said he’d actually been in the middle of asking me something. Xander told him he could keep asking, in a tone that suggested the opposite, and I said his name in warning. It was Reed, quietly, who told his brother to let him speak. Xander looked at him like he’d been betrayed.

"You’re fine with this?" he asked.

"No," Reed said. My eyes went wide at that, and he looked at me and added, "But it’s her conversation." Something in me shifted at those words in a way I didn’t have time to examine, because Xander exhaled hard through his nose and went quiet, clearly unhappy but choosing, for once, not to argue.

Damien’s voice turned more serious as he asked if I would have lunch with him sometime.

"No," Xander said immediately.

The silence that followed was heavy enough that I turned to look at him fully, arms crossed. "Excuse me?"

He seemed to realize what he’d done a half second too late, but he didn’t look sorry either. Damien was visibly trying not to laugh, and Reed looked away like he was hiding a reaction of his own.

"Did I ask you to answer for me?" I asked Xander.

"No."

"Then why did you?"

He looked at Damien, then back at me, and this time there was no teasing in his voice at all. "Because I didn’t like the question."

I went quiet. Damien’s expression shifted too, something more thoughtful passing over it, while Reed watched his brother and then me, the air between all of us suddenly heavier than it had been a moment ago.

"That doesn’t mean you get to decide for me," I told Xander.

He looked down, just briefly. "I know." And he meant it, which softened something in me even as I tried to hold onto my irritation.

Damien waited without interrupting, and when I finally looked at him, I didn’t want to be cruel about it. I had enjoyed the ball, and he hadn’t done anything wrong, but I was still figuring out what I even was with the twins standing next to me, so I told him honestly that I didn’t know.

He nodded, and there was no disappointment in it, no pressure at all. "That’s fair," he said, and then he told me I was allowed to not know, which loosened something tight in my chest. He started backing away, said he’d ask again when I did, and wished me a good day before walking off, leaving Xander staring after him like he wanted to say something and couldn’t decide what.

The moment Damien was gone, Xander said it plainly. "I don’t like him."

"You don’t know him," I said.

"Exactly."

"That makes absolutely no sense."

He shrugged like that was answer enough. "I don’t need a reason."

I turned to Reed instead. "Do you?"

"Do I what?"

"Know him."

He paused before answering. "Not well."

"I didn’t think so," I said, and his gaze stayed steady on me as he added that I had gone to the ball with him, like it was something he’d carried with him this whole time.

"You remember that?" I asked, surprised.

"Yes." His expression gave away nothing, and yet my heart did something foolish anyway. I looked away first and started walking, asking what was wrong with both of them. Xander insisted nothing was wrong while following after me, and Reed said nothing at all, which was somehow worse.

I stopped and turned to face them. "You’re both terrible liars."

Xander looked genuinely offended. "I’m an excellent liar."

"No, you’re not," Reed said, and Xander pointed a finger at him in warning before turning back to me, all mock innocence again, until I pointed right back at him.

"You can’t answer questions for me," I said.

His expression sobered instantly. "I know."

"Then why did you?"

His voice dropped, quieter than I’d expected. "Because I didn’t like hearing him ask."

I went still, caught off guard by the honesty of it. Before I could find a response, Reed said that Xander still should have let me answer, and Xander turned on him and asked if he’d been completely fine with it. Reed looked at me, then away, and said no.

Neither of them looked pleased with themselves, and neither one looked at the other for a long moment. I realized, standing there between them, that neither twin had liked seeing me with Damien, not even a little, and I knew I shouldn’t enjoy that as much as I did. I started walking before either of them could catch the smile creeping onto my face.

I eventually split off from them for my next class, alone again with my thoughts still tangled around Damien, Xander’s slip, and Reed admitting out loud that he hadn’t liked it either. My phone buzzed in my pocket as I walked, and I pulled it out to find a message from an unknown number.

Be careful who you trust at Moonshade.

I stopped walking. My fingers tightened around the phone as Selene’s face rose up in my mind without warning, on her knees, crying, her voice breaking as she said I already did what you asked, and Estelle standing over her, smiling like she’d already won something.

I looked around at the students moving past me, laughing, talking, none of them paying me any attention at all. I looked back down at the message, read it again, and started typing who is this before another message came through first.

I’m serious, Astrid.

I lifted my head slowly and looked down the corridor, at the unfamiliar faces and the familiar ones, at everyone moving through Moonshade like it was any other day. For the first time since Estelle had arrived, I wondered how long someone had been watching me, and how much they had already seen.