Casimir and Elex leave me and Killian a couple of hours later, heading back to their duties in the kitchen. I stay standing over the desk, tracing my fingers over the blueprints, transfixed on the small spot down at the bottoms where the prisons are.

Samu.

The possibility that he may only be levels beneath my feet fills me with conflicting feelings. The relief is a ray of sunshine in the storm of fear, but the anger is a fire that rages through all the layers of emotion. How long has he been down there in a window-less prison cell? And why? Why keep him alive this long if only to keep him locked away?

It doesn't make any sense.

"Staring at that map isn't going to change anything, you know," Killian says from behind me.

He's found comfort atop the bed, his long legs hanging over the ledge and arms resting behind his head as he reclines back. Amongst the extravagant gold trimmed furniture, he looks to be a part of a beautiful painting. He looks far too elegant to be an intruder.

"How do you know he's really there if you haven't seen him?"

"I thought we'd passed the point of you disbelieving everything that I say?"

"I'm serious."

"Freya." He sits up slowly, letting out a long exhale. "I made a promise to you that I have every intention of keeping."

His voice dances through my mind as I meet his eye. We'll get you to your brother.

His words are one thing, but there's a steadying certainty in his gaze that assures me more than anything else. I don't know when my complete and utter mistrust in Killian shifted, but in this room, staring at him now, there's no part of me that doubts him.

He pushes to his feet after a few more moments, lazily stretching his arms above his head. "I'll let you get some rest."

I watch as he moves back over to the balcony doors, fiddling with the dagger sheathed at his belt. It's the same one he always seems to carry with him, the blade slightly longer than usual and the hilt an intricate swirling of patterns.

"Are you going back to the village?" I ask.

He shakes his head as he pushes the door open. "I need to go back to that office and look through those files again. Fancy an outing?"

I hesitate. "I don't know."

"If you're too scared—"

"I'm not scared," I scowl, noting the mocking grin rising to his lips. "Casimir said it was important to lay low till tomorrow."

"Casimir doesn't have to know."

He throws his hood over his head as a gust of icy air swirls around him, a flurry of snow whipping around his feet. I watch him step out, swallowing my words as an internal panic rises inside of me.

I want to go with him, too busy my mind, yes, but it isn't only that. I think of how it felt to have him sitting on the edge of the bed last night, asking me about Samu, my father, my family. Hearing about his family. The comfort in his presence when Casimir and Elex both left. Despite the mocking comments, the taunts, what once was irritation has shifted into something warmer, something I'm too afraid to name. I don't want to be alone. I don't want him to leave.

"I'll go," I say, reaching for my boots. "On one condition."

"And what's that?"

I step towards him, so close I have to crane my neck to meet his eye. He doesn't move an inch, not even flinching when I trail my tip of my index finger down his chest, muscled even though his dark clothes.

The candle flame reflects in those dark eyes.

"Your condition?" he murmurs.

With one swiping motion, I extract his dagger from the sheath at his waist, holding it towards his neck. "I get to use this."

His lips turn up at the ends despite the blade pressed to his throat. "Deal."

#

The castle hums.

It's a stark contrast to the floor my bedroom is on, which, whenever I've moved through the halls with guards, has been entirely deserted. Killian and I enter through a different room this time after Killian declared the other unsafe, so the journey to the room is completely unfamiliar to me, too. Killian seems to know his way, though; I stick close to him as we creep through the shadows, occasionally ducking behind corners and jutted out statues to avoid oncoming guards.

But they're crawling all over.

"What're they all doing?" I whisper, pressing into to the wall as Killian ducks his head around the corner.

"Preparations for the ball," he says as a cluster of servant's rush past. Killian waits one breath longer before ushering me around the corner and into another hall. There's only one lantern strung up on the ceiling, casting most of the hall in a dark shadow.

He holds a hand up. I tune my ears for the sound, but come up with nothing, and we continue forward again, reaching a winding staircase leading upwards.

"How many people do you think live in the castle?" I ask, glancing over my shoulder. "It's huge."

"Only the royals and their servants," Killian answers. "From what I've gathered, everyone else lives in the village."

The stone steps are uneven, trodden down in the middle from years of use. The further we climb, the more distant the glow of the lantern gets. I inch closer to Killian, the air somehow seeming to grow colder in his absence.

"Do you think—"

Killian knocks the words from me, swinging me around. He braces a hand at the back of my head to keep it from smacking the wall as he tucks us behind one of the jutted-out stones.

I stare up at him, wide-eyed at his annoyingly good reflexes. It reminds me of Casimir—always so graceful. Prepared for anything. Killian's eyes warn me to keep my mouth shut.

I hear it then—the low rumble of voices moving up the stairs, and my heart picks up. We're well hidden; if they walk past us, they won't see us—but if they turn back to look down the staircase...

I don't dare move, don't dare speak, don't dare breathe. All there is to do is wait. Wait and listen to the voices encroaching on us; wait and think of the pressure of Killian's fingers at the back of my head, his scent, his warmth, his eyes.

Ignoring it all gets increasingly more impossible. I glance away from his chiselled chest, up to his face. The tension in his jaw, the furrow of his brows—something's bothering him.

"What's wrong?" I whisper, voice so low I'm surprised he catches it. The voices sound more distant now, as if they didn't come up all the way. "Are we clear?"

The hand supporting the back of my head shifts slowly to cradle the side of my head. I don't breathe as his slender fingers brush the hair away from my face, tucking it behind my shoulder, before they stray to my cheek—brushing just above my cheekbone.

"Killian?"

"She hit you too, didn't she?"

I open my mouth to answer but no words come out. The skin stopped stinging hours ago, but beneath the heat of his stare, it burns in the shape of Elora's hand.

"We're in a castle full of shifters, Killian. You can't say you didn't expect one of us to get a few scratches."

His eyes meet mine, fingers lingering just inches away from my skin—like he's afraid to hurt me if he touches it. "This is more than a scratch."

"It was just a slap. I can handle it."

"I know you can. I just wish you hadn't had to."

My breath catches in my throat as he touches the skin, fingertips grazing my cheek with the weight of a warm breeze. My stomach somersaults. I reach up to grab his hand with my own, stopping its exploration, and ducking my head so my hair falls across the mark. I can't seem to let his hand go—it's so warm, calloused fingers rough against my fingers.

"I'm okay."

"Freya..." His fingers tighten around my own. A warm feeling floods my stomach, his voice melting the exterior of ice I'd mustered to keep this feeling at bay.

"Yes?" I whisper.

His throat bobs up and down as he swallows. There's something in the way he looks at me that makes me lean forward, heart hammering against my ribs as his breath wanes across my neck.

From the day we met he captured my attention, but this? This is different. It's intoxicating, invading every sense and plaguing my every thought. We're hiding in a place overrun with the very species I hate, and yet I can't take my eye off him.

"There's... there's something—" A shout from the hall captures his attention. His head jerks to the left and he steps back, shaking his head.

"What?" I ask. "What is it?"

He drops my hand, the space around us growing cold. "It's clear."

He turns to walk up the stairs. It takes me several seconds to register his words before I can follow him, wrapping my arms over my chest as we resume the climb up the staircase, my stomach somersaulting. The air is cold, but I still feel the warmth of his touch, his gaze, his proximity.

At the top of the staircase, he turns to look at me. "Coming?"

I shake my head and press on after him, hating the way my body revels in what just happened. We reach the next level. The door to the office is open, but Killian makes me wait outside anyway as he surveys the room before allowing me to enter. It looks the same as it did the previous night—the files a mess.

I watch as he rifles through the draws, pulling out files, his brow furrowed, and lip pulled into his mouth in concentration. His finger strokes the pages as he skim-reads, his eyes darting from left to right. He's so deeply enveloped in the book, completed unaffected by the proximity with which we stood. It makes me feel like a fool.

I force myself to look away, moving to stand by the bookshelf and task myself with mindlessly scanning the book covers, pulling a couple out to peer at the tattered states. There's a small library in Veymaw at school, but even that collection of books smalls in comparison to this office collection.

"What're you looking for, anyway?" I ask, pulling out a book with a red spine.

Killian mumbles something about Trina as I run my finger along the cover, tracing the gold lettering etched into the red. After a few moments, I discard the book and join Killian at the desk, staring at the files he's discarded. He barely takes notice of me as I begin to rifle through the myself.

I notice another paper amongst the mess and recognise the word at the top. Torinne. I think of what Casimir said about more shifters migrating from Torinne and pick up the piece of paper. The writing is linked in a way that's difficult to read, but I manage to extract enough words for it to be coherent.

"Casimir was right," I murmur. Killian pauses to look at me as I trace my finger down the page. "This record is estimating more than one thousand shifters have illegally entered Elel territory from Torinne in the past year alone."

He goes back to the rest of the pile, rifling through.

"Why so many?" I keep scanning the rest of the page until I reach a section mentioning Portson, reading more carefully, my heart halting.

The Cloud.

Devastating effects.

Few survivors.

Evocian.

"Killian?"

"What is it?"

I look up at him. "What really happened in Portson?"

He pauses sifting through the paper. "What do you mean?"

"Casimir told me there was a storm and that the shifters wiped out nearly the entire deserter clan during the chaos." He meets my gaze. "But this... this report of the storm. They're calling it the cloud. And there's no mention of any shifters being ordered to kill the deserters."

He takes the paper from my hand, reading it over himself, jaw clenching.

"You were there the night of the storm in Veymaw. I told you it was no tornado. And you found me, you saw how calm it was in the forest. You said there was nobody else there. But something or someone killed Jyro and hurt me. Is it the same person who caused what happened to the deserters in Portson?"

"I didn't lie to you, Freya," he says.

"You said there was nobody else in that storm."

"There was no one else in that storm."

"Then how did this happen? And why was the healer so interested?"

"You told the shifters about it?" he asks, leaning forward intently. "Freya, what did you tell him?"

"What does it matter if you won't even tell me the truth? Nothing I tell him makes any sense. I saw my father in that storm, I saw Samu, and then I was attacked by shifters. And you keep telling me there was no one else there. So, either you did this to me, or I did it to myself? Which is it?"

He clenches his jaw. "It wasn't me."

It clicks, like a thousand pieces of a puzzle falling into place. I look down at the scabs on my ankle. "I... I did this to myself?" Killian's silence is confirmation enough. "Does that mean Jyro... he-he—"

"Jyro swallowed the rocks and drowned himself."

The weight of his words knocks me back, against the wall. "No... no. Why would he—why would I—"

"Neither of you knew what you were doing."

I gape at him, horrified. "And you knew all this time? You didn't tell me?"

"It would have only frightened you to know the truth."

He's right, but it doesn't ease the nausea of discovering now, when I trust him so much more. The excruciating pain of the wound on my ankle is something I won't easily forget. To think I did that to myself makes me want to hurl.

"Is it... was it the same thing that happened in Portson?" I ask. "The cloud?" I note the hesitation in his eyes. "Please just... tell me the truth."

"There's a storm coming from the north," he says finally. "It's the same storm that ravaged Portson and wiped out most of the deserters. It affects people differently, but it causes hallucinations that you believe are real. Hallucinations that cause you to harm yourself. It gets into your mind and uses your greatest fears and darkest memories to torture you."

"So, what I saw..."

"It was a trick of the cloud. You believed you were being attacked."

I remember Cadence describing my wound to me. It looked like you'd been hacked at with a knife.

"I thought a shifter was biting my ankle."

"That's what the cloud does to you."

I take a shaky breath. "How did you get out okay?"

"It was already dissipating when I went in after you, and I wasn't in for long. There were others out there too who didn't die because they weren't there long enough—many of the harvesters ran in after your scream too, Casimir for one."

"Is that why shifters from Torinne have come to Elel? Because of the cloud?"

He nods. "It doesn't seem to have any pattern, but when it arrived in Portson, it came from that direction."

"Do all the deserters know about this?" Casimir hadn't seemed to when we talked about the storm.

He shakes his head. "Only Trina, though I'm not sure she entirely believes it. I tried to warn her when I came to Veymaw, but she's so caught up in taking these shifters down that it's not a priority of hers."

I shudder, remembering how Killian had tried to frantically keep me from leaving his cabin that day as the storm ravaged outside.

"I should get you back," Killian says, softening his voice. "Come on."

I let him lead me from the room, secretly glad my hand is clasped in his as he leads me back into the hall. I feel like an imposter in my own body, like I can't even trust my own mind to distinguish reality from an illusion. Voices come down the hall. Killian turns so we're heading in the other direction, but voices come from that way too. He curses beneath his breath, frantically darting his head either way.

"Killian?" I panic.

He looks at me. The voices grow closer as his eyes dart all over my face. They're almost here. He leans closer, pressing me into the corner so I can't see past him.

"What're you doing?" I ask. "They're going to see you."

He looks at me. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry in advance."

"For what?"

"Whatever you do, don't slap me."

"Killian!"

"Do you trust me?" I nod. "Then don't move."

"What're you—"

Before I can say another word, his hand caresses my chin and guides my mouth to his.

-

1. Is that what you expected happened during the storm, or did you have other theories?

2. Why do you think Killian is about to kiss Freya, and do you think she will slap him? Lol

3. What do you think might happen next?