Page 131 of Ashen Souls

“Yes. Without rings.”

Harper nudged the journal aside. “Good. Then for tonight, we are officially done analyzing demons and emotionally complex professors.”

She pushed herself off the rug and headed for my bedroom.

“You are not sleeping alone,” she called back over her shoulder. “Not after that diary entry about bonds seeking completion.”

“I wasn’t planning on it,” I admitted.

She returned a minute later with an armful of my clothes and tossed an oversized shirt into my lap.

“You get the shirt,” she declared. “I’m taking the blanket.”

We changed quickly, leaving the journal in the dark of the living room. When we crawled into my bed, Harper claimed the side closest to the door. She angled her back toward me, becoming a physical barricade against the bedroom door.

“You’re not alone,” she said at last.

“I know.”

“If anything tries to drag you into another dimension,” she added, “I am absolutely throwing something at it.”

Despite the weariness, I smiled. “I appreciate that.”

I turned onto my side, facing the window where the faint glow of the city kept the dark at bay.

Tomorrow I would return to the lecture hall. I would sit in my seat. I would look at Ethan and decide whether the future I chose could be human and imperfect rather than ancient and relentless.

37

♫ DA TI—FALLING FOR YOUR EYES

Iwoke before my alarm, long before the streetlights outside my window clicked off. I lay still in the dimness, listening to the even rhythm of Harper’s breathing beside me.

The first thing I felt was not dread, but a restless energy.

Mythology.

Ethan.

Two months, I thought, and the number felt like a door half open.

In two months, I would no longer be his student, and he would no longer be my professor. That firm, professional boundary would dissolve into something more ambiguous, more full of possibility.

I reached for my phone on the nightstand to silence the alarm before it could go off.

The movement was not careful enough.

Harper’s eyes snapped open as if she had been trained by a paranoid government agency.

“Don’t,” she said, voice rough with sleep.

I froze mid-motion, phone in hand.

“What?” I whispered.

She blinked once, then squinted at me in the dim.

“Don’t,” she repeated, slower, like she was translating from dream to reality. “Do anything stupid today.”