Page 18 of Eternal Storm

“Yours are bigger,” I corrected him, because even then I dealt in accuracy, not compliments.

“Same thing.” He grinned and made another spark that took out an entire branch of azaleas.

My throat closes as I walk toward the alley’s exit, heat pricking behind my eyes until the thermal signatures of every person on the street blur into a single, overwhelming wash of warmth.

Oliver will never make sparks again. Oliver’s dead, and Jade knew, and she let me talk about finding him as if there was still a him to find.

My fire flares in my palms, and I curl my fingers into fists, shoving my hands into my pockets.

“You told me on the ship that whoever did this to Oliver is already dead,” I say to Kieran. “That they just don’t know it yet.”

“I remember.”

“Did you mean it?”

“Every word.” He reaches for my elbow, and the contact is so warm that my Crown-amplified sensing whites out for a full second. Unlike earlier on the ship, this is a pleasant warmth. The type of warmth that makes every other thermal signature on the block disappear until all I can read is the furnace-bright heat of Kieran Cross pouring through his fingertips into my skin, and I want to close the distance between us and forget the outside world exists, like we did in the spring on Lotus Island.

Stop. I force my thoughts back online, shoving the lotus-haze memory into a drawer I don’t have time to open. Amazons. Ares. Focus.

I step back, and his hand falls from my elbow. The cold spot it leaves behind throbs against my skin, and I have to count to three before my sensing recalibrates to anything other than the absence of him.

“Lenore will want to know what we need and what we’re offering,” I say, surprisingly steady given that my entire world is crumbling around me. “I’ll do the talking.”

“I’d expect nothing less.”

We walk the six blocks in the kind of silence that’s become familiar over the past few days. As we walk, my mind keeps cataloguing what I’m carrying.

Oliver’s dead.

Jade lied about it.

Logan is a Revenant. He used compulsion on me, and Kieran had to threaten his life to make him undo it.

Kieran is a son of Ares. The Geryon said his war-blood is going to transform him into a version of himself he might not survive.

Four active crises and zero institutional support, because the institution is compromised and the people I trusted are liars.

Finally, we arrive at the Aldridge manor house. It sits on a residential street in the Garden District, set back behind a front garden that looks deceptively ordinary. The house itself has tall columns, shuttered windows, and gas lanterns flickering on both sides of the door. It’s the kind of architecture tourists photograph without understanding that the real structure of the house extends three stories below ground.

We climb the porch steps, and before I can knock, the front door opens.

Lenore Aldridge stands in the doorway with a porcelain teacup balanced in her left hand and a gold pin gleaming in her dark hair that’s twisted into a low knot. She’s wearing a cream blouse with the sleeves rolled to her forearms, and the gold chain at her throat catches the afternoon light.

“Evelyn Thorne.” She says my name the way she says everything—measured, warm, and slightly transactional. “It’s been, what, two years?”

“Three. The Summer Solstice Ember Gala.”

“That’s right. You wore that green dress your mother picked out, and you spent the whole evening in the library cataloguing my father’s restricted section instead of dancing.”

“I catalogued thirty-seven texts that night. Twelve of them aren’t in any Council registry.”

“And you never told a soul.” Lenore tilts her head in approval. “Your mother raised you well.”

Her gaze shifts past me to Kieran, and the warmth in her expression sharpens. “Professor Cross. You’re a long way from Blaze Academy’s training grounds.”

“I go where I’m needed.” He holds her gaze, and the air between them is so tense I almost forget to breathe. It grows warmer, and warmer, until I’m contemplating whether stepping between a coven matriarch and a son of Ares would be brave or statistically fatal.

Finally, Lenore steps aside and sweeps one hand toward the interior of the house. “Come in, both of you. I just made a fresh pot of tea.”