Ambrose
This could not be happening. I’d stayed up all night to finish reviewing Evelyn’s paper. When Sasha had come over in the morning for breakfast, she’d found me half asleep at the kitchen table. But here, in the restricted section of the Vesten Library, the Vesten Point said none of it mattered? My wolf clawed at the confines of my mind, and I didn’t have the necessary discipline to restrain him.
I had finished it. The paper was sound. Everything should have been equal again.
The Vesten Point’s decision should be based on how he envisioned the evolution of the historian position, not based on a single item in our academic records.
“What do you mean she’s disqualified?” Heat surged through me, and my wolf paced a steady line back and forth in my mind. I hoped it wasn’t noticeable, but the way the others glanced at me, I was confident everyone could feel the tenuous hold I had on my magic at the moment.
With the Vesten Point’s words, Evelyn had gone catatonic, but my question ignited a spark within her. Her spine straightened as if she were remembering every one of the experiments she had done, the papers she had written that had brought her to this moment. I hoped she remembered how much she deserved to be here.
Her hands balled into fists at her sides, and her chin raised. “Please explain.”
Carter tilted his head and shot another subtle glance at Lord Arctos.
“I don’t think he’ll leave the room without an answer,” Arctos drawled. “And I am sure she would tell him immediately anyway.”
My brow furrowed. Were they talking about me? Why would I leave?
Carter glanced at Evelyn. “The answer is somewhat private, and for your ears alone.” He glanced at me. “Would you prefer we ask Ambrose to step back into the Great Room? Or do you accept Arctos’s assessment?”
Evelyn sighed, then dropped the pretense that we weren’t in this together. Our hands had disentangled when Carter and Lord Arctos broke their connection. She gripped my hand again now and repeated herself. “Please explain.”
At her move, the smile on Carter’s face was so feline that the hair on my arms stood on end. Nervous energy flooded me; my heart raced as I wondered what he could have to say to her. How could she be disqualified from winning the position?
“It turns out, Evelyn, that your disqualification is the same as mine.”
That didn’t make sense. Carter had had to step down from the position when…
“Surely, you’re joking,” she said, putting the pieces together more quickly than I did.
“You may not have been as honest with me as I was with you, but I assure you, I was serious when I said the court still requires a veil cat shifter to lead. What I didn’t say was that it can no longer be me.”
Fear flashed through her eyes at the mention of her shifted form. She shook her head slowly as Carter spoke.
“Did you not suspect?” he asked. “You didn’t wonder why I told you information that only the court leadership knows, about how the next Vesten Point is selected?” He nodded even as Evelyn continued to shake her head in disbelief. “Yes, Evelyn, you will be the next Vesten Point.”
I swallowed, finally making sense of everything. Of Evelyn’s shift, of Carter’s apparent fascination with her, of her attunement to the magic in nature. I’d known she was magnificent, but this was even more than I realized. I squeezed her hand.
“This can’t be right,” she said, shoulders pushing back as if she’d found new confidence with my touch. “How do you even know about my shift?”
Lord Arctos gave up the pretense of letting Carter handle this and moved toward us. “Iama god.”
Evelyn sighed loudly.
Carter stepped back in. “Lord Arctos suspected. I had hoped that when we spoke at the willow tree, you would say something, but you didn’t. In the end, your draw to the tree was enough for me. There are no other veil cat shifters on record, so it makes sense that the next Vesten Point would be half-fae—the only children not tested by the court.” He shrugged and glanced at Arctos. “I also trusted the god, I guess. And you’re not denying it, so I suspect he didn’t steer me wrong.”
Evelyn surveyed Carter, and it was as if I could hear the pieces clicking into place within her mind. She deduced something, but still, her following words were a question. “Whycan’t you do it? It has something to do with traveling beyond the veil, doesn’t it? Through the willow tree?”
Now she took control of the conversation. She believed what he said, although her last sentence had gone a bit over my head. I knew she would hold her own from here on out. She didn’t need me. I attempted to slip my fingers from hers so that she could fully stand against these two powerful beings, but she shook her head without looking at me and latched on tighter.
I knew better than to think it was from any fear of them—any need for me to defend her. I could do no such thing. She’d proved her lack of fear of them time and again. The action said she wanted me here. She wanted me to stand beside her as she received more news that would forever change her life.
And I would do so happily—proudly—for whatever time I was granted.
Carter nodded in response to her questions. “Though I only became Vesten Point within the last few years, something happened when we freed the continent from the mist plague. It means I have commitments elsewhere. Commitments I’ve not been in a position to act upon because of the ones I currently hold to the continent. I’ve been slowly splitting in two, and then Lord Arctos pointed out that there was an easy solution—to find my successor.”
“Where could you have commitments that are not on the continent?” I asked. I wasn’t sure if he’d answer me, but with another glance at the way Evelyn kept me close, he seemed to decide it was acceptable.
