Page 139 of Glutton for Punishment

“I’m fine.”

“You’ve said that fourteen times this week.”

“Maybe because you’ve asked fourteen times,” I respond, annoyed.

“Maybe because you look like you’re about fourteen seconds away from stabbing someone with a pencil,” he says back gently.

I sling my bag over my shoulder harder than necessary and head for the door before he can keep digging. The academy corridors bustle with students changing classes, the noise bouncing off the high stone arches overhead. Pride students drift through the center of the hall like they own the academy, while Wrath students barrel through crowds without bothering to apologize. Somewhere nearby, a cluster of Lusters laugh loudly enough to turn heads.

Everything looks normal.

The entire academy keeps moving like nothing has changed while my life implodes around me.

Sly catches up and falls into step beside me. “You gonna tell me what’s up with you yet?”

“No.”

“Cool. Emotional repression. The classic Wrath approach. Internalize until combustion.”

I shoot him a glare, but he only lifts both hands innocently. “Hey, I just thought that since you have to listen to me bitch several hours a day about how infuriating Holly is being, I owe you some ear time.”

Sly is a great roommate, but he also catches onto everything. He notices I haven’t been sleeping, that my grades are slipping, that I spend half of our meals hanging on to Arwen’s every word.

And he definitely notices how often I look at her. Which is constantly.

We round the western corridor and, like my eyes were already searching for her before I even realize it, I spot Arwen leaning against the wall outside one classroom with her phone in hand. Her red hair spills over one shoulder while Tabby gestures dramatically beside her, talking fast enough that even from here I can tell she’s ranting about something.

Then Arwen laughs.

The sound lands somewhere behind my ribs.

Universe, this is torture.

A week ago she sat cross-legged on her dorm floor and admitted to all of us that her power apparently only works around Maddox. That somehow the bond feeds it.

I haven’t slept properly since hearing it… information like that is worth everything.

Safety for my sisters… they’d have warm beds and full bellies. No more waking up in the middle of the night in a panic, wondering if it’s time for my mom to be called away. They’d have a future.

All I have to do is report it.

Councilor Drow didn’t ask me to hurt Arwen. He only asked me to observe her. But people like him don’t collect dangerous information without using it, and a girl whose terrifying new power disappears when separated from one specific person is the kind of weakness powerful men exploit.

The thought makes my stomach turn.

Arwen glances up, and our eyes lock across the corridor. For one awkward second, something soft flickers across her face before the weird tension that’s existed between us crashes down all over again.

Ever since she hugged me after I gave her Sadie’s letter, everything between us has felt painfully fragile. Not bad. Just… strained.

She has a bonded now along with her other four complicated bonds. Despite all of it, I still search for her every time I walk into a room.

Tabby notices me staring and immediately smirks like the universe itself has handed her blackmail material.

I flip her off. She looks delighted.

Arwen snorts softly and looks away first, and the stupid ache in my chest only deepens.

“Ah,” Sly says beside me. “So that’s what has you messed up.”