Chapter 151: The Morning After

Astrid Vale

Breakfast the next morning felt easier than it should have, given how the night before ended, and I found myself smiling into my coffee while Ivy recounted my karaoke performance for the third time, embellishing details that hadn’t actually happened.

"She hit a note so high the entire room went silent," Ivy said.

"That’s not what happened."

"It’s basically what happened."

"You were on stage at the time," Xander pointed out, grinning. "Weren’t you supposed to be embarrassing yourself, not her?"

"I embarrassed myself gloriously on purpose. Astrid’s was accidental art."

Reed said little through most of the exchange, but I caught him watching me more than once, something quietly content in his expression that had nothing to do with the actual conversation happening around us. It struck me how ordinary this all felt, sitting at a crowded table arguing over eggs and toast, no one performing bravery or holding their breath waiting for disaster.

Beneath everything, I noticed Sapphire settled comfortably somewhere in my thoughts, present without demanding attention, a quiet consciousness I’d stopped needing to deliberately seek out. Occasionally I caught something from her, a faint pulse of amusement when Xander said something particularly ridiculous, or an instinctive warmth whenever Reed’s hand brushed against mine. It felt less like sharing my mind with a stranger now and more like simply living alongside someone who’d always belonged there.

Ivy pulled me aside once breakfast finished, the two of us settling onto the small balcony while the twins cleared the table.

"How are you feeling about going back?" she asked. "To Moonshade, I mean."

I considered the question honestly. "Nervous," I admitted. "Not about classes, or even the security stuff Reed mentioned. It’s the idea of walking back into the place where everything started. Before Elaris, I mean. That version of my life feels so far away now."

"You’re not going back as that girl," Ivy said gently. "You’re going back as someone who survived something most people couldn’t imagine. That has to count for something."

"I hope so."

She squeezed my hand, and something in her certainty helped settle the anxiety sitting in my chest, at least enough to breathe through it properly.

Later, Reed and Xander sat with me going over what to expect once we returned. "Security’s been increased significantly," Reed said. "Guards stationed around the east wing, additional patrols throughout the grounds, tighter access to restricted areas."

"Do you think whoever planned this is still there?" I asked. "At Moonshade?"

Reed hesitated. "We don’t know," he said honestly. "We haven’t found anything conclusive."

I appreciated the honesty more than empty reassurance would have offered, even though the uncertainty sat uneasily in my stomach.

Both of them had clearly slipped back into protective mode over the course of the conversation, and I caught it in the careful way Xander mentioned staying close to me during classes, the way Reed suggested a specific route between buildings that avoided less monitored corridors.

"I understand why you’re both worried," I said, "but I don’t want to spend the rest of my life being watched every second."

"That’s fair," Reed said.

"I make no promises," Xander said, entirely unrepentant.

"I’ll start locking my bedroom door."

"That’s not going to stop me."

"It might slow you down."

He laughed, and something about the easy back and forth reassured me that whatever protectiveness they carried, it wouldn’t smother the independence I still needed to hold onto for myself.

We spent the afternoon packing, and Ivy’s chaos filled the apartment as she insisted on organizing everything by color rather than function, resulting in a system nobody could actually navigate except her. I sorted through my own things methodically, folding clothes and stacking books, until I reached a small box tucked at the back of my closet.

Inside sat things from before Elaris entirely, a notebook I’d used for early bloodlines project notes, a photo Ivy had taken during our first week rooming together, a hair tie I remembered wearing the day everything changed. I held the notebook for a long moment, my thumb tracing the worn edge of the cover.

I set it carefully back into the box instead of letting the memory spiral into something heavier, closing the lid and placing it into my bag alongside everything else. Small, deliberate, uncomplicated. I kept packing.

That evening, once most of our things sat organized and ready near the door, I found myself standing at the window, staring out toward Moonshade’s distant towers lit against the darkening sky. Reed joined me first, his presence steady beside me, followed shortly by Xander, who leaned against the opposite side of the window frame.

"Tomorrow," Reed said quietly.

"Tomorrow," I repeated.

"You okay?" Xander asked, some of his usual teasing gone.

"I’m scared," I admitted. "Not of anything specific. Just of walking back into everything that used to be normal and realizing it doesn’t feel the same anymore."

"We’ll be beside you," Reed said. "The whole way through."

"And if anyone gives you trouble," Xander added, "I’ll handle it with my usual grace and subtlety."

"Your usual grace and subtlety involves shouting."

"Effective methods."

I laughed softly, some of the tension easing out of my shoulders as I leaned back against them both, Reed’s arm settling around my waist while Xander’s hand found mine.

Looking out at the academy stretching before us, lights flickering across its familiar towers, I understood something settling into place. I wasn’t returning to the same Moonshade I’d left weeks ago. Security had changed, questions still lingered about who exactly had orchestrated everything that happened, and somewhere inside that building, whoever had planned my kidnapping might still be walking those same halls, undetected.

But I had changed too. I wasn’t the girl who’d once hidden every fear behind careful silence, who’d trusted her own instincts too little to speak up when something felt wrong. I carried Sapphire with me now, steady and present, along with a strength I hadn’t known I possessed until circumstances had forced it out of me.

Whatever wa

ited for me back at Moonshade, I wouldn’t be facing it the same way I once would have.