Chapter 205 — You Already Knew?

Chapter 205: Chapter 205 — You Already Knew?

~ Raven ~

Raven’s eyes widened.

What the fuck?

She turned toward Cassian immediately, unable to believe he’d casually revealed something so dangerous.

But Cassian wasn’t looking at her.

His attention remained fixed on her roommates, and Raven noticed how their expressions changed the moment he mentioned the Dreamwalker.

Brielle went still, while Tessa glanced toward Thalia, whose discomfort became considerably more obvious.

For a moment, nobody answered.

Then Cassian chuckled quietly.

"Well," he said, turning toward Raven, "it appears your roommates already knew."

Raven stared at him before looking toward Brielle and then back at Cassian.

"What?"

His mouth curved slightly.

"I wasn’t certain until now."

Raven frowned, becoming increasingly confused.

"What do you mean?"

"Vance was unusually interested in whether the protection functioned during sleep, despite knowing very little about what I was drawing. Then Wren tried to stop her from asking further questions."

His gaze shifted briefly toward Tessa.

"And neither of them seemed particularly surprised by the subject. Their reactions when I mentioned the Dreamwalker confirmed what I suspected."

Raven slowly turned toward her roommates.

They were all looking decidedly uncomfortable, and for several seconds, nobody seemed particularly eager to meet her eyes.

"Oh, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me."

Brielle sighed.

"Raven—"

"You knew?"

"Not exactly."

"What the hell does that mean?"

Brielle folded her arms, although her usual confidence had diminished considerably.

"Do you remember what you told me before the Hunt?"

Raven frowned, trying to remember what Brielle could possibly be referring to.

Then it came back.

The conversation in their room, when she’d finally admitted that a faceless man had entered her dreams and examined her memories.

"You told me about the man," Brielle continued. "The headaches, the nosebleeds, everything. I said it was probably a nightmare because Dreamwalkers were supposed to be extinct."

Raven stared at her.

"I remember."

"Well, I didn’t forget."

Brielle glanced toward Tessa before continuing.

"After the Hunt, you started behaving strangely. You were investigating things you wouldn’t explain, asking questions about Isolde and refusing to tell us why. At first, I thought you were just being difficult."

"I wasn’t being difficult!"

Brielle gave her a look.

Raven closed her mouth.

"Then there was the library," Tessa added, drawing Raven’s attention toward her.

"When we found you at the library after that recording of you trapped inside the boundary went around, you had several books around you. I noticed some of the titles, particularly the ones about ancient bloodlines and the Alpha Queen."

Raven remembered closing the book when her roommates approached.

Apparently, she hadn’t been quite as discreet as she’d imagined.

"I didn’t know what to make of it," Tessa continued. "But when Brielle mentioned what you’d told her about your dreams, we started wondering whether the two things were connected."

Thalia nodded, looking at Raven with an unusually serious expression.

"And you’ve barely been sleeping properly. Every time we ask what’s happening, you either change the subject or tell us everything’s fine."

Raven looked between them, beginning to understand what they were saying.

"So you started investigating?"

Brielle nodded reluctantly.

"We looked into the old Dreamwalker accounts. I wanted to know whether I’d dismissed something that could actually have happened to you."

"And?"

"And I think I was wrong," Brielle admitted. "Those records describe things remarkably similar to what you told me. I don’t know whether there’s really a Dreamwalker inside Valerius, but I don’t think you imagined everything anymore."

Raven didn’t immediately know what to say.

She’d spent weeks trying to keep her roommates away from the danger surrounding her, believing that the less they knew, the safer they’d be.

Meanwhile, they’d already been worrying about her and trying to understand what was happening.

Then Raven remembered something.

A few days ago, when she’d returned to their room, she’d overheard Brielle speaking through the door.

I’ll tell Raven and get this over with.

She remembered how abruptly the conversation had stopped when she entered, and the uncomfortable looks the three of them had exchanged afterward.

So that was what they’d been discussing.

Raven looked at Brielle, wondering why she hadn’t connected the pieces sooner.

"You could have told me," she said eventually.

Brielle raised an eyebrow.

"So could you."

Raven opened her mouth, ready to argue, but couldn’t find anything particularly convincing to say.

Fair enough.

From beside the bed, Cassian made a quiet sound that Raven strongly suspected was amusement.

She glared at him.

He continued drawing.

The protective inscriptions had begun extending beneath the second bed, their pale markings appearing and settling as he guided his essence through the pattern.

Raven watched him for a moment before looking back at Brielle.

"So what exactly did you find?"

"Mostly old accounts," Brielle admitted. "Nothing that tells us how to identify one, and certainly nothing about whether there’s one here."

"That’s because identifying a Dreamwalker is considerably more difficult than most of those records suggest," Cassian said, continuing his work.

Brielle turned toward him, her expression becoming serious again.

"And these sigils will stop one?"

"Not completely. They’ll resist attempts to enter your minds while you’re sleeping, but I wouldn’t mistake that for immunity."

He completed another section of the inscription before continuing.

"A sufficiently powerful intruder could overcome the resistance, particularly once the structure begins weakening. The important part is that an attempted breach should produce a reaction instead of going unnoticed."

Tessa frowned.

"So we’d know someone was trying to get in?"

"You’d have a much better chance of noticing."

Brielle crouched beside him, studying the interconnected markings.

"And what keeps them active after you leave?"

"The structure retains essence once it’s properly anchored. I’ll need to renew it eventually, but it should remain stable for a while."

She examined the pattern a little longer before asking another question about the arrangement of the outer lines, and Cassian answered without hesitation.

Raven watched their exchange with growing amusement.

Apparently, all it took to earn Brielle Vance’s undivided attention was a complicated enough sigil.

Even Cassian seemed perfectly willing to indulge her curiosity, explaining how the defensive boundary supported the Focus Sigil without allowing the structure to collapse when his essence was withdrawn.

He mentioned having discovered the arrangement while examining old records during his absence.

Raven frowned at that.

Of course he’d somehow found time to investigate ancient sigils while disappearing for six days without telling her where the hell he was.

She decided to save that complaint for later.

Eventually, Cassian moved to the final bed, with Tessa watching him closely while Thalia had grown quiet again, occasionally glancing toward Raven with an expression she couldn’t quite interpret.

Raven remained where she was, following Cassian’s movements as he completed the last inscription.

When he finished, pale light briefly illuminated the floor beneath all four beds before gradually fading, leaving the room looking almost exactly as it had before.

Cassian straightened and examined his work before giving a small nod.

"That’s done."

Raven glanced around the room, looking toward the beds and remembering the complicated patterns now hidden beneath them.

Four beds.

Four protective inscriptions.

He hadn’t come merely to protect her.

He’d gone to considerable trouble to protect her roommates too, and the realization made her feel unexpectedly warm.

When Cassian turned toward her, she felt the familiar presence of his wolf brush faintly against hers through their strengthened bond.

Raven smiled before she could stop herself.

He noticed, of course, although he said nothing about it.

Then, satisfied that everything was functioning properly, Cassian walked toward Raven’s bed and sat on it making himself comfortable.

Raven blinked, surprised by how casually he’d made himself comfortable.

Tessa looked at him before turning toward Raven, while Brielle slowly raised an eyebrow.

Thalia pressed her lips together as though fighting another smile.

Oh, Goddess.

Could this man please behave himself for five minutes?

Cassian, however, looked entirely comfortable, sitting on her bed in a room full of women as though he’d been invited to make himself at home.

Raven felt her cheeks growing warm again, becoming painfully aware of the conclusions her roommates were probably drawing.

She was beginning to suspect they would never allow her to forget tonight.

Fortunately, Cassian didn’t give them an opportunity to start teasing her.

His expression became more serious as he turned toward Raven.

"Have you seen Isolde recently?"

Raven paused, surprised by the sudden change of subject.

"Isolde?"

"Yes. I’ve heard a few things since returning, but I haven’t had an opportunity to speak with her myself."

His eyes remained on hers.

"Is she alright?"

Raven hesitated.

For a moment, she thought of how exhausted Isolde had looked when she’d come searching for her, the fear she’d tried so desperately to conceal and how badly she’d struggled after spending two nights without proper sleep.

Cassian had known Isolde since childhood, so it wasn’t particularly surprising that he’d want to know how she was doing.

But how was Raven supposed to explain everything that had happened while he’d been away?

Cassian noticed her hesitation immediately, and the last traces of amusement disappeared from his expression.

"Raven," he asked, his eyes narrowing slightly, "what happened?"

She looked at him, suddenly aware that whatever he’d heard about his childhood friend, it clearly hadn’t prepared him for the truth.

Raven drew a slow breath before finally answering.

"The Dreamwalker has been targeting Isolde too."