The question floors me. I want to laugh, or tell him I’m invincible, or make a joke about finishing school training me for this. Instead, I nod and then shake my head, which is so dumb it almost counts as an answer.

  Wyatt watches me, quiet and careful. “It’s not your fault, you know.”

  I want to ask what he means, but I already know. “I just—” I start, then stop. “He was really angry last night. Before he left.”

  Wyatt sips his coffee. “He’s always angry. The trick is figuring out who it’s at.”

  We watch the sunrise for a bit. The sky turns gray, then pink, then a weird shade of peach that looks fake. I sip my coffee and try not to think about what’s waiting for us at the hospital. I want to help, but I don’t know how. I want to fix things, but there’s nothing to fix.

  Ranier’s phone call ends. He stands there for a moment, hands on his hips. “They said he’ll be out by noon. They’re prepping a statement for the press. I want both of you on lock. No comments. No interviews. We don’t need another scandal.”

  Wyatt mutters something under his breath, but Ranier ignores it.

  I muster my best finishing school smile, the one that says, I’m not about to have a breakdown. “Do you want coffee?”

  “No,” Ranier says. “Just… don’t do anything stupid, Grey.”

  I bristle at the use of my last name. “You know, you can call me Emery.”

  Ranier doesn’t answer. He just turns and leaves, the sound of his footsteps echoing down the tile.

  Wyatt sighs. “Ranier’s scared. That’s why he’s like this.”

  I nod. “I know.”

  The coffee is getting cold. I dump the rest in the sink and rinse the mug, hands shaking a little, but not enough that anyone would notice.

  Wyatt lingers at the window. “They’ll both be fine. They always are.”

  I want to believe him, but I know better. People break all the time, even if they don’t show it.

  I go back to my room. The nest is still warm. I crawl inside and pull the blankets over my head, phone clutched in my hand, and stare at the crack in the ceiling until my eyes blur.

  I should sleep, but instead I scroll through the news feeds and socials, watching as the story spreads: ROYAL ALPHA CRASHES CAR. SUSPICIONS OF GAMBLING TIES. FAMILY REFUSES TO COMMENT.

  I close the app and set the phone on the pillow next to me. For a while, I just listen to the house breathe. There’s something comforting about the hum of the old radiators and the distant drone of Ranier’s voice as he makes more calls.

  I wonder what Bastion is doing. Is he alone in his hospital room? Is he awake? Does he care that we’re waiting for him to come home?

  I pull the covers tighter, and for the first time since I got here, I let myself cry. Not the big, movie-style sobs, but the kind that sneaks out in hot, wet streaks and leaves your face feeling raw.

  When I finally stop, the sun is up. I wipe my eyes, blow my nose, and get dressed. I put on my best dress, the one that makes my hair look like a cotton candy explosion, and I decide that when Bastion comes home, I’m going to be there for him. Not because it’s my job, but because I want to.

  I go to the florist two blocks down and buy the most ridiculous bouquet they have. I get a balloon shaped like a wolf and a stuffed bear that says, Get Wrecked. I pack up some sketchbooks and markers, and I put together a care package that would make my mother proud.

  When Ranier’s car pulls up to take us to the hospital as he’s apparently changed his mind on not visiting, I’m already waiting on the curb.

  Wyatt smirks when he sees the balloon, but he doesn’t say anything.

  Ranier sighs. “You really going to bring that in there?”

  “Yes.”

  Ranier shakes his head. “You’re impossible.”

  I smile. “You have no idea.”

  The ride is quiet. Wyatt scrolls his phone. Ranier drives like he’s being chased. I clutch the bouquet in my lap and breathe in the smell of lilies and fake raspberry.

  When we get to the hospital, the lobby is full of reporters and Council people and at least two girls from my finishing school class pretending not to stare at us. I walk past them, head high, balloon bobbing over my shoulder.

  The nurse at the desk gives us the room number, and Ranier leads the way. At the door, he hesitates. I can see him wrestling with himself, trying to decide if he wants to go in first or just vanish and let someone else deal with Bastion.

  I step around him and open the door.

  Bastion is sitting up in bed, his arm in a sling and his head wrapped in a cartoonishly large bandage. He looks like hell, but also, weirdly, like himself. His eyes are clear, and when he sees me, he grins.

  “Nice balloon,” Bastion says.

  I hand him the bouquet and the bear. “You’re not allowed to die until I say so.”

  Bastion laughs and then cringes. “Ow.” He keeps laughing anyway.

  Ranier and Wyatt come in behind me.

  There’s a long, awkward moment where nobody knows what to do, and then Bastion breaks it by throwing the bear at Wyatt. “You guys look like shit.”

  Wyatt catches the bear and hugs it to his chest. “So do you, Silverwood.”

  We all laugh, because it’s either that or scream.

  I sit in the chair next to the bed and open my sketchbook. I start to draw Bastion, but he makes me give him the pencil so he can draw a mustache on himself.

  For the next hour, we don’t talk about the crash, or the press, or the Council. We just sit there, drinking hospital coffee and making fun of each other.

  When the nurse comes to check his bandages, she tells us we have to leave, but Bastion gives me a look and I know it’s okay to stay.

  Ranier lingers at the door. He looks at me, then at Bastion, and then back at me. “Thank you,” he says, so quiet I almost don’t hear it.

  I nod. “Anytime.”

  Wyatt bumps my shoulder on the way out. “You’re a good omega,” he says.

  I roll my eyes. “Tell the Council.”

  He laughs, and the sound is lighter than it was this morning.

  I stay with Bastion until the nurse chases me out. On the way home, I stare out the window and watch the city rush by. For the first time since Omega Selection Day, I feel like maybe I belong here.

  It’s weird how easy it is to slip back into the manor’s rhythm, even with Bastion banged up and Ranier pissed at the entire world. When we get home from the hospital, the staff is in full triage mode: pillows plumped, blankets doubled, every snack in the pantry rotated to the front as if sugar alone can mend fractured ribs.

  Wyatt vanishes for a bit, but Ranier is everywhere at once—answering Council calls, pacing the hallway, occasionally glancing into Bastion’s room to make sure he’s not dead yet.

  Bastion’s room is the only part of the house that looks lived-in. There are clothes everywhere, half-assembled models and engine parts on every surface, and an entire shelf of trophies for things like “Best Acceleration” and “Most Reckless Finish.” The air smells like pine and honey, but underneath it is a raw, peppery edge that I’m learning to recognize as adrenaline that never quite drains away.

  I help Bastion into bed and arrange the pillows so he can sit up without sliding sideways. He tries to protest, but the painkillers are already turning his words to pudding.

  “I’m not an invalid, you know,” Bastion says, but his eyelids are at war with gravity.

  I tuck the Get Wrecked bear under his arm. “Fine. I’ll just tell your grandmother you’re faking it. She can come over and break your other arm if you want.”

  Bastion grins, then slumps against the headboard. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

  “Maybe a little.” I arrange the flowers on his nightstand so the wolf balloon is the first thing you see when you walk in.

  Bastion drifts off after a few minutes. I sit at the edge of the bed and doodle in my sketchbook. Maybe I should leave him alone. That’s what omegas are supposed to do. Keep to their place. Only intervene when called or needed. But nobody here plays by the rules, and I’ve never been good at pretending I don’t care.

  So I start to clean.

  Not like a maid. More like an archaeologist, picking through layers of history in search of something that explains why this pack is so impossible. I fold the t-shirts, line up the shoes, gather all the loose change and racing tokens into a coffee mug shaped like a wolf’s head. I find a box of spare car keys taped to the back of his desk drawer, a collection of fake IDs in a hollowed-out book, and a photo of Bastion as a kid, grinning wide, with his arm around a boy I don’t recognize.

  I line them all up on the desk, then realize it’s too personal, too invasive. I put everything back where I found it and pretend I didn’t just snoop through the most private parts of his life.

  I’m halfway through straightening the pile of racing magazines when Bastion’s phone vibrates. The sound is so sharp in the quiet that I almost jump. The phone is face-down, but the screen’s glow against the desk is too much. I turn it over. INCOMING CALL: DEALER.

  I freeze.

  Dealer, as in what? Drugs? Cards? I know Bastion gambles, but the rumor was he only bet on races, never the kind of thing that gets you disowned or, worse, disappeared by the Council. I stare at the phone until the call ends, then check to see if he left it unlocked. He didn’t.

  The phone vibrates again. This time, a text pops up: Call me back. The line is on you.

  I swallow. My hands are shaking, but I’m not sure if it’s fear or excitement. If Bastion is in trouble—real, actual trouble—then it explains everything. The secrecy. The sabotage. The way he looks at Ranier like he’s waiting to be thrown out any second.

  I look over at Bastion. He’s still asleep, mouth open, one arm draped across the bear. He looks peaceful for once, the anger wiped clean by exhaustion and whatever is left of the morphine.

  I could just leave it. Put the phone down, walk away, pretend nothing happened.

  But I can’t.

  If Bastion is hiding something, so are the other two. And if I’m going to survive in this house—if I’m going to win—I need to know every secret before they use them against me.

  I set the phone back on the desk and keep cleaning, but now my eyes are sharper, my movements quicker. I scan the room for anything else out of place. A pile of envelopes, most of them unopened, stamped with “URGENT” or “FINAL NOTICE.” A folder labeled “Everhart Legacy—Private.” A stack of legal pads filled with engine diagrams and, at the bottom, a single page torn out and stuffed between the other pages: a list of names, some circled, some crossed out.

  I’m about to take it and shove it into my pocket when Bastion stirs. I jolt upright as he groans. Quickly, I tuck the paper back in and turn to find him opening his eyes and blinking at the ceiling, disoriented.

  “What time is it?” he asks, voice thick.

  “Almost five,” I say. “You slept all afternoon.”

  Bastion sits up, winces, then looks at the cleaned-up mess around him. “You didn’t have to⁠—”

  I cut him off. “Yeah, I did. Somebody’s got to keep this place from becoming a landfill.”

  Bastion grins. “That’s why the Council sent you, huh? Secret maid service.”

  I roll my eyes, but it’s not mean. “They sent me to keep you from dying. Cleaning is just a bonus.”

  Bastion nods, then glances at his phone. He doesn’t check it, just sees it on the desk and sighs. “You see who called?” he asks.

  I hesitate. “Dealer. Who is that?”

  He looks away, jaw tight. “Nobody. Just a friend.”

  I don’t believe him, but I don’t push. Not yet.

  Bastion swings his legs over the side of the bed and stands, slower than usual but steady. “Thanks,” he says, softer this time.

  “For what?”

  “For not running away,” he says. “Most omegas would have bailed by now.”

  I shrug. “Maybe I’m not like most omegas.”

  He looks at me, and there’s a new respect in his eyes. “Yeah. Maybe you’re not.”

  Bastion leaves to find the bathroom, and I flop onto the bed, arms wide, staring at the ceiling. I breathe in the scent of pine and honey, and I let myself relax for just a second.

  When Bastion comes back, he’s already pulling on a hoodie, wincing as the fabric snags on his bandages.

  “You’re not supposed to be up this long,” I say.

  He shrugs. “I hate being still. Makes me feel like I’m dying.”

  I hand him a protein bar from the care package and sit next to him on the bed. We eat in silence, watching the last of the daylight bleed through the blinds.

  After a while, Bastion says, “You know the Council’s going to make a big deal out of this, right? The accident. The press. Everything.”

  I nod. “Let them. You made it out alive. That’s the best headline.”

  He grins, then goes quiet. “You ever think about leaving? Just… starting over somewhere else?”

  I think about Eloise, about my parents, about the finishing school and the promises I made to myself when I was a kid. “No. I like it here. Even when it sucks.”

  He laughs. “You’re insane, Grey.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe a bit too stubborn.”

  Bastion finishes the protein bar and leans back, his eyes already heavy again. “Wake me up if the house catches fire.”

  “Deal.”

  I watch as he drifts off again, this time with a smile.

  CHAPTER 15

  Ranier

  The hardest thing about being in Emery Grey’s room isn’t the color, or her scent all over the place, or even the lighting which cycles in slow-mo from bright pink to acid blue depending on the fairy lights she’s mood-mapped for the day. It’s the way every single object in here feels like it might leap up and start talking.

  The art on the walls is the worst culprit. She has gigantic canvases where sugar-shock color and spiky geometry fight for dominance, painted with a kind of violence I wouldn’t have believed possible from a girl so small. Some of them are portraits, some are abstract. All of them have eyes, and none of them look away. Emery has a way of seeing right to the heart of someone. It would appear her art is much the same.

  Wyatt perches on the edge of the bed with one of Emery’s spiral notebooks open across his knee. “You know, I never understood her thing for the blob style,” he says. “But this… this is, like, legitimately good.”

  I grunt, arms folded. “Don’t let her hear you call it ‘blob style’.”

  He grins, tapping the side of his nose. “Oh, I want her to hear me. She’s the only person in the house with a sense of humor right now.”

  I ignore him, moving from one painting to the next. The one above her desk is just lines and triangles in electric colors, but it hums like it’s got a current under the paint. I can’t tell if it’s supposed to be an animal, or a person, or if it’s just the inside of her brain after too much coffee. Either way, it’s hard to look away. Maybe that’s the point.

  Wyatt closes the notebook and lets it fall, careful not to let it touch the floor. “I’m serious, Starling. You could do a whole gallery off just what’s in this room and sell out opening night.”

  “Isn’t that her plan?” Even I can hear the edge in my voice.

  Wyatt leans back with his hands braced behind him. He’s wearing a black shirt with a faded slogan, something about coffee and consequences, and his hair’s damp from a shower. “She said she was going to debut at the City Center, but the Council made her sign a press embargo. No spoilers, no leaks, all hush-hush until the big night.”

  I study a smaller canvas propped on the windowsill behind a tangle of succulents. The frame is raw wood, the paint still tacky in the corners. The image is simple: three figures, all blank-faced, sitting at a table. I realize, with a jolt, it’s us. The three alphas, painted in shades of gray and blue and something that looks almost like bruises. She hasn’t even bothered to add herself to the picture.

  “She’s better than any of us.” And I don’t just mean with art.

  Wyatt catches the shift and looks up. “You’re actually mad about it.”

  I shake my head. “Not mad. Just…” I lose the thread and stare at the painting until it blurs. “She’s making us look like idiots, and she’s not even trying.”

  Wyatt smiles, but it’s not sharp this time. “Maybe that’s what it feels like to be around someone who gives a shit. Kind of novel, yeah?”

  I’m about to tell him to fuck off, or maybe just leave, when the sound of Bastion’s voice slices down the hall. He’s yelling—loud, cranky, the way only a Silverwood can be when confined to a single floor and forbidden to operate heavy machinery. The door to Emery’s room is open, and even through the din I can make out the edge of her reply: calm, snarky, unbothered.

  Wyatt stands, smoothing the notebook. “If he throws another water glass, I’m not cleaning it up.”

  I cross my arms. “Let the maid deal with it.”

  Wyatt gives me a look. “She is the maid, Ranier. She’s doing all the work. And she’s not even being paid. Look.”

  I follow him down the hall, pausing at the corner where the main corridor splits to the guest suite. Bastion’s door is half open, and I catch a glimpse of him—arm in a sling, head bandaged, face puffy but alive—propped up in bed like a sultan of the damned. The TV is playing a muted rerun of some car show, but Bastion’s attention is locked on the chessboard in front of him.

  Emery sits across from him, legs folded under her on the chair, her hair pulled back into a braid that bleeds from lavender to blue at the ends. She’s moving a pawn, one space at a time, careful as a surgeon.

  Bastion scowls, but there’s zero venom in it. “You know I can see through your strategy from here, right?”

  Emery shrugs, the barest suggestion of a smile on her face. “You said you wanted to play. If you don’t want to lose, don’t invite me.”

  Bastion groans, head rolling to the side. “Why are you even good at this? It’s not an omega skill.”