The archives become my second home faster than I'd like to admit.

By the third night, I've stopped pretending I'm here for anyone but Adrian. By the fifth, I've stopped pretending I'm not looking forward to it. This is a problem. This is approximately seventeen different kinds of problems stacked on top of each other like a very attractive, very dead house of cards.

Adrian materializes from between the shelves at 11:47 PM on a Wednesday, holding a leather-bound journal that probably costs more than my entire wardrobe. Which isn't saying much, granted, but still. He's become predictable in his unpredictability—always appearing exactly when I've convinced myself I've imagined the last encounter, that no one smells like aged leather and winter frost and things that have been burning for centuries.

"You're reading Ashford's notes out of order," he says, not bothering with pleasantries. We've moved past those. "The chronological sequence matters. He was theorizing about chimeric reproduction in March, but he didn't have the anatomical data until June."

I don't look up from the page. If I look up, I'll have to look at him, and if I have to look at him, I'll have to deal with the fact that my hands have started shaking the moment he enters a room. Anxiety? Excitement? Some terrible hybrid that makes my pulse do things it shouldn't?

"Maybe he was onto something before he had all the data," I counter, turning another page. "Maybe the theory was the catalyst for the research, not the conclusion."

"That's not how the scientific method works."

"Maybe Ashford wasn't trying to do science. Maybe he was trying to understand something that defied conventional methodology."

Adrian sets the journal on the table beside me with a deliberate precision that suggests he's restraining himself from throwing it. I can feel him there—not touching, but close enough that the temperature around me drops about five degrees. Close enough that I can smell him properly now, that sandalwood-and-smoke scent mixing with something colder, something like the air before a thunderstorm.

"You argue for the sake of arguing," he says.

I finally look at him.

This is the mistake. This is the specific moment where my self-preservation instincts should have kicked in and dragged me out of these archives and into a nice, safe library where the books don't make me feel things and the professors aren't dead and achingly beautiful.

Adrian's silver eyes are dark in the archive's low lighting, his jaw tight in a way that makes his face look like sculpture. He's wearing his usual black—tailored slacks and a sweater that probably costs more than my rent—but there's something different tonight. His hair is slightly disheveled, like he's been running his hands through it. Like he's been agitated.

Like I'm the cause of it.

"I argue because you're wrong," I say, and I'm pleased to hear my voice is steady even though nothing else about me is. "And you're wrong because you're stuck in 1887, where everything had to fit into neat little boxes or it didn't exist."

"I'm stuck in 1887," Adrian repeats softly, "because that's when I died. The world has moved on. I haven't. There's a difference between being outdated and being correct."

He leans against the table. Just leans. But suddenly the space between us feels charged, like the moment before lightning strikes. I can see the faint pulse at his throat, the way his hands are curled into fists at his sides. The way he's looking at me like I'm a puzzle he's been trying to solve for a hundred years and I'm finally starting to make sense.

This is bad.

This is so bad.

"You're not wrong," I admit, because it's easier to concede the point than to keep arguing when he's looking at me like that. "You're just... rigid. You see things as they should be, not as they are."

"And you see things as they are and assume they should be different," Adrian says. He pushes off from the table, and I think he's going to leave, which would be good, which would be the only sensible thing to happen right now. Instead, he walks to the shelves behind me and pulls down another journal. "Which is why you're dangerous."

My mouth goes dry. "Dangerous?"

"You have the kind of mind that doesn't accept limitations." He sets the new journal down and leans against the table again, this time closer. Close enough that I'd have to turn my chair to face him directly. Close enough that if I reached out, I could touch him. "The kind of person who looks at the world and sees what it could be instead of what it is. That kind of person either changes everything or destroys it."

"Which one am I?" I ask, and I hate that my voice comes out small.

Adrian is quiet for a long moment. When he speaks, his voice is rough in a way I haven't heard before, like something in him is breaking.

"I haven't decided yet."

The archives suddenly feel very small. Very quiet. I can hear the hum of the climate control system, the ancient creaking of shelves, the sound of my own heartbeat which is apparently very loud when you're sitting across from a dead man who's looking at you like you're the only thing keeping him tethered to existence.

I should leave. Every functioning brain cell is screaming at me to leave.

Instead, I say, "Tell me about the research you were doing when you died."

Adrian's expression shifts—surprise, then something darker. Something hungry.

"That's not in any of the official records," he says.

"I know. I've checked. Thoroughly." I turn my chair to face him now, because I'm apparently a masochist with a death wish. "Whatever you were working on, it's been scrubbed. Carefully. Professionally. Which means it was important enough that someone wanted it erased."

"And you want to know what I was researching," Adrian says. It's not a question.

"I want to know why you're still here," I say instead. "Why you died in 1887 and woke up at Blackthorn Academy. Why you've spent a century teaching instead of... whatever dead people usually do. I want to know what you're so afraid of that you hide it in restricted archives and only show it to researchers who ask the right questions."

Adrian stands. For a second, I think I've pushed too far, that I've cracked the careful facade and now he's going to leave and I'll never see him again and somehow that's the worst thing I can imagine.

Then he reaches down and takes my hand.

His skin is cold. Not the cold of a body that's been in the ground, but the cold of something that exists slightly outside the normal temperature range of the world. The cold of something that shouldn't be warm but is, because his hand is holding mine and I can feel a faint pulse there, a reminder that whatever Adrian is, he's still something.

"Come," he says simply.

I follow him deeper into the archives, past the sections I've already explored, past the areas marked with warnings about restricted access. His hand doesn't let go of mine, and I don't ask him to. We descend stairs I didn't know existed, moving through passages that smell older, colder, more like a tomb than a library.

Finally, we reach a door that looks like it was carved from stone centuries ago. Adrian produces a key—an actual key, not a key card—and unlocks it.

Inside is a laboratory.

Not the sterile, modern kind I was expecting. This is something from another era entirely. Glass jars line shelves, filled with things I don't want to examine too closely. Workbenches hold instruments I recognize and dozens I don't. And on the far wall, there are journals. Hundreds of them. All in the same precise handwriting I've come to recognize as Adrian's.

"I was studying the intersection of magic and biology," Adrian says quietly. He's still holding my hand, and he leads me to a workbench where one journal lies open. "Specifically, the way magical essence can be extracted, concentrated, and transferred. I believed that magic wasn't something inherent to certain bloodlines, but something that could be taught. Learned. Democratized."

I stare at the journal. The diagrams are intricate, detailed, clearly drawn by someone with a deep understanding of both anatomy and magic.

"They killed you for this," I say. It's not a question.

"The Council didn't appreciate the implications of my research," Adrian confirms. "A world where anyone could access magic? Where the supernatural hierarchy was based on skill rather than bloodline? That was unacceptable. So they made me unacceptable. They burned my research, burned my reputation, and burned me. Quite literally, before I managed to... well."

"Before you became a ghost," I finish.

"Before I became undead," he corrects, and there's a bitter smile in his voice. "They tried to kill me. They failed. But the Academy needed to contain me, so they made me a professor. Gave me access to the archives. Gave me a reason to stay hidden. Two birds with one stone—contain the dangerous researcher and let him catalog the dangerous knowledge."

I turn to look at him properly now, and he's still close, still holding my hand. In the dim light of this hidden laboratory, Adrian looks less like a professor and more like what he actually is: a man who's been trapped for over a century, forced to watch the world change without him, forced to hide what he knows.

"Your research was right," I say quietly.

"It was heresy," Adrian replies. "It still is. The Council would destroy this place and everyone in it if they knew what's down here."

"But you kept it," I say. "You've been keeping it for a hundred years. Why?"

Adrian steps closer. My heart is doing something dangerous in my chest, something that feels like it might break ribs if it keeps it up. He reaches up with his free hand and touches my face, his fingers tracing my cheekbone with surprising gentleness.

"Because I was waiting for someone smart enough to understand it," he says. "Someone brave enough to finish it."

He's going to kiss me.

I can see it happening in slow motion. His eyes are darkening, his mouth is softening, his hand is moving from my cheek to the back of my neck, and I'm frozen like a rabbit in headlights. This is the moment where everything changes. This is the moment where I stop being a researcher and become something else entirely, something entangled with a dead man in a hidden laboratory.

This is the moment where I remember that the last person I trusted completely tried to burn me alive.

I pull back.

It's not graceful. It's not even particularly smooth. I literally stumble backward, hitting the workbench hard enough to knock over a jar of something I really don't want to identify.

"Iris—" Adrian says, and his voice is raw.

"I can't," I say. My hands are shaking. My voice is shaking. Everything is shaking. "I can't do this. I don't—I'm not—"

"You're afraid," Adrian says. It's not an accusation. It's a statement of fact, delivered with the kind of understanding that makes it worse somehow.

"Yes," I snap. "I'm afraid. I'm afraid of a lot of things. I'm afraid of trusting people. I'm afraid of wanting things. I'm afraid of you, specifically, because you're dead and you're beautiful and you're showing me research that could change everything and you're looking at me like I'm the only thing that matters and that's—that's too much. That's too much pressure."

Adrian's expression hardens. "I'm not pressuring you."

"You are," I say, and I hate that I'm crying, that my voice is breaking. "You're pressuring me by existing. You're pressuring me by being interested in my research. You're pressuring me by being exactly the kind of person I would have wanted to meet if the world was different and I was different and we weren't trapped in this impossible situation."

"Then leave," Adrian says coldly. "Leave the archives. Stop coming here. Stop asking questions. Go back to your safe, sterile research and pretend you never learned any of this."

"I can't do that either," I whisper.

Adrian's laugh is bitter. "Then we're at an impasse."

---

I don't see Adrian for three days.

This is, objectively, fine. This is healthy. This is exactly what my therapist would recommend if I had a therapist and wasn't too broken to actually go to one.

I spend those three days in my actual office, doing actual research on actual supernatural biology that doesn't involve dead men or hidden laboratories or the terrifying possibility that I might be falling for someone who literally cannot grow old alongside me.

On day four, Cassius Thorne appears.

He's waiting outside my office when I arrive, lounging against the wall with the kind of casual grace that suggests he's been there for hours and isn't even slightly bothered by it. He's beautiful in a way that's completely different from Adrian—where Adrian is cold and controlled, Cassius is all warmth and energy. Sun-bright hair that catches the fluorescent light. Amber eyes that glow faintly in the dim hallway. A smile that's dangerous and inviting in equal measure.

He smells like sandalwood and honey and something electric, like summer storms and amber resin.

"Dr. Voss," he says, straightening as I approach. "I've been hoping to catch you."

"How did you know where my office is?" I ask, unlocking the door. I don't ask him to leave, which is probably a mistake.

"I asked around," Cassius says, following me inside. "People talk about you. The brilliant researcher with the dark eyes and the darker sense of humor. The woman who actually understands chimeric biology. I've read your papers."

I set my bag down carefully. "You're Cassius Thorne."

"Guilty," he says, and his smile widens. "I heard you were in the archives working on something fascinating. I thought we might collaborate."

"Adrian told you about my research?" I ask, and I'm pleased that my voice sounds neutral even though I'm suddenly very aware of how small my office is. How close Cassius is. How he smells like every good thing that Adrian isn't.

"Adrian doesn't tell anyone anything," Cassius says. He settles into the chair across from my desk like he owns it. "But the Academy is small, and researchers talk. I'm very interested in what you're doing."

"Are you," I say flatly.

"I am." Cassius leans forward, and there's something predatory in the movement, something that reminds me he's 300 years old and has probably eaten people. "Specifically, I'm interested in your theories about magical transference. The possibility that magic isn't fixed to bloodline but is instead a skill that can be learned."

I go very still.

"How do you know about that?" I ask.

"I told you. People talk. And I make it my business to know what people are working on, especially when it's as revolutionary as what you're researching." Cassius's amber eyes are bright with something that might be excitement or might be hunger. "That kind of research could change everything. Could expose the truth about what we are."

"That's not what I'm trying to do," I say carefully.

"Isn't it?" Cassius stands, and he moves to the window, looking out over the Academy grounds. "You're trying to prove that magic is democratic. That anyone could access it with the right knowledge. That bloodline and hierarchy are illusions. That's exposure, Dr. Voss. That's revolution. And I think it's exactly what the world needs."

"The world isn't ready for that," I say.

"The world will never be ready," Cassius replies. "We just have to make them accept it."

He turns back to me, and his smile is beautiful and terrible.

"Work with me," he says. "Help me finish what you've started. Together, we could rewrite the rules."

I think about Adrian in the hidden laboratory, his hand on my face, his voice raw with a century of loneliness. I think about the way he's been hiding this research, protecting it, waiting for someone to understand it.

I think about the way Cassius is looking at me like I'm a tool he can use.

"No," I say.

Cassius's expression doesn't change, but something shifts in the air. The temperature drops. His eyes glow brighter.

"That's disappointing," he says softly. "I was hoping you'd be smarter than to refuse an opportunity like this."

"I'm smart enough to know that your definition of revolution is probably someone else's definition of genocide," I say. "And I'm smart enough to know that you didn't come here because you read my papers. You came here because someone told you about them, and you want to use my research for something I don't agree with."

Cassius is quiet for a long moment. Then his smile returns, sharper this time.

"You're right," he says. "That's exactly what I'm doing. But here's the thing, Dr. Voss—eventually, you'll realize that hiding is worse than exposure. That pretending we're not here, that we're not powerful, that we're not worth celebrating, is the real crime. And when you realize that, you'll understand that I'm not the villain in this story."

He moves toward the door, and I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding.

"One more thing," he says, pausing at the threshold. "Adrian's been alone for a very long time. He's developed some... unhealthy attachment patterns. Be careful. He's not as controlled as he seems."

After he leaves, I sit in my office for a very long time, staring at nothing.

---

Adrian is waiting in the archives when I arrive that night.

He's standing in front of the section I've been working in, holding one of Ashford's journals like it's a holy text. He doesn't look at me when I enter, but I can see the tension in his shoulders, the way his hands are gripping the journal a little too tightly.

"Cassius visited you," he says.

"News travels fast," I reply.

"I can smell him on you," Adrian says, and his voice is flat in a way that makes my pulse jump. "Sandalwood. Honey. That ozone stench he carries around like cologne."

"He came to my office," I say carefully. "He wanted to collaborate on research."

"Did he," Adrian says. It's not a question. He finally looks at me, and his silver eyes are dark and dangerous. "Did he tell you that he wants to expose the Academy? That he's been working with someone on the outside, feeding them information about what we are?"

My stomach drops.

"No," I say.

"Of course he didn't." Adrian sets the journal down with deliberate care. "He's seduction first, revelation second. He wants you to believe that hiding is the real crime, that exposure is liberation. He wants you to help him destroy everything we've built here."

"Is that what your research was about?" I ask. "Destroying things?"

Adrian flinches like I've hit him.

"My research was about freedom," he says quietly. "About a world where people weren't trapped by accidents of birth. About giving everyone access to power instead of hoarding it. Cassius wants to burn the Academy to prove a point. I wanted to rebuild it from the ground up."

"And what do you want now?" I ask.

Adrian steps toward me, and I don't back away this time. I'm tired of running. I'm tired of being afraid. I'm tired of pretending that I don't want this, don't want him, don't want the possibility of something real even if it's terrifying.

"I want you to trust me," Adrian says. "I know that's asking a lot. I know you have every reason not to. But I'm asking anyway."

He reaches out and takes my hand again, and this time I don't pull away.

"Help me finish the research," he says. "Not for Cassius. Not for revolution or exposure or any of that. For us. For the possibility that we could build something better."

"And if I can't?" I whisper.

Adrian's hand tightens on mine.

"Then I'll lose the only thing that's made the last hundred years bearable."

He leans down, and this time I don't run.

His mouth is cold against mine, and it tastes like winter and old libraries and a century of loneliness. His hand moves to the back of my neck, holding me there like he's afraid I'll disappear. I can feel his heartbeat—slow, steady, the rhythm of something that shouldn't be alive but is. I can feel the way he's restraining himself, holding back, treating me like I'm made of glass.

I'm not made of glass.

I pull him closer, and Adrian makes a sound that's almost a groan. His hand slides into my hair, pulling the pins from my bun, letting it fall. He breaks the kiss just long enough to look at me, his eyes dark and wild and desperate.

"Tell me you don't want this," he says. "Tell me to leave and I will. Tell me—"

"Don't," I say. "Don't give me an out. I'm tired of exits."

He kisses me again, and this time it's less careful. It's hungry and raw and everything I've been terrified of wanting. His hands are everywhere—my hair, my waist, pulling me against him like he can't get close enough. I can feel the cold radiating off him, the way it makes my skin burn in contrast.

This is dangerous.

This is the kind of dangerous that destroys things.

This is exactly what I need.

We break apart when my phone buzzes.

I don't want to check it. I don't want to do anything but stand here in the archives with Adrian's hands on my waist and his forehead pressed against mine. But I'm a researcher, and researchers have a tendency toward curiosity.

I pull out my phone.

It's a text from an unknown number: We need to talk. About Adrian. About the research. About what you're actually doing down there. —M

My blood goes cold.

M.

Margot.

My sister.

Adrian feels the change in me immediately. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," I lie, shoving the phone back in my pocket. "Nothing's wrong."

But something is very, very wrong, and I'm only now realizing that I'm trapped between two men with dangerous agendas, a sister with a vendetta, and research that could destroy everything.

And the worst part?

I have absolutely no idea which side I'm actually on.