And he’s gone. I hear him call after her, and I stand there awkwardly, watching the open door and ignoring the other kids in the room. I cross my arms. Clear my throat.

“So it’s true, then,” Stephan says.

I turn, surprised. “What do you mean?”

“They really love each other.” He nods toward the open door. “Those two.”

“Yeah,” I say, confused. “It’s true.”

“We’ve heard about it, of course,” Nicolás says. “But it’s interesting to witness in person.”

“Interesting?” I raise an eyebrow. “Interesting how?”

“It’s rather moving,” Valentina says, and she sounds like she means it.

Castle walks up to me then. “It’s been at least a minute,” he says quietly.

“Right.” I nod. “Well, we’ll see you kids later,” I say to the room. “If you guys haven’t had breakfast yet, feel free to grab some muffins from the kitchen. They’re good. I had two.”

Four

I nearly stumble trying to stop in place when we get out into the hall. Warner and Juliette haven’t gone far, and they’re standing close together, clearly having a heated, important conversation.

“We should get out of here,” I say to Castle. “They need space to talk.”

But Castle doesn’t answer right away. He’s staring at them with an intense look on his face, and for the first time in my life, I see him differently.

Like I don’t know him.

After everything Warner told me yesterday—about how Castle always knew Juliette had a complicated history, knew she was a critical asset, knew she’d been adopted, knew that her biological parents had donated her to The Reestablishment and that he’d sent me on an undercover mission to collect her—I’ve felt a little strange. Not bad, exactly. Just strange. All this isn’t enough of a revelation for me to lose faith in Castle entirely; he and I have been through too much for me to doubt his love.

But I feel off.

Unsettled.

I want to ask him why he kept all this from me. I want to demand an explanation. But for some reason, I can’t bring myself to do it. Not yet, anyway. I think maybe I’m afraid to hear the answers to my own questions. I worry about what they might reveal about me.

“Yes,” Castle finally says, the sound of his voice refocusing my thoughts. “Perhaps we should give them the space they need.”

I shoot him an uncertain look. “You don’t think they’re good together, huh?”

Castle turns to me, surprised. “On the contrary,” he says. “I think they’re lucky to have found each other in this hellish world. But if they want a chance at happiness, they’ll have to continue to heal. Individually.” He turns away again, studies their figures in the distance. “I worry, sometimes, about the secrets between them. I want them to do the hard work of sucking out the poison from their past.”

“Gross.”

Castle smiles. “Indeed.” He wraps his arm around my shoulder. Squeezes. “My greatest wish for you,” he says, “is for you to see yourself the way that I do: as a brilliant, handsome, compassionate young man who would do anything for the people he loves.”

I pull back, surprised. “What made you say that?”

“It’s just something I’ve been reminding myself to say out loud.” He sighs. “I want you to understand that Nazeera is a very, very lucky girl to be the object of your affections. I wish you would realize that. She is accomplished and beautiful, yes, but you—”

“Wait. What?” I feel suddenly nauseous. “How did y—?”

“Oh,” Castle says, his eyes wide. “Oh, was it a secret? I didn’t realize it was a secret. My apologies.”

I grumble something foul.

He laughs. “I have to say, if you’re interested in keeping it to yourself, you might want to change your tactics.”

“What do you mean?”

He shrugs. “You don’t see yourself around her. Your feelings are obvious to everyone. From anywhere.”

I drop my head into my hands with a groan.

And when I finally look up, ready to respond, I’m so distracted by the scene in front of me that I forget to speak.

Warner and Juliette are having a moment.

A pretty passionate moment, right here, in the hall. I realize, as I watch them, that I’ve never seen them kiss before. I’m frozen. A little stunned. And I know I should, like, look away—I mean, I know in my head that I should? That it’s the decent thing to do? But I’m kind of fascinated.

They clearly have crazy chemistry.

Their relationship never made a lot of sense to me—I couldn’t understand how someone like Warner could be an emotional partner to anyone, much less someone like Juliette: a girl who eats, sleeps, and breathes emotion. I rarely saw him emote anything. I worried that Juliette was giving him too much credit, that she put up with too much of his bullshit in exchange for—I don’t even know what. A sociopath with an extensive coat collection?

Mostly, I worried that she wasn’t getting the kind of love she deserved.

But now, suddenly—

Their relationship makes sense. Suddenly everything she’s ever said to me about him makes sense. I still don’t think I understand Warner, but it’s obvious that something about her lights a fire in him. He looks alive when she’s in his arms. Human like I’ve never seen him before.

Like he’s in love.

And not only in love, but beyond salvation. When they break apart they both look a little crazy, but Warner looks especially unhinged. His body is shaking. And when she suddenly takes off running down the hall, I know this won’t end well.

My heart aches. For both of them.

I watch as Warner slumps back, against the wall, sinking into the stone until his limbs give out. He collapses onto the floor.

“I’ll talk to him,” Castle says, and the devastated look on his face surprises me. “You go find Ms. Ferrars. She shouldn’t be alone right now.”

I take a tight breath. “Got it.” And then: “Good luck.”

He only nods.

I have to pound on Juliette’s door a few times before she finally opens it. She cracks it open an inch, says, “Never mind,” and then tries to slam it closed.

I catch the door with my boot.

“Never mind what?” I lean my shoulder into the door, and with a little shove, I manage to squeeze my way inside. “What’s going on?”

She stalks across the room, as far away from me as she can get.

I don’t understand this. I don’t understand why she’s treating me like this. And I open my mouth to say exactly that when she says—

“Never mind, I don’t want to talk to any of you. Please go away. Or maybe you can all go to hell. I don’t actually care.”

I flinch. Her words land like physical blows. She’s talking to me like I’m the enemy, and I can’t believe it. “Are you—wait, are you serious right now?”

“Nazeera and I are leaving for the symposium in an hour,” she snaps at me. She still won’t look at me, though. “I have to get ready.”