I swear I see red. “What did you just say to me?”

He smirks. “I saw your little outdoor therapy session with that campus doctor.”

“You spied on me?” Which session? How much did he hear?

Sel rolls his eyes to the sky. “Of course I spied on you. The day after the Oath, I followed you from your dorm to the gardens, listened in while you and she had a heart-to-heart about your abilities.” He bends down and picks up a rock, then chucks it across the arena so hard it makes a loud pop! against a tree on the other side.

“How dare you—that was private!” I shout.

He scoffs. “Put your self-righteousness away, mystery girl. I followed you that day to see if you were meeting an uchel coconspirator, and I thought you two were speaking in code about your demon lineage. Looking back, I’d given you far too much credit. I don’t care about your family drama, and I sure as fuck don’t care about someone whose dead mother used aether to grow prettier flowers—”

“Don’t talk about my mother,” I growl.

“All of that effort”—he shakes his head and gives a mirthless laugh—“and look where it got me. What a waste of time.”

Fury and panic are rushing through my blood, and I don’t know which one to act on. I’m still reeling from the revelation that Sel followed me, my mind searching through that first conversation with Patricia to remember what he could have learned.

“God, look at you!” Sel chuckles incredulously. “You’re trying to remember what I overheard that day and how much I know about your boring, basic Onceborn life.”

He prowls toward me on slightly unsteady legs, his glowing eyes tracing my features. A tiny memory from the back of my mind reminds me that running from a predator only invites them to chase you, so I freeze where I am.

And I thought I could be what? His friend?

Sel’s low voice dips and slurs as he talks, and I can’t tell if his words are for me or for himself. “How could I have risked so much for a lost little girl who probably needs as much therapy as I do?” He tilts his head, eyes going unfocused. “Well, that’s not possible.” He laughs again, but this time it’s so self-deprecating it feels like my anger has nowhere else to go. “No one needs as much therapy as I do.”

“Is that why you’re out here chucking trees over a cliff?” I snarl.

His head snaps up. “Why are you here again?”

“I have no idea,” I say, and turn to leave.

“I do.” Even intoxicated, he’s far faster than I am. He’s in front of me the second I turn. “Guilt.”

“Get out of the way.”