Rafael's Point of View
The morning air hangs thick with anticipation, it is not tension exactly, but that quiet, restless kind of energy that always comes before a journey. The academy courtyard is still mostly empty this early, shadows long across the gravel, the trucks lined up and gleaming pale under the rising sun.
Jace leans against the side of one of them, his arms crossed over his chest, a half smile tugging at his lips as I adjust a tarp over the back of the first truck. “You know,” he says, “you would make a decent Beta yourself, the way that you are fussing over those bags.”
I give him a look. “If you think I am carrying everyone’s stuff because I want to, you are wrong. I just do not trust Alec not to throw someone’s clothes on top of a weapons bag.”
Jace laughs quietly, the
