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She stepped back, arms wrapping tight across her chest like she had to hold herself together.

“I need to think,” she whispered. “I need to figure out if I can trust someone who doesn’t trustmeback.” Her eyes glistened, but she didn’t blink. “How can I trust you if you won’t trustme?”

The question lingered in the clearing like smoke.

Rollo couldn’t answer it.

She stared at him a moment longer—long enough for him to see the heartbreak replace the fire and then walk away.

Rollo’s throat worked, but he didn’t stop her.

He didn’t chase her.

He watched her turn and walk away, her shoes crunching over broken twigs, her hair catching sunlight like fire, the distance between them growing longer with every step.

And for once, he let it. Because she was right.

And no amount of protecting her could fix what his silence had broken.

23

DELILAH

The wind bit a little sharper on the way back to the apothecary.

Or maybe that was just her.

Delilah pushed through the door, barely remembering to lock it behind her before she set the kettle on and fell into the old rocking chair by the hearth. Her hands trembled around the edges of her shawl as she pulled it tight—not from cold, but from the weight in her chest.

She had asked for the truth. She hadbeggedfor it. And he’d kept it like a secret spell sealed in bone.

Worse, he hadn’t trusted her with it. Not as a witch. Not as his mate.

The betrayal sat heavier than any heartbreak.

But she couldn’t fall apart. Not now. Not when there was still someone who needed her.

Wren.

Delilah blinked and stood abruptly, her movements clipped, efficient. She crushed herbs with more force than necessary, gathered the dream salve and moonwort infusion withoutspilling a single drop. Her breath was tight, shallow, but her hands—those never wavered when it came to healing.

Wren lay on the small daybed in the back room, bundled in three layers of moss-dyed quilts. Her skin was paler than usual, bark-brown fading to ashen gray. The flowers in her hair had wilted, only a few clinging to life near her temple.

Delilah sank beside her.

“I’m sorry,” Delilah whispered, brushing a trembling hand over Wren’s brow, her fingers brushing the dried petals nestled in her grandmother’s silver curls. “I should’ve seen it sooner. I should’ve pushed harder. Ishould’ve known.”

The weight of those words hung in the still air like fog clinging to grave markers.

Wren stirred faintly, breath shallow but steady, her thin chest rising and falling beneath the moss-green quilt. Her eyelids fluttered before her gaze—clouded by spirit-sickness but still sharp beneath the veil—met Delilah’s.

“Child,” Wren rasped, her voice rough as brittle leaves but still carrying the soft steel of her spirit, “don’t carry guilt like the shawl you wear.”

Delilah’s throat tightened at the words. She hadn’t realized until now that she’d wrapped Wren’s old shawl around her shoulders, unconsciously holding on to something tethered to life and memory.

“Then tell me what to carry,” she whispered, voice shaking. “Because I feel like I’m losing you.”

Wren smiled faintly, the corners of her mouth twitching like old bark curling under sun. “You’re not. Not yet.”