Page 69 of The Sin Binders Ascent

“I’m afraid she’ll feel like she has to.”

He huffs beside me, arms crossed over his chest like I’m the one who chained her to Theo. He’s vibrating with that rare kind of energy he only gets when something matters more than he knows how to handle. The last time I saw him like this, Luna was bleeding on the academy floor and he didn’t stop laughing until she blinked and said his name.

I watch the wind flick through the ivy, let the silence stretch just long enough to press against him before I speak.

“We have to trust her.”

He scoffs. “That’s not the problem, Elias.”

I raise a brow. “No? Because you’ve been glued to her like a barnacle for the last twenty-four hours and if it weren’t for Orin stepping in, I think you would’ve pulled a full-on possession scene right there on the damn patio.”

Silas shifts, his foot scuffing against the gravel, jaw tight. “I do trust her. I just don’t trusthim.”

“Congratulations. You’re just like the rest of us.”

I lean back, resting one ankle over the other, and stare up through the gaps in the overgrowth above us, where the summer sun filters down like liquid gold. Everything smells like earth and heat and bitter blooming things. The manor sits behind us, quiet for now, but only because the storm’s circling its next strike.

“We’ve been here before,” I mutter. “New threat. Old scars. Same panic. We wrap ourselves around her like our bodies will stop the bleeding, and then we’re shocked when she can’t breathe.”

Silas looks at me, and there’s something too raw in his eyes, like he’s already imagining losing her in every way that matters. “He’s not like the others. Not even close.”

“No,” I agree. “He’s worse. Because heknowswhat we are. What we mean to her. And that’s the weapon he’s planning to use.”

“Then why are we just sitting here?” he asks. “Why aren’t we doing anything?”

“Because she has to choose.”

The words taste like rot. Like losing. But I say them anyway.

Silas frowns deeper, shoving his hands into his pockets. “So we’re supposed to what? Sit here while he manipulates her? Wait for the cuffs to drive them closer while we pretend we’re okay with it?”

“No,” I say. “We remind her of what she has. Not by smothering her. Not by cornering Theo with daggers and glares. We show her that what we’ve built,the love we’ve poured into her, into each other, isn’t something a goddamn chain can undo.”

He’s quiet for a long time.

Then: “You think she’s strong enough?”

I finally look at him, really look, at the sharp angles of someone who laughs too hard and loves too recklessly. At the heartbreak brewing just beneath his usual chaos.

“I think she’s the strongest fucking thing I’ve ever seen. And if we keep acting like she’s going to shatter the second he looks at her, we don’t deserve her.”

Silas exhales. His shoulders drop. His fingers twitch like they want to reach for her even now, from halfway across the garden.

“Fine,” he says eventually, bitter and soft at once. “I’ll back off. For now.”

I stand, brushing dirt from my jeans. “Good. Because if you jump in her lap one more time, Lucien’s going to start assigningchaperones, and I’m not rooming with you again.”

He grins, lopsided and wounded. “You loved bunking with me.”

“You drool in your sleep.”

“You moan in yours.”

I flip him off and feel the faintest thrum of Luna’s bond brushing against mine like a reminder: she’s still here.

And so are we.

Silas starts humming some nonsense tune under his breath, probably already plotting his next excuse to end up sprawled across Luna’s lap. I should be used to it by now. We're all entangled in her like we’re limbs of the same beast, seven deadly sins tethered to the same girl, the same pulse, the same goddamn gravitational collapse.