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Layla’s voice is so soft, I almost miss it. But the moment the words slip from her mouth, the world narrows to a pinpoint. My head whips toward her like she’s just broken something sacred.
“Maybe he’s right,” she says again, quieter this time, like she regrets the sound of it the second it leaves her lips.
I stare at her. At the pale hollows beneath her eyes, at the way her body folds in on itself like she’s trying to disappear into the night. She looks like a dying ember, fragile, barely flickering and still, she dares to offer herself up as the match to reignite someone else’s fire.
“No,” I snap. The word is too loud, too sharp, but I don’t care. “No, Layla. You don’t get to say that. You don’t get to act like this is noble.”
She doesn’t flinch, but she doesn’t meet my eyes either. Her gaze drifts toward the shadows where the others sit, too far to hear but close enough to feel this.
“They’re just talking,” she says. “They’re scared. We all are.”
“They’re planning,” I hiss. “That’s what this is. Strategy. Logistics. They’re figuring out how to use you without calling it that.”
Layla finally meets my eyes, and there’s something ancient behind hers, something heavier than her years should allow. “Maybe being used is what I’m for.”
That strikes something raw and feral in me. I move away because if I stay near her, I’ll scream, and I can’t scream, not when they’re all watching, pretending they aren’t. I clench my fists, nails biting into my palms like that’ll anchor me.
“You’re not a tool. You’re not a weapon,” I spit. “You’re my sister.”
Layla smiles, and it’s the saddest thing I’ve ever seen. “Exactly.”
Exactly, because if it were me, she’d already be fighting for the same choice.
But she doesn’t understand. She doesn’t see the way I bleed for her. How the idea of Severin even touching her makes something in me want to burn this whole plane down.
I turn back to her, my voice breaking against the wall of fury and fear clawing at my ribs. “I won’t let them.”
“You might not have a choice,” she says. Not unkindly. Just…real.
But I do.
I always have a choice.
And if they think for one second I’ll let Severin have her,
Then they’ve forgotten who the hell they bound themselves to.
Layla’s words cut through me like they were dipped in venom, deceptively soft but lethal all the same. Her voice is calm, too calm and that terrifies me more than if she’d screamed.
“You don’t have to do this,” I say again, slower this time, like if I just say it differently, she’ll hear me. She’ll understand that I’m begging.
Her gaze drifts toward the dying firelight, her expression unreadable but her jaw set with a quiet, devastating resolve. “We’re running out of time.”
“No.” The denial is instant. Reflexive. My magic stirs like it can sense what she’s about to offer what she thinks she has todo. I move closer, crouching down so I’m eye-level with her. “We’ll find another way. We always do.”
Layla lets out a breath that sounds too much like surrender. “If you want to find Caspian and Ambrose… then you’re going to have to leave me behind.”
The ground sways. Not literally, but in that sick, sea-sick way where everything inside me tips and churns.
“No,” I whisper, but she reaches out, fingers curling around mine with a gentleness that breaks something raw in my chest.
“You can’t fight Severin and find them and keep me safe. Not all at once. He’s fixated on me. Use that.” Her voice tightens at the end, and for a second, I hear it, what she’s hiding. The fear she’s swallowing whole. “Let him chase what he wants.”
“And let you walk into his hands?” My laugh is sharp, vicious. “What do you think this is, Layla? Some noble sacrifice? This isn’t a story where you get to be the martyr. You’re my sister. You’re the only goddamn piece of me that still feels like home.”
“I’m the piece he wants,” she says simply, and somehow that lands worse.
My heart is pounding. No not pounding. Warring. There’s a storm inside me, a rising swell of fury and grief and unbearable love. I want to wrap her in every spell I know, build a fortress with my bones if that’s what it takes. But she’s right. I know it. And knowing doesn’t make it hurt less.
“He’ll hurt you,” I say, and it comes out cracked and low, like a vow carved into stone.
“I know.”
Her hand squeezes mine. And then, she lets go.
As if she’s already made peace with the worst thing I can imagine.
As if she’s already decided she’s not coming with me.