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And that’s something I can’t allow. I burn the idea of possession into others—I don’t suffer it myself. But she’smine. For now.

My mouth. My hands. My bed.

My problem.

And Caspian—blank-eyed and thrumming with Branwen’s leash—has decided to make her his next conquest, not with seduction, but obliteration.

Unacceptable.

I step forward, slow, deliberate, my boots crushing cinders into the Hollow’s wounded skin. The chaos around me moves like it knows not to touch me. Whips fly past. Clones vanish and scream and reappear. But I am a still point in all of it, watching Caspian carve through magic like it offends him.

He doesn’t see me yet. Too focused. Too far gone. His lips are parted, not with breath, but with something darker—purpose. Each movement is too clean to be random. He’s not lashing out. He’stargeting. Every strike lands just close enough to keep Silas from shielding Luna. Herding. Boxing in. Preparing to strike where it’llhurtthe most.

I hate what Branwen’s done to him.

Not because it’s cruel. I’m fluent in cruelty. But because it’s soinefficient. Caspian was never meant to be a weapon. He’s a lure. A ruin in silk. He manipulates want, not war. What she’s doing to him is like setting fire to a violin. It might sound impressive while it burns, but you’ve still lost the instrument.

My gaze flicks to Luna.

She’s tense—centered in her stance, magic pulsing beneath her skin. Ready, but uncertain. Not afraid. She doesn’tdoafraid. But she’s watching Caspian like she hasn’t decided yet whether to fight him orsavehim.

That’s the problem with her.

Shefeelstoo much.

And Caspian’s counting on it.

I step between them before he can strike again, my hand raised—not to attack, but toown. The moment my fingers lift, the airshifts. I let the threads of my magic uncoil—gold-tinged, warm in the way that always deceives, always draws. Possession unfurls like a scent, invisible but undeniable. And Caspianfeelsit.

He halts mid-movement.

Just a flicker. Just enough to confirm it’s stillhimin there—somewhere.

I don’t need to say a word.

My power hums with the promise:stand down, or I will take what’s left of you.

He turns his head slowly, eyes blank but body coiled with tension. Not fear. Not confusion. Just instinct. The kind that remembers who I am.

And what Ican do.

He’s stronger than he was last time. But I’m not here to spar. I’m not here to play by Branwen’s rules or prove a point.

I’m here to keep Luna alive. Because for all my detachment, for all the ways I’ve told myself she’s just a passing distraction—I don’t tolerate someone else trying to end what I’m not done enjoying.

Caspian’s jaw twitches.

And I know he’s about to make achoice.

He charges me.

Not with the elegance I’m used to. Not like the creature of calculated seduction who moves through rooms like he owns every heartbeat in them. This version of Caspian is all grit and gritless pain—his body forced forward by a command he didn’t write, his grace curdled by somethinguglierthan magic. And I see it. In the way his brow tightens. The way his foot falters mid-stride. The hesitation buried in his bones like a blade too deep to pull free. It costs him something to lunge at me.

It costs me something to meet him.

The collision is a rupture. Stone and dust scatter around us, a blast of Hollow grit as my body slams into his, and we both go down in a tangle of limbs and whiplash fury. My boots skid, catching loose gravel and fractured rune stones beneath. His whip grazes past my shoulder, tearing through the air like a second spine snapping into motion. I twist into him before he can get his footing—before he can remember what he’s supposed to be doing—and drive us both into the dirt, my hand at his collar, my knee braced against his ribs.

And gods, he fights like ithurts.