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Alistair shifts, clearly uncomfortable but not walking away. “You’re both idiots.”

Silas salutes him. “And yet, we’re the ones getting laid.”

The front door creaks faintly down the hall. Luna’s voice filters toward us—light, like she’s unaware of the absurdity happening in the foyer.

I push off the wall, smirking at Alistair’s grimace. “You ready to go back to the circus, or do you need more advice on how to ruin your life?”

Riven

I stare down at the glowing screen like it’s personally offended me. The council’s message blinks at the top—a cold, clinical reminder that nothing’s ever quiet for long. I miss the days when you had to send a bird if you wanted to ruin someone’s night. Hell, even a letter with wax seals and veiled threats was better than this.

Instead, I get a text. A digital summons like I’m one of their damn employees.

My thumb hovers over the group chat before I let out a breath and tap it open. The chat name, of course, isThe Seven Sins & Their Emotional Damage, because Silas renamed it one night when he was drunk and none of us have changed it back.

I type:

Riven Kain:Council meeting. Tonight. Don’t make me drag your asses.

Almost immediately, the notifications start lighting up.

BigMeatEnergy(Elias):You couldn’t have just let me rot in peace today, huh?

Waffles4Life(Silas):Do they serve snacks at these meetings? Asking for a friend. Also, can we vote to make Riven’s official title Daddy War Crimes?

Caspian:What’s the meeting about?

I ignore Silas’s bullshit because if I engage, we’ll spiral into a meme war and I’m already at my limit today. Instead, I type:

Riven Kain:No clue. If I had to guess—something we’ll all want to stab someone over.

There’s a pause.

BigMeatEnergy:That’s every day.

Waffles4Life:I vote Ambrose.

Riven Kain:Get your shit together. I’ll meet you in the foyer at eight.

I lock my phone and shove it into my pocket, rolling my shoulders back like I’m shaking the weight of it off. The council doesn’t call unless they want something—or someone.

And it’s never good.

In the distance, I can already feel Luna moving. A soft flicker against the edge of my bond, quiet but certain. Like she knows something’s shifting beneath our feet, and it won’t wait for us to catch up.

I start walking toward the house, letting the simmer of my magic bleed out into the gravel beneath my boots.

The weight of it presses against my chest, like chains coiled too tight. I was never meant to be the one at the front—never the one to lead. That was Lucien. Always Lucien. He carried the weight like it was stitched into his bones, like he could hold us all together without cracking. Me? I was made to tear the world apart when it failed us, not to keep it standing.

But here I am. Holding the pieces.

My jaw clenches as I push the door open, the familiar creak punching a hollow sound into the space. The house smells like parchment and old magic—faintly bitter, like something burning slow beneath the floorboards.

Inside, I find them exactly where I knew they’d be. Luna and Caspian, folded together on the old velvet couch like two conspirators, the soft spill of candlelight catching in Luna’s hair, casting her in gold. Caspian’s fingers skim lazily over the edges of the brittle pages spread across the coffee table, but I can seethe strain pulling at his mouth, the way he’s slouched deeper than usual, like the weight of everything is stitched between his ribs.

Luna glances up first, like she can feel me before I even speak. She always does. That damn bond humming low between us, insistent, unruly.

“You find anything yet?” My voice scrapes, rougher than I mean it to be.