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“For fuck’s sake,” I mutter without looking, already knowing.

Silas’ voice cuts through the quiet like a blade wrapped in glitter.

“Are you two having a secret garden date without me?” he calls, voice slurred just enough to tell me he’s either drunk or stupid or both. “Rude.”

I glance up, and there he is—Silas Veyd, barefoot, grinning like the devil, shirt half-buttoned, hair sticking up at every ridiculous angle. He stumbles to a stop a few feet away, squinting at the roses blooming by my feet like they’re some sort of betrayal.

“Is that—” He points dramatically, eyes going wide. “Are you growing flowers now, Riven? Are you okay? Do you need me to call someone?”

Luna huffs a laugh beside me, her fingers still curling against my neck like she’s not about to lose it.

I drag a hand over my face, muttering under my breath. “I’m going to murder him.”

“Probably deserves it,” she murmurs, lips twitching.

Silas grins wider, bouncing on the balls of his feet now like he knows exactly how close I am to throttling him.

“Or,” he says, voice sing-song, “you could admit you’re soft for her and let me make flower crowns for everyone.”

I shoot him a look sharp enough to flay him alive, but he just winks.

And because it’s Silas—because he never knows when to stop—he adds, “You can be the flower girl at the wedding. I’ll officiate. I already wrote vows. We can make crowns”

I grit my teeth so hard my jaw clicks, because I know that look on her face. I know it like I know the weight of a blade in my hand—the look Luna gets when she’s about to drag me into something humiliating and pretend it’s sweet.

She’s still laughing under her breath, that low, lethal sound only I ever get to hear when she’s not trying to shoulder the end of the fucking world. And she turns those eyes on Silas like she’s inviting him to destroy me.

“Show me how,” she says, chin tilting toward the idiot beside us. “You said you could make flower crowns.”

Silas lights up like someone handed him a live grenade and told him he could juggle.

“Oh, sweetheart,” he breathes, dramatic as hell, already dropping to the ground like he’s ready to host a damn arts and crafts hour. “You have no idea how long I’ve waited to corrupt you properly.”

I move to stand, already shaking my head because there is no universe, no world, no timeline in which I’m sitting in the dirt threading roses like some lovesick fairy. But before I can even get one foot beneath me, her voice slices through the air.

“Riven.” Just my name. Sharp as a blade. Soft as a promise.

And fuck me, but I stop moving instantly. I glance over my shoulder, and she’s staring at me, one brow arched, mouth tilted in that way that means she already knows I’m going to lose.

“Sit,” she says, voice light but threaded with something heavier underneath. “You’re not getting out of this.”

Silas is already patting the ground beside him like an idiot. “Come on, big guy. Show us your sensitive side.”

I mutter something under my breath that would probably get me arrested in three realms, but I sit anyway, because there’s no fucking universe where I can say no to her when she looks at me like that.

The grass is cool beneath me, the night air humming faint and restless at the edges of the Hollow, but everything narrows to the ridiculous pile of roses in front of us, and the girl beside me who could end the world and is asking me to make her a flower crown.

Silas starts weaving stems together like he was born to wreak havoc and make it pretty.

Luna watches him for a beat, then glances sideways at me, her smile softening like she can’t believe I’m actually here, actually doing this.

“You don’t have to be angry all the time, you know,” she murmurs, fingers brushing over mine, lingering there like she’s testing how far she can pull me.

I huff a breath, grabbing one of the roses like it’s going to bite me. “Someone’s gotta be.”

She doesn’t say anything for a moment, just watches me try to thread the stem without snapping it in half.

And then, quiet, she says, “Not with me.”