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He stays.

And it’s not lost on me.

None of it is.

Ambrose

I don’t know why a grown-ass man, a god, carries handfuls of glitter in his pocket like some delinquent Fae. I don’t know why he carries it like it’s ammunition, like he’s just waiting to detonate someone’s composure at the worst possible moment.

I don’t know why I’m not furious right now, coated in the shit like some tragic, glittering wreckage of a man who used to know how to keep himself untouchable.

I should be seething. I should’ve walked away, done what I always do—leave them in the dirt with their childish mess and their games I refuse to play.

But I didn’t.

I fucking sat.

I let her look at me with that soft, dangerous smile that cuts cleaner than any blade, and I sat. Like I didn’t already know better. Like I wasn’t already fucked.

Now my hands are twisting stems together, careful and slow, thorns biting into the pads of my fingers while Silas hums something ridiculous under his breath and Riven looks like he’s debating murder.

I glance up at her from beneath my lashes, and there she is. Loose and lethal, barefoot in the grass, her laughter tucked against the corner of her mouth like she’s holding the universe together with spit and wire.

She’s not paying attention to me now, not really. She’s laughing at something Silas says, leaning her weight subtly into Riven like it’s effortless, like they’re stitched together at the seams.

Like she’s already won.

And maybe she has.

Because I’m sitting here, glitter clinging to my skin, weaving roses like I don’t know how this ends.

Like I don’t already know she’s the end of me.

“Ambrose,” her voice curls over to me, sharp and sweet all at once, like she knows I’m spiraling.

I glance up, and she’s watching me now, gaze soft but cutting.

“You missed a petal.”

It’s not about the flower crown.

It never is.

I thread the missing petal in place, hands steady even when I want to set the whole damn world on fire to get her out of my head.

Elias appears beside me like a damn shadow out of nowhere, slouching down into the dirt with the same kind of boneless grace that only belongs to men who’ve never known how to carry weight properly. I don’t startle easily—I pride myself on it—but the bastard makes me flinch anyway, and the curl of his smirk says he knows it.

“Jesus,” I mutter under my breath, which is ironic considering none of us here have ever answered to gods. Elias’s grin widens lazily, like he’s perpetually two seconds away from taking a nap or setting something on fire. Probably both.

Before I can level him with the appropriate glare, Silas is already moving like chaos incarnate, a blur of motion as he launches another goddamn handful of glitter at Elias’ head.

“Blessings upon you, sloth prince!” Silas sing-songs, voice sticky-sweet with mischief, and Elias barely lifts a hand to brushthe glitter from his lashes, too lazy to care, too smug to let it bother him.

“What the fuck is wrong with all of you?” I mutter, more to myself than anyone else, because it’s not really a question. We’re all wrong. Every single one of us.

And the worst part—the part that eats at me like rust under my ribs—is that I’m here. Sitting in the dirt. Glitter in my hair. A fucking flower crown half-formed in my lap like I belong here, like I’m one of them now.

Bound.