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I snort quietly, thumb brushing the rim of my knee. "Wasn’t trying to."

The corners of his mouth twitch, not quite a smile. "You’re a shit liar."

I cut him a glance, dry. "You’re not here for a heart-to-heart, Dalmar. What is it?"

He doesn’t answer right away. Instead, he studies me the way he always does—like he’s cataloging every fracture, every flaw, every inch of my broken skin. His gaze settles like a weight.

"You remember what she said?" he asks eventually. "The clone."

My stomach knots. I swallow against the sour taste of it. The prophecy.

The sexy, seductive Luna-copy with sharp teeth and honeyed words, conjured out of Silas’s idiotic chaos magic, had whispered it into the air like it was a curse meant only for him.

"For a while, I thought it meant you," I say quietly. "That she was going to kill you. That you were going to let her."

Ambrose hums under his breath, gaze still forward. "Maybe she did."

I glance at him then, frowning. "You're not dead."

"No," he agrees, voice soft, thoughtful. "But I’m not who I was either, Vale."

There’s a thread of something strange in his tone, something brittle beneath the cool calculation. Like he’s peeling back a layer I wasn’t supposed to see.

"You think binding to her was your death."

His lips quirk, bitter and knowing. "It was the closest thing to it."

We both fall quiet again, the weight of those words settling like ash between us. The thing neither of us wants to say out loud—he bound himself to her, and it killed something in him. Something he thought he needed to survive.

Maybe it’s the same thing that’s been rotting in me since Branwen.

"You know she’s going to rewrite it," I say after a beat, voice rough. "The prophecy. She’s going to tear it apart and make something new."

Ambrose finally looks at me then, and for the first time, there’s something almost soft in his eyes.

"I know," he says. "That’s why I stayed."

His words settle deep in my chest, a quiet, brutal truth. I stare out at the empty village, the shadow of the cathedral on the horizon like a wound against the night.

And for the first time in weeks, I don’t feel alone.

“She gutted you,” he says, like he’s commenting on the weather. No pity, no softness. Just fact. “Not physically. That would’ve been easier.”

I huff a humorless laugh, glancing sideways at him. “You always were good at small talk.”

His lips twitch, a ghost of something that almost resembles a smile. Almost. “I don't do small talk. Waste of air.”

My throat tightens, and I look back toward the cathedral on the horizon, its silhouette jagged against the sky. “It wasn’t just the binding. It was everything. The way she looked at me like I was her weapon and nothing else. Like every piece of me belonged to her because of the mark on my soul.”

Ambrose shifts, one arm resting casually along the back of the bench, but there’s nothing casual about the way he’s watching me.

“You let her hollow you out,” he says quietly. “And now you’re trying to figure out how to fill it.”

I scoff, shaking my head. “Don’t act like you wouldn’t have done the same.”

That earns me a glance, sharp and cutting. “I wouldn’t have.”

I know it’s true. He never belonged to her. Never gave her a piece of himself. He was too careful, too ruthless. Ambrose doesn’t give unless there’s something worth taking back.