Page 160

Silas snorts and throws himself into the chair beside him, leaning so far back he nearly tips it over. “That’s ‘cause you poured half the bar’s ale on it, dumbass.”

Neither of them notice that I’m not playing along.

Elias peeks at me from under his lashes, the snark and sloth still wound in his gaze, but even he notices something’s off. He’s trying not to stare too long, and I know it’s because I make him nervous when I get like this.

Because when I get quiet, something usually burns.

Riven clears his throat beside me, like he’s trying to cut the tension without saying a word. But the only thing rattling in my head is the phantom weight of all the women who came before me.

I scrape my spoon against the plate again, just for the sound.

The tavern’s door creaks as Ambrose and Caspian finally drift in, the morning’s weak light slashing across their faces like the day is trying to cut them open. Ambrose stalks past without so much as a glance, cool as ever, but Caspian’s gaze snags on me—like he’s searching, assessing, maybe wondering if I’ve comeundone yet. I watch the way his smile barely curves, like it costs him something to offer it to me.

Caspian sits across from me, quiet in a way that isn’t loud. His eyes are a shade darker today, like whatever nightmares Branwen poured into him last night still cling behind them, even if he won’t let them show.

"Morning," he says, voice low and rough, like it's been scraped against the inside of his throat.

"You're late," I murmur, my voice steadier than I feel. "I was starting to think you’d defected to the other side."

His lips quirk just slightly, barely there. "And leave you with these idiots? Never."

He doesn’t say he’s okay, because he isn’t. But he’s here. Sitting across from me like the world hasn’t split him open and poured his insides out over and over again. Like he isn’t dragging every shard of himself to the table because I asked.

Ambrose drops into the seat beside him, and the chair groans beneath him like it resents his existence. He doesn’t look at me, but I can feel the weight of him anyway—he’s always there, coiled like a storm I can’t predict, like a blade I don’t know when will cut.

It should be Branwen at the forefront of my mind. It should be the cathedral waiting past the hills, the inevitable confrontation with the ex that ruined two of the men at this table. The woman who taught Riven how to sharpen himself into a weapon and hollow out his love. The woman who shattered Caspian and left him bleeding in ways no magic can mend.

But it’s not. It's this place. The way it settles under my skin like I’ve walked these streets before, like my bones remember a death I haven’t died yet.

This place is for us.

For the Sins.

I can feel it—threaded in the seams of the tavern walls, humming beneath the earth like a secret waiting to crack open. No one has to tell me. I know. When I die, this is where I’ll rot. Another reject of the Sins. Another scar stitched into the fabric of whatever power made us.

I force myself to breathe past the thought, to look up and check Caspian again, the shadows under his eyes, the curve of his mouth when he catches me watching him.

"You okay?" I ask quietly, a question meant only for him, buried beneath the weight of the others around us.

His gaze flickers, softens. "I’m okay enough," he answers, and somehow that’s worse than if he’d lied.

I nod, because what else can I do? I can’t fix him. I can’t take away what Branwen did to him. But I can sit here, across from him, and let him see me looking. I reach for my mug, sip at the bitter tea like it’ll wash the taste of this place out of my mouth. It won’t.

Ambrose, without looking, mutters, "If you’re done brooding, we’ve got a cathedral to burn."

His voice cuts through me like a wire pulled tight, slicing me out of my head and back into the mess of this morning. But he’s not wrong.

Branwen is waiting.

And maybe the ghosts, too.

The mug feels heavier in my hand than it should. The heat's long gone, but I hold it like it’ll anchor me to this table, to these boys who don’t even realize they’re all I want and everything I’m terrified of losing.

I stare at the door like it’s a portal to the past, waiting for a ghost in the shape of a beautiful woman to waltz in and unravel everything I’ve built. My stomach knots tighter the longer I sit here, thinking of how many Sin Binders have walked thesestreets before me—how many of them were loved, cherished, ruined, and left behind by the men sitting at this table.

The more I sit here, the louder it gets in my head. Every ugly, sharp-edged thought that Branwen planted there. Every whisper that tells me I wasn’t the first. That maybe I won’t be the last.

I rake my teeth over my bottom lip, swallowing it down like I’ve been trained to do. Like I haven’t spent my entire life being told I wasn’t enough.