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Ambrose glances at Elias.

“You’re next.”

“I was neverfirst,” Elias says, backing away. “I’m a pacifist now. I only fight with sarcasm and low blood sugar.”

Ambrose lunges anyway. Elias bolts.

“COWARD!” Silas roars from the ground, eating dirt.

“Absolutely,” Elias calls over his shoulder, “and proud of it.”

Luna’s voice cuts through the chaos like a blade, sharp and reckless. “Fuck it.”

Before I can process, she’s snatching a stick off the ground like she’s been waiting her entire life for this exact moment.She doesn’t hesitate—she lunges, wild and grinning, charging straight at the three idiots tearing up the field.

The second she moves, all of them scatter.

Silas yelps, backpedaling so fast he nearly falls over his own feet. “She’s got a weapon! She's got a weapon, and she’s not emotionally stable!”

Ambrose ducks under her swing with infuriating grace, smirking like he’s dodging arrows at court. “You don’t want to hit me, darling,” he calls over his shoulder, voice edged in something sweeter, looser than usual. “I’m too pretty.”

Elias, predictably, is the worst. He stumbles backward, hands up, stick long forgotten in the grass. “I’ve made mistakes, beautiful! So many mistakes—but I bruise easy!”

Luna’s laugh bubbles up like something feral and free as she swings wide, not even trying to connect, but making every pass close enough to make them flinch. She’s not trying to win. She’s trying to chase them.

And fuck, they let her.

Every one of them ducks and pivots around her, their sticks lowered like some unspoken agreement passed between them. None of them even pretend to strike back. They just move around her, like she’s the center of their world and they orbit her willingly.

Ambrose gives her too much space, deliberately stepping wide of her swing, and Silas darts behind her, chanting, “You’re so scary, baby, you’re so mean to us, we like it—keep going!”

Elias ducks beside me, panting, eyes wide with something almost fond. “She’s going to kill us,” he mutters, like it’s the best thing that’s happened to him all week.

Luna spins, breathless now, hair loose around her face, cheeks flushed, and when she looks at me—fuck, it hits me square in the chest.

She’s glowing.

The hollow weight that’s been dragging her shoulders for days is gone, burnt off by the sheer act of them letting her chase them like this.

I fold my arms across my chest, shaking my head as she barrels after Silas again, her laughter cracking the air like thunder.

“She’s gonna wear you all out,” I call after them.

Elias tosses me a grin over his shoulder. “That’s the goal.”

Silas yells something obscene and disappears into the trees, Luna right behind him, Ambrose swearing quietly as he jogs to follow.

And I stand there, pulse thrumming, knowing damn well—this is how we keep her whole. By letting her hunt us. By letting her win.

Silas

The dirt beneath me is damp, clinging to my palms like it’s got something to say about my life choices. My chest’s pressed flat to the earth, knees scraping rocks as I belly-crawl the last few feet to the edge of the ridge. I’m fully committed now—smudged, bruised, probably a little blood somewhere on me, because I can’t do anything halfway.

Below, the cathedral sprawls like a black gash against the hollow gray horizon. It’s a beast of stone and shadows, its doors sealed, its spires crooked like claws. No sign of Orin. No Lucien. No Branwen. No monsters waiting to swallow us whole.

And because I’m a dramatic little shit, I sigh, draping myself theatrically over the ledge like I’ve just conquered the entire continent.

Luna,I slide my voice through the bond, pitching it low, conspiratorial, because I know she’s probably still distracted, still chewing on all that doubt from earlier.