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I step back. Because I’ve been in enough negotiations to know when I’m not the one in control anymore. She’s already made up her mind.

And gods help us if she decides to give him a second chance. Because whatever’s coming next? It won’t be forgiveness. It’ll be fire. Wrapped in silk. Spoken in her name.

Riven’s voice doesn’t falter, but I can tell he hates the words as he says them. That rough edge under his usually brash tone isn’t anger this time—it’s fear. Or something near it. A feeling he doesn’t wear well. He stands near the foot of Luna’s bed, arms crossed, his weight shifting subtly as if his body wants to pace but his pride won’t allow it.

“The bond wasn’t completed,” he tells her.

Luna sits upright, pale but steady, her fingers curling slightly into the blanket draped across her lap. She’s silent, absorbingeach word, and I watch the way her throat bobs once. It’s the only sign of distress she gives.

She meets his eyes. “And?”

“And you have a few days,” Riven says, jaw tight. “Before the magic turns in on itself. If you don’t complete the bond, it’ll try to consume you. You’ll get sick. Fast. There won’t be a second warning.”

A pause stretches between them, heavy and deliberate.

She breathes in like she’s going to speak, then stops. Rethinks. Finally, “So what are my options?”

I tilt my head. Curious, but not surprised. Of course she wants a choice. The illusion of control always tastes sweeter to those who’ve never had it.

“You complete the bond,” Riven says. “And survive. Or… you don’t. And you don’t.”

“That’s not exactly a buffet of choices, Riven.”

“Welcome to being tied to a Sin,” he snaps, and I catch the flicker of guilt that flashes through him immediately after. He doesn’t like snapping at her. That bond of theirs has made him softer around her edges, and that softness is fraying now, turning raw and afraid.

Luna looks away, just slightly, her gaze shifting to the side like she’s staring at something only she can see. Maybe she is.

I step forward from the shadows, slow, unhurried, my presence peeling into the room like smoke through a crack in the door. “You always wanted to be different, didn’t you?” I murmur, letting my voice brush against the back of her spine, soft and sharp all at once. “Now you are. One bonded to three. One binding to a fourth. A thread pulled from the gods' own spool.”

She turns to look at me. No fire. No venom. Just that unreadable calm that drives me fucking mad.

“So what doyouthink I should do?” she asks.

I smile, slow and cruel. “Oh, darling, I’m not here to tell you what to do. I’m here to watch what happens when you do it.”

Riven mutters a curse under his breath and drags a hand through his hair, already at the edge of violence again.

She nods once, slowly. “Give me the time, then.”

And the way she says it—not begging, not bargaining—just final, like the decision is already unfolding inside her... it tells me exactly what I need to know.

She’s not going to choose between survival and power.

She’s going to make them the same thing.

Silas isn’t usually the kind of chaos you take seriously. He’s the prankster, the interruption, the kind of manic distraction you throw at a wall just to see what sticks. But this? The way he’s looking at me—wide-eyed, panicked, actuallytryingto whisper like the hallway has ears—it’s enough to get my attention. That’s rare. So I follow him, if only to see what’s shattered his ridiculous composure this time.

He yanks me just far enough from Luna’s room that the door clicks shut behind us, then spins, hair a mess, voice pitched low and fast. “Okay, so don’t be mad, but I think I broke him.”

I stare. “You think you brokeCaspian.”

Silas nods like that’s a perfectly reasonable sentence. “He’scrying, Ambrose. Actual tears. Like... snot. It’s really gross.”

I narrow my eyes. “What did youdo?”

“Nothing!” he insists, hands up like I’m seconds from smiting him. “I mean—I was just watching him like you told me to! You know, making sure he didn’t go full dark prince and stab anyone else. I even brought snacks. But then I asked if he wanted to play cards—because I thought he needed a distraction—and he said something about his hands still being dirty fromherblood, and then he just—” Silas flails. “Waterworks. Full meltdown. And now I’m... here.”

I close my eyes for one long breath. “You brought snacks to a trauma spiral.”