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“Don’t say it like that,” he mutters. “I brought his favorite. Those little salted caramel things. I’mtrying.”

A muscle in my jaw tics. I shouldn’t care. Caspian’s unraveling is long overdue. He’s too composed. Too smooth. Something in him always begged to be cracked open—and now that he has been, the last thing I should do ispatch it up.

But Luna will care.

And right now, everything revolves around her.

“Stay here,” I say.

“What if he stabs me?”

“Then I’ll let Elias laugh at your funeral.”

Silas shudders dramatically but doesn’t argue. He presses himself flat against the wall like he’s a child avoiding a bedtime, and I slip down the hallway toward Caspian’s door. My hand lifts, hesitates.

Then I open it without knocking.

Because Silas is right.

Caspianiscrying. But it’s quiet. Contained. No sobs. No theatrics. Just him, sitting on the edge of the bed, shoulders slumped, face in his hands like he’s trying to disappear inside them. His body’s still that dangerous thing—coiled and long, nothing soft about it—but this version? The defeated one?

It’s almost worse.

I step in. The door clicks behind me. He doesn’t move. Doesn’t even look up.

So I say, “Pull yourself together.”

Because I’m not here to soothe. I’m here to see what remains.

He doesn’t flinch, doesn’t even breathe different. Just flips on his side, a pillow that he pulls over his head like that’ll make him disappear—like if he can’t see us, we can’t see him crumbling. His back rises with shallow, uneven breaths, and his body staystight, coiled in on itself like he’s afraid if he unravels, there won’t be anything left. His sobs, muffled under the pillow, are quieter now, but not gone.

And I hate that I can’t ignore it.

I step farther into the room, slowly, like I’m trying not to scare a wild animal. I don’t sit. I just watch him, this once-golden creature reduced to something brittle and shaking. He was always polished, smooth, always too good at looking composed no matter how much rot lurked underneath. But now that polish is stripped. Branwen didn’t just use him—she hollowed him out.

I knew he wasn’t in that bed by choice. But I didn’t think she could do this. Not tohim. Not to the one who wielded desire like a blade, who used lust like armor. She didn’t just break him. She unmade him. And now he’s crawling in the aftermath, drowning in guilt that keeps looping back—guilt over Luna, over the blood on his hands, over Branwen’s voice still echoing somewhere in his head.

“I knew she was dangerous,” I say, more to the shadows than to him. “But I didn’t think she’d getyoulike this.”

Still, he doesn’t move.

“She’s gone now,” I continue, letting my voice go flat. “And you… you’re here. That has to mean something.”

He shifts slightly. Not enough to look at me. Just enough that I catch the edge of his voice—raw, exhausted, like he’s scraped the words out from someplace deep.

“She made me want it,” he whispers. “Made me think Ilikedit. Sleeping in her bed. Obeying. Stabbing Luna. It was all her, and still... I didn’t stop.”

“You couldn’t,” I tell him, and this time Idosit. On the edge of the chair nearest the bed. “That’s the thing no one wants to admit. You were under her. Not just her hand. Her power. She burrowed into your head until your choices weren’t your own.Shepossessedyou. Not in the way I do. Not cleanly. She filthied it.”

A pause. His fingers tighten in the sheets.

“I still stabbed her,” he mutters. “Still cut her open. Doesn’t matter if it was her voice or mine. Luna looked me in the eye. And I—”

“You flinched,” I interrupt. “You missed the heart. You didn’t want to, and you didn’t. You’re here now. That’s the only reason she’s breathing.”

His voice breaks on a laugh that sounds more like a choke. “You think that earns me something?”

“No,” I answer, leaning forward, letting my fingers lace together. “But it means you’re not past saving.”