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“Don’t you sleep?” I ask instead, and I hate how hoarse I sound. How much it gives away.

“Not when you’re hurting like this,” she says, no hesitation. And gods, shemeans it.

I want to say something snarky, something flippant. A joke about her stalking me, or how she’s lucky I’m the pretty kind of broken. But I can’t find the words. They’ve drowned somewhere in the reflection, and all I have left is the truth I don’t want her to hear.

“I think about asking Elias to drug me,” I admit, voice low. “To put me down like a wild animal until it passes.”

She doesn’t recoil. She doesn’t offer platitudes or promises that itwillpass, because she knows better. She just steps closer, her palm sliding up my spine like she’s trying to remind me this body still belongs to me. That it’smineagain.

“Don’t,” she whispers. “Don’t hand your mind to anyone else. Not again. Not after what she did.”

I laugh—sharp and bitter. “You say that like I’ve got a choice.”

“You do,” she says. “You came here instead of his room. That’s a choice.”

That lands hard. Right in the center of me. I swallow against it. My throat tightens, and I wish she’d stop touching me because I’m starting to lean into it without meaning to.

“You’re too good at this,” I murmur, finally turning my head to look at her. “Too soft. You should’ve let me rot.”

Her expression doesn’t falter. She just lifts a brow and says, “I’m not soft. You just make me stupid.” And that—fuck, thatalmostmakes me smile.

“I’m sorry I’m a mess,” I murmur, the words thick and broken like something half-swallowed, half-confessed. I hate how they sound in my own mouth. Pathetic. Weak. And still not nearly enough to cover what’s rotting underneath.

She doesn’t answer right away. Doesn’t fill the space with false comfort or force a fix that doesn’t exist. Instead, she just exhales softly—like she feels it too—and then wraps her arms around me without a second’s hesitation.

It should feel like pressure. Like weight. But it doesn’t. It’s warm. Steady. Her body presses to mine without demand, without intent. Not seductive. Not lustful. JustLuna.

And gods, I nearly shatter for it.

My hands hover at her waist, unsure of what I’m allowed to take from this. I want to bury my face in her neck. I want to breathe her in until the ghost of Branwen is chased out of my lungs. But I can’t. Iwon’t.

My body tightens, jaw clenched against the rising urge to fall apart in her arms. I don’t deserve the kind of comfort she’s offering. I’m not clean enough for this. Not healed enough. Not evenmeenough, most days. So I push her back, just a little. Just enough to stop myself from needing too much.

“You don’t have to touch me,” I say, voice low and hoarse and all wrong. My hands are trembling where they’ve settled on her arms, and I let them drop before she can notice.

Her brows knit—not in confusion, but in quiet protest. “I know I don’thaveto,” she replies softly. “Iwantto.”

That wrecks me more than it should. She says it so casually, like it’s nothing. Like I’m not scarred and fucked up and waking up most nights afraid of my own power. Like shewantsthis version of me—the broken, jagged mess that can’t even fallasleep without choking on memory. And it would be easier to hate her for that. Easier to twist it into manipulation. Into pity. But it’s not. I can feel it. She means it.

“You shouldn’t,” I whisper, more to myself than to her.

She tilts her head, watching me with those impossibly steady eyes. “Maybe not. But I do. And I’m not going to let you rewrite what you are because of whatshedid to you.”

My breath hitches.

And then she takes my hand—gently, deliberately—and laces her fingers through mine. Not to seduce. Not to lead me somewhere I’m not ready to go. Just tobethere. To anchor me without chains. We stay like that. Fingers tangled. Her touch grounded. My thoughts louder than I want them to be. But quieter now, somehow, too.

Because for once, I don’t feel like I have to run from the silence.

She doesn’t try to touch me again.

Instead, she sits beside me, close enough that our knees almost brush, but she doesn’t close the gap. Doesn’t force comfort or ask for more. Her gaze stays on the fountain—like she’s giving me the space to speak or not speak, but she’ll stay either way.

Then her voice cuts through the stillness, quiet but steady. “Statistically, it’s more often women,” she says. “But it happens to men too. A lot more than people want to admit.”

My stomach tightens. She’s not looking at me, but I can feel the words settle between us like weights. Like truths neither of us want to wear out loud.

“I was seventeen,” she continues, matter-of-fact but not detached. “It was a party. Someone I trusted. I didn’t even fight him. I just froze. And afterward I... I hated sleeping alone. Not because I thought someone would come back for me. But because my mind wouldn’t shut up.”