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I’m going to destroy him.

Slowly.

Lovingly.

Possessively.

And with great care.

Riven

We hit the bottom of the stairs like a goddamn circus parade, Silas still narrating Ambrose’s imaginary accolades like he’s selling him off to the highest bidder. I can feel Ambrose’s fury bleeding off him like steam, sharp and silent. He hates being watched, hates losing the upper hand, and right now, Silas is strip-mining his dignity in front of the one person he can’t manipulate.

Good.

Let him stew in it.

I know what Silas is doing—under all that idiocy, there's a method, a reason—but that doesn’t mean I’m stepping in to save Ambrose’s pride. He dug this hole with Luna himself. Lied with his hands, played her like a wager, and then acted surprised when she stopped betting on him. So no, I don’t throw him a rope. I let him drown.

Luna’s ahead of me, her boots soft against the stone floor. Her hair brushes the back of her shoulders with every step, and I know exactly how it smells when it’s tangled in my fingers, how she tastes when she’s still laughing from something Silas said, trying to swat him away even as her mouth curves. She doesn’t look back at Ambrose. That’s what eats at him the most.

Beside me, Silas is finally winding down. “—but really, the depth of his soul is just sotragic,you know? I cry just looking athim. He’s basically poetry. Dark poetry. Like… haikus, but with abs.”

“Oh my gods,” Luna mutters, dragging her hand down her face.

I smirk, and for once, Silas catches it and grins at me like we’ve just set fire to a cathedral. Which, knowing us, wouldn’t be the worst thing we’ve done.

Elias claps Ambrose on the back with a little too much force as they follow behind. “Hey, maybe she’ll ask you to recite sonnets next. Got any lines about how your soul is a withered leaf in autumn or whatever?”

Ambrose doesn’t answer. He just keeps walking, his jaw carved in stone.

Caspian drifts behind all of them, quiet, hands tucked in his pockets like he’s trying to disappear. I see the way Luna glances over her shoulder at him—gentle, careful, like she’s checking if a wound’s still bleeding. She slows her step until he catches up, then touches his arm. Just a small thing. A pat. A kindness.

Ambrose sees it. I know he does. I don’t even have to look at him to feel how that moment sinks its claws into him. The way she doesn’t offer him the same softness. The way she doesn’t even glance back.

He’s always been the type who wants what he can’t have.

I fall in beside Luna, brushing her shoulder. “You really going to let Silas talk you into believing Ambrose is a soft-hearted kitten poet?”

She grins, low and wicked. “Oh, I know exactly what Ambrose is.”

I hum. “And what’s that?”

She doesn’t answer right away, just gives me a look that says everything. Ambrose is the edge of a knife she doesn’t trust—but can’t stop circling.

I glance back again.

Ambrose is still silent. Still watching. And even now, he doesn’t realize he’s already bleeding.

The chamber opens like a yawning throat—three narrow hallways peeling off into pitch-black corridors, the scent of old magic clinging to the stone like smoke that never aired out. There’s nothing in here but shadows and choice, and I’m already sick of it.

“We split up,” I say. My voice echoes, low and certain. “We’ll cover more ground faster.”

No one argues. Not aloud, anyway.

Silas latches onto Elias like a tick with too much caffeine, dragging him toward the hallway on the left with a conspiratorial gleam in his eyes and the whisper of something aboutghost orgiesandexorcism foreplay.Elias groans, but lets himself be dragged. He always does. They're chaos in stereo—cringe and snark chasing each other into ruin.

Caspian shifts, uncertain. Luna turns to him—soft, attentive—and murmurs something too low for the rest of us to hear. Whatever it is makes his posture ease a fraction, just enough that I let them drift off toward the right corridor, alone.