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My stomach drops. Not twists. Not churns.

Drops.

I don’t even realize I’ve taken a step back until my boot scuffs against the stone floor. I don’t say anything. None of us do. But every nerve in my body lights up like a flare. My skin remembers what it felt like in that place. The stillness. The wrongness. Theemptiness.

Except it hadn’t been empty, had it?

Branwen had been there. Thatthingwearing a smile and chains. But that place wasn’t justhers.Not if what this Luna-copy says is true.

What if it wasn’tjustBranwen?

What if all the others—every Sin Binder before Luna, every person chosen and ruined by that magic—are stillthere?Trapped. Waiting. Dying slowly in a place that’s supposed to be agrave.

I feel sick.

It wasn’t just the silence in that place. It was the absence. Of sound, of hope, ofescape.A prison built for gods disguised as girls.

And Luna—

Luna’s still bonded to me. I feel her emotions pulse through that tether like a second heartbeat. She’s trying not to break. I want to go to her. I want to pull her against me and tell heryou are not going to die there,not like them, not like that.

But I don’t. I can’t. Because the fantasy Luna is still speaking. And Silas—God help us—is still asking questions.

His voice is quieter now. Almost reverent. “How do we get Orin and Lucien back?”

She tilts her head like a predator.

And then she says it.

“Ambrose has to die.”

It lands like a curse. Like a blade to the chest. No theatrics, no flames. Just… stillness. Then the aftershock.

My breath stalls. The world narrows to a pinpoint. I whip my head toward him.

Ambrose doesn’t move.

Doesn’t blink.

Doesn’t flinch.

Because of course he doesn’t. That’sAmbrose.My best fucking friend. The one who taught me how to weaponize charm. The one who always has a plan. Who always knows whateveryonewants before they say it. He looks at the fantasy like heexpectedher to say it. Like hewelcomesit.

And that breaks something in me.

Because he’s supposed to bemine.Not in some pathetic way. But in therealway. The brother-in-arms kind of way. The I’d-die-for-you-before-I-thought-twice kind of way.

But he’dlet himself diefor them?

Forher?

Luna stands frozen behind Silas. Her expression unreadable. I don’t know what scares me more—how devastated she looks... or how much she doesn’t try to stop it. Doesn’t cry out. Doesn’t screamno.

And I—

I hate how I understand it.

The Luna-copy begins to fade, her sultry smile the last to go.