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“I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing,” he mutters finally, voice low enough that if I wasn’t me, I might miss it.

I blink. And then I grin, sharp and slow, because he hates asking for anything. Especially this.

“Holy shit.” I lean back against the banister dramatically. “Did you just admit you need help? Hold on, let me savor this.”

“Don’t be a dick.”

“That’s literally all I know how to be.”

He sighs again, like I’m the most exhausting thing in existence. Which is fair.

“She’s different,” he says after a beat, like he has to force the words out one by one. “Not like them.”

I raise an eyebrow. “You mean not like the rest of us? Or not like the rest of the world you’re so convinced is rotting from the inside out?”

He doesn’t answer, which is answer enough.

“She’s warm,” he says finally, voice quiet. “And I don’t know what to do with that.”

It guts me a little, the way he says it. Because I know that feeling. The way something good feels dangerous when you’re convinced you don’t deserve it.

I scrub a hand through my hair. “You talk to her?”

His mouth twists. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

“Wrong answer.”

He scowls at me, but I keep going.

“You think if you just stand there looking like a sad, sexy apocalypse, she’ll figure it out? Newsflash, Al—you’ve got to actually fucking talk.”

“She’s not like Luna,” he mutters.

That hits something in me, and I shake it off fast, covering it with a smirk. “No shit. No one is.”

Alistair looks at me then, eyes darker than they should be. “How do you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Keep her.”

The question guts me more than it should. Because the truth is—I don’t. Not really. None of us do. We’re just the idiots orbiting her gravity, hoping she doesn’t decide to burn us alive.

I swallow it down, force a smile.

“Easy,” I say lightly. “I never give her a reason to leave.”

Alistair looks at me like he knows that’s a lie. Before either of us can say something worse, footsteps echo on the stairs. Luna’s coming back.

Luna’s smile hits like a blade between the ribs—sharp and soft at the same time, and I hate how easily it slips under my skin.She’s holding the letter like it weighs nothing, but I know better. Everything she carries, she carries like it’s light, until you realize it’s a boulder strapped to her chest.

Alistair glances up the second she enters, and I don’t miss the way his shoulders ease, the crack of relief that splits through his apathetic shell. As if her smiling is proof that whatever Layla’s written isn’t as bad as it could’ve been. As if Luna’s smile is still something that matters in his decaying worldview.

She crosses the room, steps sure and quiet, and presses the letter into Alistair’s hand like it’s some fragile thing. “For Layla,” she says softly. “And… thanks. For being decent to her.”

I swear to all the gods I don’t believe in, Alistair physically flinches at the compliment. His fingers twitch around the envelope like it’s laced with poison, his gaze flicking up and down her face like he’s not sure how to process gratitude.

“Wasn’t doing anything special,” he mutters, voice a little too fast, a little too awkward.