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I sit with my back against one of the stone walls, legs stretched long, arms draped over bent knees, watching the flicker of firelight play across her face. She’s exhausted. It makes her soft around the edges. I want to touch her in that moment more than I want to admit.

But instead, I watch.

And I listen.

Because Silas is mid-story. And somehow, gods help us, it'sworking.

“So then,” Silas says, gesturing wildly with a stick that may or may not have once been on fire, “I’ve got the two-way mirror in one hand and a ball of hydra venom in the other, right?”

“No,” Elias mutters, sprawled out on his back beside Luna, eyes closed, “no one sane has ever held those two things at the same time.”

“Iwasn’t sane,” Silas says proudly. “I’d just come off a three-day bender with a succubus priestess who told me I was her soul bond.”

“She toldeveryonethat,” Riven adds, dry.

“Details,” Silas snaps, pointing the stick at him. “So anyway, I’m trying to break into this vault beneath the Academy, right? Because Caspian said—”

Caspian doesn’t even look up from where he’s polishing one of his knives. “Nope.”

“—that there was something incredibly rare and magical down there.”

“I said there was amagical lock,” Caspian corrects.

“Same thing. Anyway, I sneak in—well, sneak is generous, I fell down an elevator shaft—and I find the vault. And I’m like, this is it. My moment. So I do what any logical genius does. I throw the ball of venomatthe magical lock.”

Luna snorts. Soft. And it hits something raw and wicked in my chest.

“Let me guess,” she murmurs, eyes half-lidded.

“It exploded.Everywhere.I couldn’t see for two days. All my hair fell out.”

“There’s no way,” Elias says. “You weren’t bald.”

Silas nods solemnly. “Illusion spell. I was walking around with a glamor for two weeks while it grew back.”

“And the vault?” Luna asks.

“Turned out it was a wine cellar.”

The fire cracks. A beat of silence—and then everyoneloses it. Even Riven, who just shakes his head and laughs into his hand.

And I… smile.

Only a little. Because I can feel her eyes on me then, flicking sideways through the flicker of light and steam, catching that rare slip in my composure.

She sees it. And she likes it.

Fuck.

The village today gutted something I didn’t know was still alive in me. I kept my expression blank through all of it—the stares, the whispers, the brush of fingers that remembered me far better than I remembered them. Past lovers, past sins, pastfailuresthat looked at me like I’d once promised them eternity and never delivered.

And maybe I had.

It was easy back then. To fuck. To forget. To move on without remorse because there was no weight in my chest to pull me back. My body was made from dirt and blood and divine spite—I wasn’t born to love. I was born todevour.

And then Luna happened. Now everything feels heavy in a way I wasn’t built for. She shouldn’t look at me the way she does. Not after today. Not after seeing the kind of man Iusedto be, reflected in the bodies of women who once begged me to stay. Who died without ever hearing why I left.

But shedidlook.