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I should look away.

I don’t.

Beside me, Silas exhales like he just came.

“Oh,” he breathes, eyes wide, pupils blown. “Oh gods. Ohfuck, look at this.” He drops to a crouch beside a mound, scooping a handful of coins and letting them spill through his fingers with reverence. “You hear that? That’s the sound of ambition and self-loathing, and I amso into it.”

“Don’t touch anything,” Lucien snaps, stepping sharply behind him.

“Too late,” Silas sings. “I touchedeverything.Look at this one—it’s got agriffinon it. Look at that detail. I could kiss it. Imightkiss it.”

Riven kicks a small pile of rubies aside, eyes scanning the walls. “This is too much. No one hoards this kind of wealth unless they’re compensating.”

“Or hiding something beneath it,” I mutter, stepping closer to the pedestal at the center. The air around it vibrates faintly, as if the gold itself is holding its breath.

Luna’s gaze flicks around the chamber. She’s not touching the treasure, but she’s taking it all in—the structure, the carved ceiling, the inlaid runes, the unnatural way the light glows without a source. She looks less tempted and more wary, like she’s waiting for the floor to swallow one of us whole. Or all of us.

Elias sidles up beside her with a poorly timed grin. “So, uh… if you had to pick one, what would it be? The gold or me? Wait—don’t answer that. Obviously me. Unless you’re into inanimate objects, in which case, I could lie very still.”

Luna doesn’t even blink.

Elias clutches his heart. “Brutal. That’s fine. I like rejection. Feeds my character arc.”

Silas hums, still crouched and digging through treasure like a horny magpie. “You’ve never had a character arc.”

“Not true,” Elias says. “One time I fell down the stairs at the academy and landed on a moral revelation.”

Lucien exhales slowly. “Can we focus?”

“No,” Silas says instantly. “I’m busy communing with my deepest desires.”

“Gold isn’t a desire,” Orin murmurs from the far side of the room. “It’s a mirror. It only reflects what you’ve already lost.”

His voice draws everyone’s attention. He’s standing near the back wall, where the coins thin out and the shadows deepen. His hand hovers above a long crack in the marble, one the rest of us missed because of the way the treasure distracts. Even now, I don’t want to look at it. My body still wants the glitter, the glow, the wealth that could rebuild the world.

But Orin’s eyes are fixed elsewhere. Luna moves toward him, slow and measured, and the moment she passes the center pedestal, it lights. A deep, resonant pulse of magic surges from the base upward—into her, around her. The coins nearest her feet quake. Every gleaming surface reflects her, but distorted.Not like mirrors. Like memories refracted. Her face in every direction, twisted by regret and gold.

Silas actuallymoansbeside me.

“This is erotic,” he murmurs. “This is—gods, this is pure. This is everything I’ve ever wanted in one room. Luna and treasure. She could step on me right now and I’d thank her withinterest.”

“You’re deeply unwell,” Riven mutters.

“Hot of you to say,” Silas replies.

But my focus is on the pedestal. Something beneath the gold shifts. Not visibly. Not physically. But magically.

The air sharpens.

Orin’s voice returns, quiet, certain. “There’s a second seal here. Beneath the pedestal. Smaller. Compacted. Meant to cloak the last pillar in something irresistible.”

And that’s when I feel it.

The pull. Subtle. Ancient. Not compulsion, not seduction.

Claim.

Branwen built this place like a vault for her obsession—but this room doesn’t belong to her.