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Then—

“What?” Silas blinks, mid-coin flip.

“Boobs, man!” Elias wheezes. “There are actualboobson your sigil! This one’s just… just out here vibing with a pair of tits like it’s leading a sacrificial fertility cult!”

Silas jogs over with far too much excitement.

“Are they mine?” he asks eagerly. “Because I did once bind a witch who had a blessed rack and very low standards.”

Silas reaches the pillar and squints at it like he’s studying a mural painted by horny gods.

“Oh,” he breathes, awe-struck. “Oh, that’snothow I remember it… but I’m not mad. She’s acurvylittle thing now.”

Luna’s mouth presses into a line as she approaches slowly, standing just behind Silas, arms crossed.

“Your actual crest,” she says, voice sharp but amused beneath it, “doesn’t have tits.”

Silas waves her off, still inspecting the voluptuous ridges and slightly-too-enthusiastic domes added to his sigil. “Art is interpretation, Luna. Magic evolves. Maybe this is how my essencewantsto be seen.”

“Your essence is a walking HR violation,” Elias says, wiping tears from his eyes.

“It’s expressive,” Silas replies solemnly. “Sexually liberated. I feel very seen.”

“You’re going to feel my boot if you don’t move,” I growl, stepping between them and the pillar, scanning the details.

And sure enough—there they are. Curved, ridiculous, full-breasted additions to the standard envy sigil, carved like they were sculpted by a blind, overzealous bard with nothing but fantasies and wine in his blood.

This isn’t a pillar of magic. It’s a fucking shrine to perversion.

“Branwen had to know this would throw us off,” Orin says, appearing on the edge of the scene like a stormcloud. His gaze flickers over the engraving with academic detachment, though the corner of his mouth lifts ever so slightly. “She corrupted themost unstable sigils with purpose. Turned them into caricatures. If the pillar mocks you, you won’t believe in it. You’ll dismiss it.”

“Branwen thought I’d ignoreboobs?” Silas says, scandalized. “She neverdidunderstand me.”

Elias points at the pillar again, this time more serious.

“But that means this one’s afake,right?”

I nod once. “Definitely.”

Silas sighs dramatically, like we’ve just shattered a holy relic. “Rude. I was going to name her.”

“You don’t name the exit out of hell,” I snap.

“I name everything I love,” he says, placing a hand over his chest like the goddamn theatrical bastard he is.

The aftershock of Silas’s boob-sigil discovery is rippling through the chamber like the world’s worst spell gone horny. Elias is practically wheezing behind a pillar, still cackling to himself like he discovered divine comedy. Silas is back to rolling his sacred gold coin like nothing’s happened. Caspian’s doing his signature lean, arms crossed and jaw tight, somewhere between menace and seduction. Typical.

But it’s Lucien that catches my attention. Because he’snotlooking at the pillars. He's not examining the lines of the crests, not running calculations in his head, not analyzing exit paths or probability sequences or whatever rigid, militaristic shit usually keeps him upright.

He’s looking at Luna.

From the corner of his eye. Just the faintest tilt of his head. But his focus is razor-sharp and undeniably locked on her. And he’s smiling. Not a smirk. Not his usual smug brand of disdain-glazed superiority. A real fucking smile. Soft. Barely there. Butthere.And the worst part? He doesn’t even realize he’s doing it.

I stalk toward him slow, savoring it. The moment. The chance. He doesn’t hear me until I’m already next to him, close enoughto count the tension in his jaw that he tries—and fails—to conceal when I speak.

“Look at you,” I murmur, low and lethal. “All dewy-eyed and dreamy.”

Lucien’s mouth twitches. The smile vanishes like a snapped spell, replaced with that classic glacial calm.