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He whines. Caspian smirks. Riven rolls his eyes. I glance toward the looming academy doors, shadows curling in the frame, magic thick in the walls, and I grin.

Let the world get ready.

The Sins are home.

Orin

I return to the wall before I find her. Ivy curled like memory, thorns catching on the wind, the roses deeper in bloom than I left them. This place, this wall—always grew better under pressure. It's where time slows, where the world blurs just enough to let thought settle. Maybe that’s why I come here. Maybe that’s why I bring the book, open it without reading a single line. The pages rest in my lap like ceremony. Familiar. Reverent. But my eyes don’t follow the words.

Instead, I pluck a rose.

The petals wither the moment my fingers graze them, color draining to ash before the stem hits the ground. I let them fall. One by one. A ritual, perhaps. A slow surrender of the Hollow's residue still clinging to my veins. Or maybe I just like watching beauty die by my hand. There’s honesty in decay. It doesn’t lie about what it’s becoming.

It feels wrong to be here—wrong in the way healing sometimes feels like betrayal. Like we’ve outrun something that should’ve swallowed us whole. But we didn’t just survive—we’ve returned. And in the quiet that follows war, I don’t know what to do with peace. We were forged in ruin, sculpted by carnage. And yet here we are, back at the Academy like we’re not a thousand lives heavier than when we left.

Silas is inside—giving the cat instructions like Mr. Bean’s a soldier in training. His voice carries through the crackedwindows, animated and irreverent. Elias is snoring loud enough to haunt the curtains. Riven disappeared into the shower like he was hoping the water might burn off what the Hollow put on us. I don’t blame him. Caspian and Ambrose are on the bike, a shared silence riding tandem through ghost roads that still remember Branwen. And Lucien, of course, vanished the moment his boots hit the marble floor. A retreat dressed up as composure.

It’s life. Or something close enough to pretend.

And yet.

She’s not here.

I searched for her in every hall I passed, paused outside her door twice without knocking. I told myself I’d find her later. Told myself she needed rest. But the truth is, I needed a moment of stillness before I faced her again. Not because I fear what she’ll say. Not because I fear what I feel. But because when it comes to Luna, I never want to waste a moment on anything less than full attention. She deserves all of me. And I’ve spent centuries learning how to give that sparingly. Now, I must unlearn it for her.

Because there are things I still haven’t said. Not because I’m unsure, but because I wanted the words to taste like truth when they finally left my mouth. I've loved many things in this world. But none of them ever made me want to stay.

She makes me want tobuild.And that is a different kind of love altogether.

So I sit here, draining roses dry in the shadow of a ruin we once called sanctuary, wondering if maybe—just maybe—we've stumbled into something holy. A new beginning dressed in the bones of what almost destroyed us. Not redemption. Not absolution. Just… the possibility ofmore.

I take another rose from the vine, slow and careful, as if reverence could undo what I know is coming. The petals are rubyred—lush and full like blood just beginning to cool—and even as they begin to crisp beneath my touch, they cling to their beauty. Death, it seems, hasn’t convinced this one to fade with shame. The edges curl in protest, a reluctant surrender to my magic, but there’s still scent in its core. It smells alive. Like memory. Like her.

I lift the rose to my face and inhale.

It’s a lie. The rose is dead. The scent is nothing more than a ghost riding the last breath of something that used to live. But gods, it’s still beautiful. Maybe more so because of it. A contradiction I can’t stop holding, one that makes me think of Luna. Of how she looked the first time I saw her—fury in her shoulders, starlight on her skin, blood on her mouth. That was the moment I began to believe beauty and violence could share the same pulse. And now, after everything… she’s no less wild. No less luminous. Just more complicated.

The petals flake as I lower the rose again. I let the brittle edges crumble across my palm, watch them drift like ash to the ivy-laced ground. Behind me, the Academy is murmuring awake. Windows creak, wind slips through glass like it’s been waiting for us to return. But I don’t move. Not yet. I’ve waited too long for the noise of the world to matter. This quiet is mine.

She still hasn’t come.

Part of me wants to believe she knows I’m here. That she’s choosing to let me wait because she wants to feel my hunger from afar. It wouldn’t surprise me. Luna is as deliberate as she is reckless. And I’m not fool enough to think I’m the only one who watches. I’ve seen the way she looks at Silas when he’s not acting like a menace. I’ve heard the softness in her voice when Elias stumbles his way through affection. She loves them. She’sbondedto them. And yet, she’s still mine to pursue.

I’ve told her I want her.

That I’m not looking for a chase, but a surrender. Not because I need to own her. But because I want towitnessher. All of her. The brilliance. The rage. The soft, broken tenderness she pretends not to have. I want to unravel her like this rose—petal by petal, until all that’s left is the scent she doesn’t know still clings to the air.

The sound of the door creaking open is barely louder than the breath I hold as it happens. I don’t need to look to know it’s her. Ifeelher before I see her—before her bare feet meet the stone path, before the scent of lavender and the faint bite of rosemary follows her into the garden air. It’s her magic, always just a little too wild to hide. And her smile—gods, that smile—hits me like an eclipse.

Luna steps into the light with her hair wet, curls tumbling around her shoulders in damp spirals that still glisten from the shower. There’s something unguarded about her right now, raw in the quiet way her eyes find me. And when she smiles, it isn’t one of her sly smirks or cutting glances. It’s real. Sun-warmed. Soft.

My heart reacts with an undignified lurch, twisting in my chest like it’s trying to claw its way out. Like it knows, better than I do, that it doesn’t beat for me anymore. It beatsbecauseof her. And maybe that’s always been true.

She crosses the garden, each step slow, unhurried, barefoot on the grass like the earth itself bends for her. Maybe it does. She has that effect—pulling the world toward her without asking. And me, most of all.

“I had to escape,” she says, a breath of laughter in her voice, brushing a strand of wet hair behind her ear. “Silas was lecturing me about proper nutrition for Mr. Bean. He said I’m not allowed to feed him ‘emotionally manipulative salmon.’ Whatever that means.”

My lips tug into a grin before I can stop them. “He’s jealous,” I murmur, standing, brushing soil from my palm. “The kitten has your attention. And Silas… well. He’s a creature of need.”