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I reach into my jacket and pull out a banana. Offer it solemnly.

“Trade?”

The bastard takes it. Which is how I know something isvery, very wrong. He peels the banana slow, like he’s undressing a lover. A fruit-based strip tease that offends me to my very core. He meets my gaze with all the practiced cruelty of a man who has never lost a staring contest in his life, and takes a bite. Chews. Doesn’t blink.

I squint at him. Hard.

He takes another bite. Still no blink. Still that serene, sadistic calm, like this moment is playing outexactlyhow he hoped it would when he decided to carry a knife around and emotionally scar the rest of us by flirting with Luna like it's his new hobby.

And okay, maybe I deserve that scar. But still. I have questions. Urgent, spicy, morally concerning questions—and I can't ask a single one because Luna’s standing right here, all soft and sweet, totally unaware that her maybe-lover, maybe-stalker is currently having a telepathic banana battle with her very bonded Sin.

I lean slightly toward him, eyes narrowed, hands folded like a man about to propose violence in the most polite way possible. He leans back, just a fraction. Another bite. Thatcrunchis so goddamn smug.

“Lucien,” I murmur under my breath, careful not to let Luna hear me, “do you really wanna do this?”

He tilts his head like a cat. No words. Just the kind of expression that saysI’ve burned down empires for less, Silas. Try me.

Elias bumps my shoulder from behind, whispering, “You're losing.”

“I’m not losing. I’m luring him into a false sense of banana-based superiority.”

Lucienblinks—once, deliberate. A flicker of victory stirs in my chest… until he takes another bite and then, mid-chew, lifts one hand andflips me offbehind the banana like it’s an art installation.

“I fucking hate him,” I mutter.

“I think he loves you,” Elias whispers back.

“Stop romanticizing my villain origin story.”

Luna shifts beside Lucien, stepping forward to admire some delicate row of blooms that look like they were curated by the gods specifically to distract her from the chaos bubbling in the male species two feet away. She says something to Lucien—something soft I don’t catch—but it makes the corner of his mouth tick, and he tosses the banana peel over his shoulder like we’re not atourfucking Academy andthatisn'tmyflowerbed.

Ambrose appears at my side. “He littered,” he says darkly.

“I know,” I hiss. “He alsoglaredwhile littering.”

“I can fix it,” he offers, already pulling out matches.

“No fire!” I shove his hand down.

Orin approaches then, slow and unhurried, holding a very suspicious book upside down and wearing sunglasses with one arm snapped off.

“We are very inconspicuous,” he says to no one.

“You betrayed us earlier,” I snap.

Elias elbows me and nods toward Luna. “She’s walking this way.”

Fuck. I panic. I forget the plan. The plan was tostalk discreetly,not stand here like a mustache mafia and argue about fruit and allergies.

I rip the fake mustache off my lip, toss it at Orin, and scramble to look natural.

Which, for me, means I blurt out, “Luna, love of my many lives and one very overworked heart, you look divine today. Is that a new smile? It suits you. Should be illegal, honestly.”

She blinks at me. “Silas. You have glue stuck to your mouth.”

“It’s called charm residue.”

Lucien walks right past me then, banana peel gone, and the knife still glinting in his pocket like a damn punctuation mark.He doesn’t speak. His entire existence is one long sarcastic ellipsis.