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Not because I’m afraid she’ll get lost.

BecauseIwill if I don’t.

The corn swallows sound, sharpens it. You hear things too late in here—the crunch of steps, the whisper of breath. It’s disorienting. Dreamlike.

I catch glimpses of them all. Ambrose leaning against a stalk wall like it’s a cathedral. Riven whispering something into Elias’s ear just to watch him flush and shove him away. Caspian handing Silas a fake skull he definitely stole from a kid at the entrance. Orin standing still, face tilted to the darkening sky as if reading a language written in wind.

And then Luna’s there.

In front of me.

Like she’s always been.

She leans against the stalks, arms crossed, mouth quirked.

“You found me.”

“I never lost you.”

Her head tilts. “Didn’t you?”

And fuck me. Maybe I did. I step forward, slow, because she deserves that. Because she’s survived too much to be chased anymore. She doesn’t retreat.

Sheneverretreats.

“Why are we here?” she asks softly. Not just the maze. Not just the festival.

Everything.

“All of it,” she whispers, “the chaos, the power, the pain, the binding... What was the point if we’re just going to live like ghosts?”

“You’re not a ghost, Luna.”

“No?” She steps into me, until I can smell her skin, her magic, the strange perfume that clings to someone who has died and lived again. “Then tell me what I am.”

I take her chin in my hand and tilt her face to mine. Not rough. Not gentle. Just…real.

“You’re the storm that shattered everything I believed about myself. You’re the chaos I tried to dominate and failed. You’re the only thing in this world I didn’t win—but you gave yourself to me anyway. That’s not fate, Luna. That’spower.”

Her breath catches.

And I don’t kiss her. She kisses me.

It’s not soft.

It’s not sweet.

It’s possession. It’s history. It’s everything we never said and everything we couldn’t help but feel. Her hands in my hair, my mouth on her throat, her name falling out of me like confession.Her feet hit the hay-lined floor and I go with her, worshipping the queen we made together from ash and ruin and blood.

This moment’s not about claiming her. It’s about standing beside her.

It’s aboutbelongingto her.

All eight of us stand on the edge of the stalks like we’ve survived something no one else could possibly understand. And maybe we have.

Luna looks over at me, her hand resting on Riven’s shoulder. Silas is crouched behind her doing something stupid with fake vampire teeth. Elias muttering, “don’t let him bite anyone,” while trying not to laugh. Orin’s watchingme,and I know he sees it—how far I’ve come. How far I’ll still have to go.

We are not saved. We are not heroes. We are not healed. But we aretogether.And I can live with that. No—I wantto live with that.