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“You found her.”

And then to them.

“And youkepther.”

Caspian’s breath stutters beside me. Riven is still, unreadable. Lucien—Lucien’s fingers twitch, as if the need to reach for me is at war with his instinct to remain composed. He’s always been composed. He was born of Pride, after all.

“I didn’t want to interfere,” Blackwell says. “I gave you the tools. The world. The curse. And I waited.”

Silas exhales shakily. “Wait, wait,wait. What theactual fuckdo you mean the curse? You mean Branwen? The Hollow? All of it?”

Blackwell’s gaze flicks to him, fond. “You were never cursed, Silas. You were incomplete. All of you were. The Hollow didn’t bind you.Shedid.”

He looks at me again.

My spine locks.

“She was made to hold you. Each of you. All seven sins—rooted in you, bleeding through your bodies, your souls. But what’s a sin without a reckoning? Without balance? Luna was never the end. She’s the origin.”

Lucien steps forward, but Blackwell lifts a single hand and Lucien stills—not out of fear. Out ofrecognition. Some quiet knowing between gods.

“You don’t need to fight anymore,” Blackwell says. “Not with yourselves. Not with each other.”

He looks at each of them. Not just as their headmaster. Not as a man. But as theirmaker.

“I created the Sins,” he says, voice calm as dusk, “but I made you tofeelthem. To lose to them. Tolearnfrom them. It’s only now that you’ve bound fully, wholly, that you’ve completed what was written.”

A strange calm settles over the room. Like something vast and ancient hasclickedinto place.

“I’m proud of you,” he says, softer now.

And that breaks something in me. Because he means it. This man—this god—who watched us shatter and kill and bleed and suffer and still,stillsays he’s proud.

The popcorn crunches under my foot as I step forward. Everyone’s still holding the line around me, but I push past Silas’s protective hover, past Lucien’s gravitational pull, until I’m standing directly in front of him.

Blackwell—no, whatever he is—smiles at me like I’m his final, perfect piece.

“You said you didn’t interfere,” I say, voice tight. “But you’ve been watching.”

“Always,” he answers. “You’remine, Luna. And I do not abandon what’s mine.”

There’s no threat in it.

Only love.

And for once, I let myself believe it.

It feels like everything in the room stills—like the world has finally exhaled after holding its breath for centuries.

Immortality.

The word should terrify me. But it doesn't. Not when it comes fromhim—a god wrapped in mortal shape, a creator who just looked me in the eye and called mehis. Not when the weight of what we’ve done is settling in my bones like starlight. We didn’t survive. We didn’t win.

Wetranscended.

Blackwell’s voice is warm with satisfaction, but there's a thread of something more reverent beneath it—an edge of awe that tightens my throat.

“And because you succeeded where every other binder failed,” he says, gaze steady, “you’ll be granted immortality. A gift. A consequence. Acrown.”