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I don’t move back when he takes another step. He stops with just enough space for implication.

“You said something’s changed,” I say, hating the heat rising in my throat. “Speak.”

“The Council has offered us thirty-one days in the mortal world.” His voice smooths into that slippery, calculated rhythm again. “A temporary release. You’ll accompany us. Observe. Report. Pretend we’re not monsters.”

I tilt my head. “And what happens if I tell them exactly what you are?”

He shrugs, unbothered. “Then they’ll try to cage us again. And we’ll burn everything trying to stop them.”

I stare at him, watching for the shift. The lie. The flicker of false dominion. But there’s nothing to catch—not yet.

“I’m not here to help you,” I murmur.

He leans in just enough for the air to thicken with his scent—smoke, spice, the slow decay of something beautiful.

“No,” he says, his voice soft, lethal. “But you’re not leaving, either.”

That’s when I realize it—he didn’t knock. He didn’task. He waited. Because he knew I’d open the door eventually.

Because Severin doesn’t force things.

He justwaits until you want to be devoured.

If I can get out of here—just once—I won’t look back. One step into the mortal world, and I’ll run like my life depends on it. Because it does. Because staying in the Void means becoming part of it. Becomingtheirs.

And I may have sold myself for Luna’s freedom, but I didn’t sign up to be devoured by men who look at me like I was carved from their worst impulses.

I’ll play Severin’s game. I’ll smile just enough. Nod when I’m supposed to. Let him think I’m pliable. Because if the Council’s offer is real—thirty-one days outside—then I’ll make those days count.

“Alright,” I say, drawing the word out slow like syrup. “You want me to walk beside you while you play dress-up in the mortal world? Fine.”

Severin tilts his head. Not surprised. Not pleased either. He studies me like I’m a page in a book he’s already memorized but suddenly discovered has rewritten itself.

“I thought it would take more convincing,” he says.

“It did,” I answer. “You just weren’t here for it.”

His lips twitch, almost a smile. “You're smarter than they expected.”

“I’m smarter thanyouexpected.”

That earns me a low sound from his throat, something between amusement and warning. He leans in just slightly, gaze dipping to my mouth and back.

“I always expect the worst,” he says softly. “That way, I’m never disappointed.”

I keep my face blank. He’s testing me, again. And I’ve learned that in the Void, everything is a seduction or a threat. Usually both.

He steps back, finally, and gestures down the corridor with a gloved hand.

“Come on, then. It’s time you met the others.”

I follow him, because there’s no version of this where I don’t. Not yet.

The hallways shift while we walk. I used to think it was a trick of the eye, the way corners reappear where none were before. But it’s the Void itself, rearranging like it’s studying me in return. Doors whisper open in our path. Light glows not from fixtures but from veins running through the stone, pulsing in time with something ancient.

The deeper we go, the less this feels like a mansion and more like a cathedral built to worship something feral and buried.

Severin leads me into a chamber that isn’t just large—it’salive.