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We hit the corridor, and without a word, werun.

Fast. Quiet.

Like two scolded children high on stolen candy and adrenaline. My boots skid on the stone floor, Dorian’s coat snapping behind him like a goddamn cape, and both of us arewheezingby the time we round the first corner.

“Holyshit,” I whisper, breathless and delighted, doubling over beside a torchless alcove. “Itouched her head.I patted the Binder like she was a fucking house cat.”

“She almostmurderedyou,” Dorian wheezes, bracing his palm against the wall, shoulders shaking. “That’s the most physical contact anyone’s had with her since she got here. Except Alistair, but he doesn’t count. He touches people like he’s checking for a pulse.”

“Yeah, but did youseeher face?” I straighten, grinning from ear to ear, high on the chemical chaos only Layla Evernight seems capable of triggering in me. “She wasthisclose to hexing me through a wall.”

“Honestly,” he says between breaths, “I was hoping she would. We could’ve gotten the day off.”

“From what?” I gesture around us like the Void’s house staff is watching. “There is nooffhere. There’s just survive, suffer, and Severin monologuing.”

He snorts, and we both start walking again, the energy still crackling between us like we’re kids who just egged the principal’s house. My hunger’s purring now, low and pleased—not just physical this time, though that’s always humming beneath the surface, gnawing at the walls of my spine.

No, this is different.

This is her.

Layla. Binder. Bait. Girl with ice in her eyes and a mouth built for war.

She’s been nothing but cold silence since the day she arrived, and now suddenly—fire.Sharp words. A spark.

And she didn’t run from me.

That’s dangerous.

That’sinteresting.

“You think she’s really going to leave once we’re out?” Dorian asks as we turn into the hall that leads toward the stairwell, his tone lighter than usual, but something in his eyes sharpens. “You think she’s got a plan?”

I spin a bone ring around my finger, watching the way it flashes black before fading back to ivory.

“Oh, she’ll try,” I say, thoughtful now. “Girl like that’s not the type to let anyone write her ending. But the world out there?”

I glance over at him, grin crooked.

“It doesn’t care about freedom. It just wants to see what shedoeswith it.”

“And us?” he asks. “What do we want?”

I shrug, spinning the ring faster.

“To see what she tastes like when she chooses to stay.”

The knock is aggressive. Petulant. Offended by the concept of waiting.

Only Severin knocks like that.

I sigh, loud and exaggerated, letting it echo for dramatic effect as I roll my eyes toward Dorian, who’s still pretending to care about folding his clothes neatly instead of stuffing them into that cursed duffel stitched from warlock skin and entitlement. He doesn’t even flinch. Just raises a single brow, the universal signal fordon’t make it worse.

I make it worse.

“Gods above and Void below,” I mutter, dragging my hand over my face like I’m preparing for death. “Here comes the royal dickhead himself.”

I throw the door open with a flourish, leaning against it like I’m answering in lingerie and regrets.