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A smirk crawls across his lips, lazy and lethal. "Well," he drawls, voice rough, "aren’t you a vision."

I glance down at myself—pink pants, threadbare shirt, mud-smudged toes—and arch a brow. "Don’t start."

He grins wider, straightening, something sharp behind the slouch. "Oh, I wouldn’t dare. But if you wanna makequestionable fashion choices at one in the morning, sweetheart, who am I to stop you?"

Silas snorts. "She’s helping me."

Elias’s eyes flick between us, dark and knowing. "Of course she is."

His gaze lingers a beat too long when it lands back on me, voice dropping like he’s trying to sound careless but failing miserably. "You really gonna crawl around in the swamp with him, sweetheart? Thought you were the sensible one."

"She’s got layers," Silas pipes up, throwing an arm around my shoulders. "Corruptible layers."

Elias’s smirk falters, like something inside him stutters. He scratches the back of his neck, glancing away too quickly, and mutters under his breath, "I’m not jealous."

I roll my eyes, slipping out from under Silas’s arm. "No one said you were."

He snorts, turning away like he can shake it off. "I’m gonna go make popcorn. For when Ambrose murders you."

"Good," Silas calls after him. "You can sprinkle our ashes on it when we’re done."

I glance back at Elias, catching the way his gaze flicks back one last time, lingering at the curve of my mouth like he’s thinking too much. Always too much. And then Silas is tugging me out the door, barefoot and wild, into the damp, mud-slick night.

The Hollow stretches out beyond the village, sharp with the scent of wet stone and something older—something magic. The woods loom dark and watching, their branches curling like skeletal hands against the starless sky. The frogs are already singing, their voices rising in a discordant chorus that echoes across the field.

It’s ridiculous.

It’s stupid.

It’s the most alive I’ve felt in days.

Silas turns to me, net in hand, eyes bright as the swamp reflects in them like flame. "You ready, darling?"

I meet his grin, my own twisting sharp and wild.

"Let’s go ruin him."

The Hollow doesn’t sleep. Not really. It lulls, maybe—simmers. Waits. But even out here, beneath the moss-choked trees and silver-threaded sky, it breathes.

Silas walks ahead of me like he’s immune to the way this world watches, barefoot in the slick grass, net swinging from one hand like a banner of rebellion. The path narrows into marsh, the kind that swallows your ankles if you don’t move fast enough. Which, of course, Silas doesn’t. He wades straight into the muck with a delighted noise that’s too close to a giggle for comfort.

"Silas," I warn, already regretting this. "If something bites you, I’m not carrying you home."

He glances over his shoulder, a frog clutched delicately in one hand like a prize, his smile too wide. "You’d carry me. You’d cry over my limp, bitten corpse."

"You’d deserve it."

"Still." He tosses the frog gently into a mesh sack hanging from his belt. "You’d weep. Probably write poetry about me."

"I’d write your eulogy on the back of a dirty napkin and staple it to a tree."

He laughs—bright, reckless—and it ricochets off the trees like something holy. He squats low, mud squelching around his knees as he peers into the brackish water. "Come to Papa, you little swamp demons. I just wanna introduce you to a four-poster bed and a morally bankrupt raven-haired bastard."

I crouch beside him, dragging the net through the water. The frogs scatter, slick and fast, but one jumps straight into my palm like it’s choosing me. I hold it up between my fingers, and Silas whistles.

"That one’s majestic. Very regal. Has Ambrose energy."

I glance at the frog. It does look mildly disdainful. Like it’s already judging my life choices.