Page 35

Orin writes.

I flick my gaze to Caspian. “You.”

He doesn’t flinch. “Valeria. Blue eyes, liked knives. Had a collection bigger than Riven’s.”

“Lilith,” Riven adds from across the room, voice flat. “Gold hair. Mean as hell. Liked playing favorites.”

“She bonded to three of us, remember?” Elias grins, tapping the table. “She said it was efficiency.”

Caspian’s mouth tugs at the corner, but it doesn’t quite become a smile.

I rattle off my own, each name a weight I’ve carried without ever intending to. “Maris. Eira. Neris.”

Ambrose looks at me over the rim of his mug. “And Celine.”

My mouth tightens, but I nod.

Orin’s hand moves fast, the parchment filling with names, each one a mark against us. The numbers are climbing. Fast.

By the time we stop, there’s a list of forty-three names staring back at us, ink still wet, each one of them burned into all of us in ways we never wanted to admit.

And that’s not even half.

“That’s just the ones we can remember,” Ambrose says quietly, gaze fixed on the paper.

I nod once, throat tight. Because there are two hundred and twenty Sin Binders buried in this realm. And now we know—some of them aren’t buried at all.

“You remember when Selene tried to stab me because I brought the wrong flowers?” he says, voice almost casual, like he’s talking about the weather and not the fact that one of his ex-lovers tried to gut him over daisies.

Elias barks a laugh, shaking his head. “Wasn’t it because you brought her nightshade instead of roses?”

“She said she liked nightshade,” Silas mutters, affronted. “I thought it was romantic.”

“She also liked arsenic,” Caspian adds dryly, tracing his finger along the edge of the table like he’s cataloging every terrible decision we’ve made.

Riven snorts, and it’s almost a laugh. Almost. “Mirielle used to sneak into my room at night,” he says without looking up. “Not to see me. To steal my weapons.”

“She said you slept like a corpse,” Elias adds helpfully, grinning wide when Riven flips him off.

Ambrose, who’s been silent this entire time, finally speaks, voice low, almost fond. “Neris once convinced an entire village I was a god.”

Orin arches a brow without lifting his quill. “You let her?”

Ambrose’s mouth tilts in a rare smile. “She did it before I noticed. By the time I realized, they’d built a shrine.”

Elias whistles, leaning back in his chair. “That’s impressive.”

Riven gestures loosely. “She set the shrine on fire a week later.”

I shake my head, unable to stop the small, sharp smile that cuts across my face despite myself. “Lilith used to read our journal entries when we weren’t looking. She said it made her feel closer to us.”

“She carved one of them into her arm,” Orin adds without glancing up. “Yours, specifically.”

Silas groans, slumping dramatically over the table. “We are so fucked.”

“You forgot the best one,” Elias says, grinning like the bastard he is. “Amara used to bake those lemon cakes you liked, Lucien.”

I glance at him, brows lifting. “She did.”