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My mouth twists, humorless. “I burned the last one. Thought you’d get the hint.”

She giggles. Actually giggles. It’s a sound that doesn’t belong here, in the crumbling, haunted edges of this world. And when her gaze slides back to Elias, her entire body sways toward him, as if he’s gravity and she’s powerless against it.

“You always ran so fast, Elias,” she croons, voice sugar-sweet and full of something unhinged. “I knew it was because you liked the chase.”

Silas groans quietly beside him, muttering, “We’re so fucked.”

I tilt my head lazily toward Elias, savoring the misery strung tight across his face. “She still has the hair doll of you, doesn’t she?”

He shoots me a look like he’s considering murder.

I smile slow and sharp. “Told you she’d find us eventually.”

Luna glances between us, brow pinched, sensing the sharpness in the air but not knowing why. Not yet.

Esmara’s gaze sharpens like a knife. She flicks her attention to the girl standing half-shielded in the doorway—Luna—and something unpleasant ripples through her smile. Her fingers twitch at her sides like she’s itching to tear the entire house down brick by brick.

“She’s pretty,” Esmara says finally, voice light, saccharine sweet, but sharp enough to draw blood.

Lucien steps forward, shoulders squared like a man preparing for war. His voice is smooth, clipped. “That’s Luna,” he says, and something dangerous coils beneath his words. “She’s our Sin Binder now.”

The air shifts.

Esmara’s brows knit, her head tilting like a doll’s, brittle confusion dancing across her features. “Your Sin Binder?” she repeats, eyes darting between all of us as if she’s trying to make the pieces fit, to rearrange a puzzle she never expected.

Her lips twist in a soft pout. “But… Silas and Elias told me they were married.”

My mouth curves, humorless, sharp. I glance sideways at Elias, who looks like he’s praying for death, and at Silas, who’s fighting the urge to bolt.

“I’d hardly call that a lie,” I murmur, voice dry as dust. “They’re practically married. Just not to each other.”

Esmara’s eyes narrow. “You’re all bonded to her?” She says it like the words don’t make sense, like they’re acid in her mouth.

Silas, to his credit—or his stupidity—grins, shoving his hands in his pockets. “It’s a modern thing. Very progressive.”

Elias coughs, muttering under his breath, “We’re a throuple now. A sextuple.”

Orin groans quietly beside me, pinching the bridge of his nose.

Esmara’s lips twitch, her smile splitting unnervingly wide. “How delightful,” she says. But her eyes never leave Luna, lingering too long, like she’s peeling her apart, thread by thread, looking for the seams.

Luna straightens beside Lucien, chin lifting. She doesn’t look away.

Good girl.

Lucien glances back at her once, then flicks his gaze to me. It’s subtle, a look that says,We have a problem.

And I already know—we all do. Because Esmara wasn’t just obsessed. She was possessive, territorial. She collected sins the way others collected flowers, but she never let anyone else touch her bouquet.

Now someone else is holding her favorite ones. And she looks like she’s one wrong word away from setting the entire Hollow on fire.

I smile, slow and sharp, letting the weight of it slide over her like a blade. “You’ll find,” I murmur, voice cutting through the air, “we’ve all moved on.”

But something in her stare tells me she hasn’t.

Orin steps forward. He’s the polite one. The soft voice, the one that sounds like reason, like an elder brother trying to soothe a wounded animal—but Esmara was never an animal. She’s always been something else entirely. Something that gnaws bone clean and smiles about it.

Orin’s voice is deliberate, smooth, careful in a way that should’ve been disarming. “Esmara,” he says, as if her name isn’t already a curse wrapped around all our throats. “You’ve traveled far. But you’re not welcome here.”