Page 59

Finally, I speak. “I’ve read everything.”

Lucien’s jaw flexes, his gaze steady on the pond. “And?”

“And none of it will get us out,” I answer without softening it, because he doesn’t require softness.

His eyes flick to me now, sharp and knowing. “You think I don’t know that?”

I lean back against the rock beside him, resting my elbows on my knees. “You’re the one who asked me to keep looking.”

“That was before I realized how fucking circular this place is.” He scrubs a hand over his face, voice edged and brittle. “Branwen built this realm like a snare. She made sure there’d be no clean way out.”

“It’s not clean ways I’m looking for.” I tilt my head toward him. “But even snares can be broken.”

Lucien snorts under his breath, the sound dry and humorless. “You planning to brute force the Hollow itself, Vale?”

“Not brute force,” I murmur. “Precision.”

The wind shifts around us, carrying the faint, living magic of this cursed place. The Hollow is not just a prison—it’s alive. It breathes. It watches. It remembers.

“You know it’s listening,” Lucien says after a beat.

“I do.”

His gaze flickers again to the others, to Luna—always, always to her—and then back to me. “What’s your plan?”

I let the smile curve slow and dangerous at the edge of my mouth.

“I don’t have one yet. But I will.”

Lucien shakes his head, almost fond. “You’re worse than her.”

“Probably,” I agree easily, because I am.

Because I’m patient. Because I will burn this realm to ash piece by piece if I have to—but I’ll do it carefully, precisely, the way I’m courting her. And when I’m done, there won’t be a door the Hollow can hide behind.

When he speaks, his voice is quieter than usual, the words cut from glass. “What do you think’s going to happen when you bond with her?”

There it is. The real question is stitched beneath the one he asks:How much worse will it get for me?

I glance at him, the set of his jaw, the way his fingers curl like he’s fighting the instinct to break something. I don’t pity Lucien—not ever—but I understand the weight on him. It’s the same weight pressing against my ribcage every fucking day since we stepped into this graveyard of Sin Binders and ghosts.

And it’s heavier now that five of us are tethered to her.

I stretch my legs out in front of me, slow and deliberate, my voice like velvet scraping bone when I finally answer. “It will sharpen everything.”

Lucien’s gaze flickers to me now, sharp and dark and dangerous.

I don’t stop. “For me. For you. For all of us. She isn’t just a vessel anymore, Lucien. She’s the pulse in our veins. The longer we resist, the worse it’s going to get.”

His mouth presses into a hard line, but I can feel the question radiating from him like heat:And what about me?

So I give him what he wants without forcing him to ask. “When I bond her, you’ll feel it. Like a blade pressed to the back of your neck. You’ll want to finish it. That’s how the Hollow’s made us.”

Lucien’s lips curl, not quite a snarl, not quite a smile. “You sound so fucking sure.”

I huff a quiet laugh, dragging my gaze across the pond to where Silas is throwing himself off a half-formed platform into the water, Luna laughing so loud it carries on the wind. “I’m sure because I’ve spent centuries watching how this magic works. The Gods didn’t make mistakes when they crafted these bonds. They made traps.”

Lucien’s voice is razor-sharp when it cuts the air again. “And you’re so eager to walk into it?”