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The others catch up, breathless, restless, strung tight on the knowledge that she’s out here and we can’t see her. And Lucien, for once, doesn’t bother hiding the way he shatters.

“She ran because of me.”

Every head turns.

Lucien doesn’t look at us. He looks at the ground like it might swallow him whole. His voice is flat, devoid of that Dominion pull he always drapes over his words. “I said things I shouldn’t have.”

Silas, wild and raw, scrubs a hand down his face. “You what?”

“I told her she didn’t belong here. That none of us wanted her.” Lucien’s gaze flicks to mine, razor sharp and unapologetically brutal. “I made her leave.”

The air shifts, heavy with something sharp and bitter.

“You’re a fucking idiot,” Elias says, but there’s no snark in it. Just exhaustion, disappointment. His eyes flick to me. “What do we do?”

“We keep going,” I say, already moving again. “Because she’s out here alone, and this place will swallow her if we don’t find her first.”

Riven moves beside me, his face carved in stone. “You think she wants to be found?”

I glance at him, at the Hollow stretching endlessly ahead of us, and I know the truth of it.

“She doesn’t.”

But we’re going to find her anyway. Her trail is easy enough to follow at first, but I already know she’s getting smarter the deeper she goes. The soft impressions of her boots in the moss, the broken twigs underfoot, they get lighter, more deliberate.

Ambrose stalks ahead of me like a blade unsheathed, cold and purposeful. Riven walks to my left, his gaze sharp, jaw clenched so tight I can feel it vibrate in the air around him. Behind us, Elias and Silas trail a step behind, arguing under their breath but too restless to mean it. Caspian’s further back, quieter than the rest of us, his eyes flicking to every shadow like the monsters in the Hollow might crawl out and finish what Lucien started.

Riven finally breaks the quiet, voice rough. “She covered her tracks here.”

I crouch beside him, studying the ground. Sure enough, the footprints scatter and vanish. Her magic threads faintly here, that same stubborn spark that’s always humming beneath her skin. She used it. She’s cleverer than we ever gave her credit for.

“She doesn’t want to be found,” Riven mutters, and there’s something hollow in his voice when he says it.

“She’s trying to survive,” I answer evenly, because someone needs to say it out loud. “Because someone made her believe she wasn’t wanted.”

That gets a sharp, venomous glance from Lucien, but he doesn’t defend himself this time. Doesn’t even try.

Silas pipes up then, tossing a small rock into the darkness like it’s a grenade. “She’s not a fucking rabbit, Lucien. She’s not prey you can hunt down and rip apart. And you might be the smartest one here, but you’re a goddamn idiot if you don’t know why she left.”

Ambrose straightens, his voice cutting like glass. “Save the lecture for later. She’s bleeding.”

Elias, for once, doesn’t crack a joke. He glances at me, something uneasy flickering in his dark eyes. “The Hollow’s watching.”

I feel it, too. That hum beneath the branches, like the entire place is holding its breath.

Lucien’s footsteps slow until he falls beside me, quiet. He waits until the others surge ahead, until it’s just us moving side by side.

“I didn’t mean to—” he starts.

I cut him off with a glance. “You meant every word.” I stop walking, turning to face him fully, letting my voice lower to something dangerous, deliberate. “You don’t get to break her and then decide you didn’t mean it. Whatever you said back there, you shattered something. And you better hope to the gods she lets you fix it.”

“I didn’t think she’d leave.”

None of us did. We underestimated her. Again.

I turn away from him, already moving back toward the trail. Ambrose is crouched up ahead, pointing to a thread of fabric snagged on a thorn bush.

“She went north,” Ambrose says quietly.