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Riven’s head jerks up, something like alarm flashing through his expression. “That leads to the edge.”

The Hollow’s edge isn’t a boundary—it’s a graveyard. Nothing lives there. Nothing comes back.

“She’s not thinking clearly,” I say, voice tightening as I move forward, faster now. “She’s trying to disappear.”

Elias jogs up beside me, breath shallow, hair disheveled like he’s unraveling too. “If something happens to her—”

“It won’t,” I cut him off sharply, because I can’t let the alternative live inside me. Not tonight.

Silas bounds up next, quieter than usual, and that’s how I know how scared he is. He shoots Lucien a dirty glare but doesn’t waste the energy to speak.

We move together, faster now, like the world is closing in around us, and I know—every step we take, every moment she’s out here alone—it’s getting worse.

Because she’s not running anymore.

She’s vanishing.

The trail grows colder the farther we move into the woods. Every step deeper feels like walking into the mouth of something ancient and watching, something that’s been waiting for this very moment. The Hollow has always been predatory, but now it feels… anticipatory. Like it knows she’s running, knows how badly we want her back.

I glance at Silas when he jogs up beside me, his usual cocky grin wiped clean. There’s nothing light or chaotic about him now. He’s chewing the inside of his cheek raw, his hands fidgeting uselessly at his sides.

“Silas,” I say quietly, keeping my voice low so it doesn’t carry to the others. “Try her bond again.”

He jerks his head toward me, blinking like I just punched him. “I’ve been trying.”

“Try harder,” I murmur, because we’re running out of options. “Push.”

Silas hesitates for a breath, then nods once, like he’s about to dive into something sharp. His brows pinch together, mouth parting slightly, and I watch him reach for her in the way only he can—through that living pulse that ties them together. That thread that should be unbreakable.

Seconds stretch thin.

Silas’s expression tightens, and when he finally opens his eyes, there’s nothing playful left in them.

“She’s shut me out,” he says, voice scraping low. “I can’t feel her.”

The weight of it sinks heavy into my chest. Because for her to do that… she’d have to want to disappear from all of us. Completely. It’s not something done lightly, not something you do if you think there’s any chance of going back.

Lucien says nothing, standing a few paces away, arms crossed tightly over his chest. His jaw flexes, and I know without looking too closely that he’s spiraling. He caused this. We all know it. And yet none of us can afford to waste time tearing him apart for it when the damage is already done.

I blow out a breath, forcing my focus back to the ground, the broken leaves beneath my boots, the faint indentation of her steps disappearing into the wild. Ambrose doesn’t wait. He’s already moving again, relentless in the way only he can be.

“She doesn’t want to be found,” Silas mutters beside me, voice cracking despite the way he tries to swallow it down. “She shut me out, Orin.”

“She’s scared,” I say, and it tastes like something bitter in my mouth. “And right now, the only thing she believes is that we’re the monsters she’s running from.”

Lucien finally speaks, voice like razors. “She’s not wrong.”

No one argues with him.

Because right now, she isn’t.

I signal the others forward, and we move faster, the weight of her absence dragging behind us like a storm we can’t outrun.

Ambrose

She’s clever—too clever. She’s zigzagging through the woods like she thinks she can outsmart us, like she believes we won’t know every trick, every pattern. But she forgets I’m the one who taught her how to cover her tracks in the first place. Every subtle shift in the soil, every broken stem beneath her boots—I read it like scripture. She might’ve learned how to hide, but I learned how to hunt.

The others move behind me, but I don’t slow. I don’t need to. My eyes catch every scuff on the forest floor, every leaf turned wrong. She’s not just running. She’s spiraling. Desperate.