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Lucien doesn’t even react. Just turns and keeps moving like he can’t believe he’s still breathing the same air as us. I fall in beside him, glancing at the trail ahead, my pulse in my throat.

Because the humor is dying fast. Because I know we’re laughing now—but if we don’t find her soon, none of us will be.

Silas is losing it.

I mean, he’s always losing it, but this? This is another level entirely.

We’re cutting through the trees like hounds chasing a ghost, and I can feel it—the edge creeping into all of us. Caspian’s lips are pressed tight, Riven’s jaw flexes every time a branch snaps underfoot, Lucien is strung tighter than I’ve ever seen him, and Ambrose, well, he looks like he’s calculating how to burn the entire forest down if it gets her back.

But Silas… Silas is flailing wildly between panic and something far worse.

He cups his hands around his mouth and shouts into the trees, “Luna! You owe me for saving you from that bat swarm, you can’t ghost me now! I brought you a present—Orin’s very serious, very sage-like abs. They’re limited edition, sweetheart, one-night offer.”

There’s no answer. No flutter of her presence brushing against my mind, no thrum in the bond. It’s nothing. Like she’s fallen off the edge of this cursed world.

Silas spins, manic energy bleeding off him in waves. “She’s close. I know it. We’ve gotta sweeten the deal.”

He turns on us, eyes glittering like a man possessed. “All right, you assholes, shirts off. It’s the only way.”

I blink at him. “You want us to what?”

“Do I stutter, Elias? You—” he jabs a finger at me, then Ambrose, then Caspian, then Riven, “—all of you. Off. Now. If one set of abs isn’t enough bait, maybe an entire buffet will be.”

Caspian groans, dragging a hand down his face. “It’s freezing.”

“Exactly!” Silas shouts, wild grin spreading. “That’s how she’ll know we’re serious.”

Riven mutters something about how we’ve all lost our minds, but he’s already peeling off his shirt.

Ambrose, predictably, doesn’t argue, just scowls and shrugs his off like he’s done this a thousand times in darker ways. Caspian follows, quiet, wary, but compliant.

Silas beams, clapping his hands like a lunatic. “There. Now if she doesn’t come out, she’s legally blind.”

He looks to me expectantly.

I lift a brow. “This is insane.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Silas grins, then lowers his voice, almost serious beneath the absurdity. “She’ll think we’re not looking hard enough, that she doesn’t matter enough to freeze our asses off and humiliate ourselves.”

That lands sharp in my chest, slicing under all the ridiculousness.

So, fine. I drag my shirt over my head and toss it to the dirt like the others.

The cold hits immediately, biting, brutal—but it doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is the way Silas yells again, voice cracking as he cups his mouth once more.

“Luna! Come out and touch us! It’s a full Sin Binder abs sale and you’re the only customer, sweetheart.”

Nothing.

No flicker of her laugh, no glimmer of magic on the horizon.

Silas’s voice quiets, desperation threading through the chaos. “Please.”

We keep moving, bare-chested, wild, ridiculous, gods of death stripped down and begging the girl who doesn’t even know how much she owns us.

We step into the courtyard like a war party who’s lost the plot—shirts slung over shoulders, boots caked in mud, and Silas already cupping his hands around his mouth like a lunatic bard.

"Sweetheart! Come on out! You’re missing a very exclusive, very sinful ab show!"