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And then I say the thing that almost kills me. The thing I shouldn’t need to say but do.

"I shouldn’t have said what I said to you. I didn’t mean it. I’ve never meant it."

The weight of it presses down on me like an executioner’s hand.

"If you don’t want to come back for me," I add, "fine. But don’t punish them because of me."

Her stare is unflinching. The silence between us isn’t empty—it’s full of all the things I never wanted to admit. The way she terrifies me. The way she makes me hesitate. The way she’s the only one who has ever made me want to be good.

Her voice lands like a lash across my spine, deceptively calm but vicious in the way only truth can be.

“No,” she says, and there’s nothing uncertain about it. “You don’t get to say this now like it fixes anything. You’ve never wanted me here—not from the second I walked through those academy doors. You made sure I knew it.”

Her eyes pin me in place, sharp and cold, and it’s not the first time she’s looked at me like I’m a disease she regrets catching, but it’s the first time it cuts all the way through.

“You don’t get to tear someone down piece by piece and then expect them to crawl back to you because you suddenly feel guilty.”

I keep my expression blank. She’s always hated that about me, how little I give away. But inside, every word is a blade twisting deeper.

“I don’t need you to like me, Lucien,” she goes on, voice low but relentless. “You’ve made it clear you don’t. But I won’t keep living in a house where I have to second-guess every breath, wondering when you’ll look at me like I don’t belong.”

She crosses her arms, not in defense, but to hold herself together. Like if she doesn’t, she’ll shatter.

“And maybe the others can pretend you’re not like this, but I’m done pretending. I won’t live with someone who makes me feel like I have to shrink myself to survive.”

I take a step toward her, carefully measured, like she’s a blade pressed to my throat. “You don’t have to shrink yourself.”

Her laugh is sharp and bitter, scraping down my spine. “That’s the problem. You don’t want me to shrink—you want me gone.”

I open my mouth, but she cuts me off before I can speak.

“I don’t need an apology,” she says, and it’s a blade to the chest, the way she spits it like poison. “I don’t even need you to like me. But I’m not going to keep bleeding myself dry trying to prove to you that I deserve to be here.”

Her words hang between us, heavier than any weapon. Because everything she’s saying is right.

And worse—it’s everything I’ve made her believe.

Before I can stop myself, the words tear out of me, low and sharp. “You deserve to be here.”

Her eyes flick up, guarded, unbelieving.

“But I can’t give you what you want from me,” I admit, the words like glass in my throat. “I don’t know how.”

She shakes her head once, a small, fractured motion. “I never asked you to.”

I want to tell her she’s wrong. That from the second she walked into my world, she’s asked everything from me without knowing it. But I don’t. Because she’s right. I’ve never made her feel like she belonged. And now, I’m the reason she’s standing in front of me like a stranger, telling me she’s done.

My stomach twists, and for the first time in centuries, I don’t know how to fix this.

She turns before I can say anything else, walking back toward the others without waiting for me to follow.

And I let her.

Because every instinct I have is screaming at me to drag her back—to force her to look at me, to listen—but I know if I do, I’ll lose her completely. And I can’t afford that. Not when the entire world might fall apart because of it.

Silas paces in front of me, hands shoved into his pockets like he’s trying to hold himself together with sheer will. His mouth twists into something sharp, dangerous—because Silas isn’t good at hiding when he’s pissed. He’s never had to be.

“So?” His voice cuts through the cathedral’s echo like a blade. “Did you fix it?”