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Which is rich, coming from him. He’s the one who once tried to summon a god just to prank Orin.

I glance over my shoulder and grin. “That’s a bold claim. You were there when I tried to teach the chapel ghosts choreography.”

Elias snorts despite himself but doesn’t move. Doesn’t stop watching me like he’s memorizing every crack I might fall through.

Good. I want him to watch. Want them all to watch.

Because it’s not just about me looking like a dumbass—it’s about getting Lucien to stop brooding in the corner like he’s the broodiest bitch in the Hollow and actually do something.

I swing my leg over the edge, settling onto the broken stone like I’m the king of bad decisions.

“Alright,” I say, voice light, sing-song. “Here’s the plan.”

Elias groans like he already regrets being born into the same cursed bond as me. “This is not a plan.”

“It’s performance art.”

I gesture grandly to the abyss below, to the cracked marble floor of the cathedral far beneath us. “I fall. Lucien saves me. Luna’s forced to watch. She remembers he’s capable of something other than being an emotionally constipated bastard.”

Elias pinches the bridge of his nose. “You can’t die.”

“That’s the beauty of it!” I grin wider, leaning dangerously forward so the stone groans beneath me. “It’s all for show. He’ll think I’m about to die, he’ll dive in like the gallant jackass hesecretly is, and she’ll—” I make an explosion gesture near my heart “—start caring again.” He flips me off.

For Lucien. This is why I’m about to yeet myself off a ledge like a bargain bin martyr.

I push up to my feet, rolling my shoulders.

Elias mutters behind me, “If this actually works, I’m throwing myself off next.”

I glance back, grinning. “You’ll need to strip first. Really sell it.”

“Fuck off.”

The cathedral stretches yawning and empty beneath me, the fractured sanctum glowing faintly from the sigils still bleeding Hollow magic into the stones. Branwen’s echo haunts the corners, her curse lingering like cobwebs, but she’s dead and this place is dying and none of that matters—not if we can’t get her to come home.

I count to three.

Then I throw myself backward.

The fall is perfect.

Dramatic. Chaotic. My limbs flailing just enough to look uncoordinated but not enough that I’ll actually splatter across the marble.

I hear Elias’s voice echo down after me, sharp and delighted. “Oh no! Someone save our favorite disaster!”

The air screams past my ears, the marble floor rushing up to meet me, and—

There it is.

A crack of power.

Lucien’s.

It hits like a tidal wave, slamming against my spine, threads of Dominion wrapping tight around me mid-fall.

Of course, he catches me.

Of course, he does.