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This isn’t resolution.
This is the beginning of the next fracture.
And I intend to let it burn.
Elias
We follow like we always do—silent hounds on the scent of something vile.
Ambrose doesn’t bleed, not like the rest of us. He fractures in quiet ways, in mirrored surfaces and low, cutting remarks that only make sense days later. But he’s been off. Meaner. More withdrawn. And I knew, the moment I saw that dark shade of regret trailing in behind the Council’s self-important robes, why.
Keira.
Of course it’s fucking Keira.
Silas makes a sound beside me that’s somewhere between a sigh and a growl, and Luna stiffens between us. She’s close enough that I can feel the warmth of her arm brushing mine as we crouch behind a crumbling courtyard wall, spying on what should probably be a private reunion.
Except Ambrose forfeited the right to privacy the second he got emotionally compromised. That shit’s dangerous in our line of… whatever the hell this is now. War? Apocalypse? A cosmic love triangle with a body count?
“Is that her?” Luna whispers.
Her voice isn’t sharp. It’s soft, curious. But there’s an edge under it. A quiet, unsettled hum. And I don’t blame her.
Keira doesn’t justexistin a space. Sheinfectsit. That’s how it always was with her. The kind of pretty that makes you forgetyour common sense. The kind of power that makes the world tilt when she walks.
I glance down at Luna, her brows drawn, eyes narrowed like she’s trying to read a language she was never taught. She doesn’t know who Keira is, not really. Not yet.
But she knows enough.
“Yep,” I say, keeping my voice dry. “That’s the walking trauma spiral we don’t mention before sunrise.”
Silas chuckles. “She’s the reason Ambrose nearly blew the wine cellar apart last spring.”
“Not thegoodwine cellar,” I mock-gasp.
“The one with the 1802 Bordeaux.”
“Fucking tragedy.”
Luna shifts her weight, and I know that move. It’s not discomfort—it’s observation. She’s filing this away, piecing it together. Ambrose’s tension. The stilted body language. The way Keira tilts her head just enough to sayI still own part of you.
And Ambrose? He lets her talk.
That’s what kills me. Helistensto her. After everything.
He hasn’t looked at Luna once since they walked in. Not that he ever gives much away. But his silence now is too deliberate. Too cutting.
Luna leans closer to the crack in the stone, her fingers brushing mine on the edge of the wall. She doesn’t notice. But I do.
Always do.
“What happened between them?” she asks, quieter now.
Silas opens his mouth—I jab him in the ribs before he can start with some joke about knives and orgasms.
“It’s Ambrose,” I murmur. “He doesn’t do love. He does strategy. But with her? He tried. Gave her the soft parts. And she tore them up like they were notes she didn’t like the tune of.”
Luna’s eyes darken. Not with jealousy. Not even hurt. Just this slow, soul-deep kind ofunderstanding. She gets it. The weight of betrayal. The stain it leaves behind.