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And I know what she didn’t do.
“It’s not like he cares about me.” Luna says it flatly, kicking a loose stone across the path with more precision than emotion. It skips once, twice, then dies against the crooked edge of the courtyard wall, the echo dull in the after-rain hush.
I lean against the cracked archway, arms folded, watching her without really watching her. That’s the trick—don’t look too long. Don’t let it sink in. She’s radiant in that ruined way, the kind of beauty people bleed for, the kind that twists inside you until nothing feels right unless she’s in the room.
But she’s not mine to keep still. Not completely.
“It's not,” I say. My voice scrapes low, lazy. I’ve mastered the art of sounding like nothing gets under my skin. Even when everything fucking does. “But that doesn’t mean the rules aren’t there.”
She pauses, just enough stillness to feel the shift in the air. Her head tilts, sharp and deliberate, like a blade testing its edge. She doesn’t speak. Just waits.
“There are… rules,” I mutter, scrubbing a hand down my face like it’ll clear the taste of this out of my mouth. “Written into us. Etched into the bones of what we are. Doesn’t matter if we’re bonded or not—when a sin binder enters the picture, somethingshifts.We can’t touch anyone else.”
Her brows furrow, a flicker of disbelief breaking through the practiced calm. “Ambrose obviously just did.”
“Yeah.” I push off the wall, stepping toward her slowly, boots crunching over wet stone. “But we left before the good part.”
She blinks. “The part where he threw her off?”
I nod once. “He has to. It’s not a choice. Not for any of us. Once you're here, once youexistthe way you do, the rest of us—no matter how far we try to run, how clever we think we are—it’s written into the marrow. Touching someone else? It burns.”
Her eyes narrow. “Then why did he let her kiss him?”
And there it is.
The real question.
I don’t answer right away. Because the truth is complicated. Feral. Vicious in the way all of us are. Because we’re sins. Because we were never supposed to be tamed.
“Because Ambrose likes to burn,” I say finally. “He’s trying to fight it. The bond. The inevitability. He doesn’t want you to be the exception, Luna. He wants you to be the failure point.”
Her breath hitches, just slightly. I hate that I hear it.
“But it won’t work,” I add, softer now. “Itneverworks. You’re already under our skin. And you’re not going anywhere.”
She looks at me then. Really looks. The kind of gaze that peels you apart and sees the raw pieces you thought you’d buried under a lifetime of sarcasm and shadows.
“You didn’t fight it,” she says.
“No.” I reach out, brushing her knuckles with mine, barely a touch. “I couldn’t. Still can’t.”
She sways closer without meaning to, her body pulled to mine like gravity’s got a personal grudge. The bond between us hums—a livewire we walk every damn day, pretending we don’t feel it, pretending it’s not the only real thing in this place built on lies.
“I didn’t want you to,” she whispers.
“I know.” I smile, slow and dark. “But you’re not allowed to tell the others. I’ve got a reputation to maintain.”
She smirks, and it’s sharp enough to slice me open.
And still, I lean in.
Because if I’m going to burn—I want it to be by her hands.
I fumble through the folds of my coat like a man on the verge of cardiac arrest, patting one pocket, then another, ignoring the way Luna’s watching me like I’m about to pull out a dead rat or something equally on-brand.
“Hang on,” I mutter, biting my lower lip in theatrical concentration. “I know I had some—ah-ha!”
Plastic crinkles in triumph as I yank a half-squished breath mint from the depths of my coat. Not the freshest, but in this house of gods and monsters, we take what we can get. I unwrap it with ceremony, pop it into my mouth, and let it dissolve slow on my tongue as I turn to face her.