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“You were right to think it,” I cut in, standing again, brushing invisible dust off my coat. “I wasn’t supposed to come back. Which begs the question—who the fuck brought us here?”
No one answers.
Elias finally sits up, rubbing his temples. “If this is a group hangover, I just want to say I do not consent to shared pain anymore.”
Silas groans beside him. “I think I left my soul in the Hollow. Or maybe in the tavern. Hard to tell. Both had awful wine.”
I glance back at Luna. She’s still watching me. Not with hope. Not with relief.
With calculation.
Good. She’s learning.
“I suggest,” I say coolly, “we find shelter before Daemon decides to rebuild the dungeons first.”
She swallows, then nods. But the way she stands—the sway in her hips, the residual magic still clinging to her skin like a second skin—tells me one thing for certain.
This isn’t the Luna I left behind.
And that changes everything.
The house is exactly as we left it—gutted. Shattered glass embedded in the wood like splinters of memory. The smell of scorched magic still clings to the walls, thick and bitter. Caspian’s blood is dried in the cracks of the floorboards, andeven though it’s been weeks, it hasn’t faded. That’s the kind of mark pain leaves—the kind that clings, digs, settles.
I step through the wreckage like a ghost retracing his death.
Branwen made him fight me. No, made me fight him. She didn't need power to do it—she had leverage. She whispered Caspian’s name like a threat, dangled his life on the edge of my restraint, and when that wasn't enough, she made me watch as he unraveled. I still don’t know how much of what he said was her influence and how much was real. Maybe I don’t want to know.
Behind me, the door creaks and Riven enters like a weapon unsheathed. Tense. Coiled. He doesn't ask if I’m alright. He never would. He only ever asks the things that matter.
“What the fuck happened?” His voice is sharp, his boots grinding ash into the floor as he surveys the wreckage.
I don’t turn around. “How the fuck should I know?” I mutter. “Branwen kept me locked in a room with no windows and nothing but the sound of my own blood echoing in my ears. Then I was here. That’s all I’ve got.”
That’s not all. But I’m not ready to explain what it felt like to watch someone I once trusted look me in the eye and choose obedience over survival.
Luna’s voice cuts through the staleness, low and too even. “Where are the others?”
Her question shouldn’t crack anything in me. It does.
“Lucien? Orin? Caspian?” Her voice sharpens with each name.
And that’s when I know.
She thinks they’re still here. That she’s just misplaced them in the ruins like misfiled memories. She doesn’t realize what they’ve done. That they’re gone. Voluntarily.
Riven stiffens beside me.
I turn to face her. She’s standing between the crumbling walls like a goddess misplaced in a battlefield—fury, power, confusion.But her eyes—those goddamn eyes—still look for him. Still scan the doorway for Lucien’s broad shoulders, Orin’s stillness, Caspian’s easy smirk.
“They’re not coming,” I say.
Her breath catches. Just slightly. Just enough.
“What?” she asks, voice low.
“They’re not here,” I repeat. “And they won’t be.”
She blinks, shaking her head as if she can undo it by denial alone. “You’re wrong.”