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Luna steps closer. Her hand grazes my chest, right over the ink that marks my ribs. The bondsingsbetween us now—soft, steady, anchored.
“I don’t want to be your sanctuary if it means watching you drown,” she says. “I want toswim with you.”
I choke on a laugh that’s half a groan. “Luna, gods, don’t say things like that.”
“Why?” Her hand drifts lower, fingers tracing the line of ink that disappears under my shirt. “Because you’ll start thinking I actually like you?”
“No.” I meet her gaze again. “Because I’ll believe you.”
We stay like that—too close, the air between us humming with all the things we haven’t said yet—until a door slams in the distance and Silas yells something about pants being optional during training.
I don’t move.
Neither does she.
Eventually, she leans in and presses her forehead to mine. “So if I am a sanctuary,” she whispers, “what happens if I break?”
And I don’t have an answer.
Because that’s what keeps me up at night too.
Her fingers twitch, just slightly, as I speak—but it’s enough to make my skin crawl in response. That’s the thing with us, with this bond. It doesn’t just tie us together. Itsyncsus. One pulse, one twitch, one stuttered breath—and we feel it echo like aftershocks in a system already fractured.
The edges of the broken stone still shimmer faintly with whatever old magic once tried to hold us in. Notusspecifically. But Sins like us. Versions of us, too dangerous to be let loose.
And now she stands in the middle of it.
A girl.
A goddess.
A vessel holding all of us—andleaking.
“I need you to listen,” I say, quieter now. No jokes. No grin. Just me, stripped down to the marrow of what I am. “This place—it didn’t just hold magic. Itcontained us.The pillar, the stone, the fucking air—it was all designed to suppress what we are. Because without suppression… we leak.”
She frowns, stepping closer. “You keep saying that. Like I’m a sponge.”
“You’re not. You’re a dam.” I meet her gaze, willing her to feel the gravity in my words. “And when a dam cracks, it doesn’t justspill.Itdevours.”
She exhales through her nose. “So you think I’m cracked?”
“Iknowyou are.” There’s no cruelty in it. No accusation. Just fact. “Wrath slipped out of you three nights ago. Burned a girl’s dress off just because she looked at me.”
“That wasn’t wrath,” she mutters. “That was a bad attitude.”
I arch a brow. “You set herhemon fire.”
Her lips twitch, almost a smile. “She got too close.”
Gods. She’sadorablewhen she’s feral.
I shake it off. “You leaked envy the week before that. Silas couldn’t move for two hours. Said he felt like someone had sucked all the good things out of him. Even his abs.”
“Blasphemy.”
“Exactly. But you see what I mean?” I step into her space now, until there’s barely a breath between us. “You’re not just bonded to us, Luna. You’rehousingus. And housing a Sin means sometimes… the walls bleed.”
She tilts her chin, stubborn and curious and far too brave. “What happened the last time you weren’t housed?”