Page 99 of Evermore

“Yes. We should ask the owner,” he answered.

She smiled genuinely at the old man and it broke something inside of me. I loved that damn smile. The shine in her eyes, the whisper of wrinkles forming around her eyes. That smile broke me and mended me. Drowned me and revived me. If I was destined to lose everything in the Forgotten, that memory would be the one I clung to when everything else was gone.

She pulled the stolen scarf from her sleeve. The merchant’s eyes lit up at the sight of it. “Maybe you’d consider trading this very fine silk for those old glasses.”

“You would give me such a bargain?” the old man asked.

“Because you’ve been so kind,” she said, gently.

With the trade done, she slid the glasses back onto my face with a wink. “There. Problem solved.”

I arched an eyebrow as we walked away from the old man that threw the scarf over his own shoulders.

She shrugged, already wrapping herself in the shadow cloak. “He’s never going to remember it anyway.” Her fingers worked the clasp at her throat. “Besides, the last thing I need is you stumbling around this nightmare realm like a drunken fool because you can’t see. For fuck’s sake, what were you thinking?”

We moved deeper into the forgotten city, past vendors trading in lost memories and broken dreams. Ahead, a castle rose against the dark sky, its towers partially collapsed as if the stone had forgotten how to hold itself together. The fog rolled through the streets in thick waves, obscuring and revealing the wandering souls that called this place home.

I kept close to Paesha’s side, watching how she studied everything with those keen eyes. Even here she moved like she owned every shadow, every secret. But something felt wrong. The hair on the back of my neck stood up, and I caught a flicker of movement in my peripheral vision. Someone else was watching us too intently, moving when we moved, stopping when we stopped.

“Don’t look,” I murmured close to her ear. “But we’re being followed. About twenty paces back.”

The footsteps behind us grew closer. Without thinking, I grabbed her arm and pulled her into a narrow alley between two crumbling buildings. She started to protest, but I pressed my hand over her mouth, crowding her against the wall with my body. Her eyes went wide, but she didn’t fight me.

I could feel every inch where we touched, her chest rising and falling against mine, her breath warm against my palm, her fingers gripping my shirt as worried eyes stared into mine. My thumb brushed her cheek without my permission, and she made a small sound that nearly shattered my restraint.

“There’s only one,” I breathed against her ear. “They’ve been following since the bridge.”

She nodded. Her pulse raced beneath my fingers, matching the frantic beat of my own heart. When I finally lowered my hand from her mouth, it settled on her hip instead, keeping her pressed against the wall. For protection, I told myself. Nothing more.

“Thorne,” she whispered, and my name on her lips was almost my undoing.

The sound of footsteps passing the alley saved me from myself. But still, I couldn’t bring myself to step away, to break this moment of charged tension between us. Her fingers flexed against my chest, and I couldn’t tell if she meant to push me away or pull me closer.

“We should…” she started, then swallowed hard. “We should keep moving.”

“We should,” I agreed, but didn’t move.

Neither did she.

Until a familiar voice shattered the moment.

33

Paesha

He’d fallen further and further and further with every second I let him hold my hand. With every calculated step toward him. Each glance. I could see how much he wanted these moments to be real. He was desperate for them. For me. And maybe I was a little desperate for him too, but that wasn’t from my choosing. Simply my fate, it seemed. Bound to him as his Ever, but also destined to trap him here. He’d known his fate and still he let me guide him into a trap. Poor, poor god.

His thumb traced idle patterns on my hip, and I fought the urge to lean into his touch. In this moment, I couldn’t tell if it was me that wanted it, or the Remnants, or even the siren, luring her prey. This was dangerous. Not the stranger following us, but this manufactured intimacy, this pretense of protection that felt too much like possession. Like belonging.

Don’t forget what he is, Sylvie whispered, finally breaking her silence.What he’s done.

“Miss Paesha?”

The familiar voice shattered the tension like a stone through glass. I shoved Thorne away, my eyes finding the figure at the mouth of the alley. I could hardly believe it. Jasper. The whiplash of all my feelings for him came rushing back. Theburn of the flames from his poison. The capture by Ezra’s men. Ultimately, Harlow’s death at their hands. He was so, so guilty for so many things, but in his imprisonment, he wasn’t guilty at all. Just as I’d had no choice when Alastor made a command, neither did he. And the guilt must have eaten him alive.

He stood there, looking somehow both older and less substantial than when I’d last seen him, but it was undeniably him. Still tall, still round in the midsection, with a curly brown mustache. But the cherry red in the balls of his cheeks had gone. The gentle light in his eyes had vanished. There was no question as to how he got here, only fucking why.

“You banished him,” I snapped at Thorne, the Remnants responding to my fury, writhing beneath the cloak. “He didn’t have a choice in anything he did. He was bound to Ezra like Alastor bound me, and you threw him away like garbage.”