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LIORA

T he in-between is colder tonight.

Even with all the shadows at my feet, even with magic dripping off me like condensation off glass, I can’t stop shivering.

This place exists outside time, outside places mortals can name. It’s a veil between moments, between thoughts, stitched from memory and nightmare and the blood spilled on the seams of other realms. I’ve come here since I was old enough to pull apart the edges of this world. When hiding was survival. When escape was the only magic I knew.

And right now I’m hiding again. Like a coward.

The air tastes like ash and frost. Familiar. Claustrophobic. My shadows hug my shoulders, my ribs, trying to hold me together. But even here, he finds me.

Seraphiel.

His voice wraps around my spine like silk soaked in venom. I don’t see him. I never have to. He’s everywhere in this place. The air bends to him. The dark sings with him.

Mine.

The whisper scrapes across my skull.

You feel it now, don’t you, little star? That shift in your blood. That awakening. He touched you. Stirred it.

I clench my fists until the runes burn on my skin.

“Shut up.”

You burn so sweetly when you lie to yourself.

“ I said shut up! ”

My scream echoes, swallowed immediately by the hush of this half-realm. Like even the void knows better than to anger him.

But it’s too late. He’s already inside again. He’s always inside.

I drop to my knees, fingers digging into the ethereal ground, if it can even be called that. My power bubbles under my skin, thick and heavy, begging to be used. It wants out. It wants to answer him.

No.

Not here. Not now. Not ever.

I take a deep breath, trying to slow the tremor in my hands. And that’s when I feel it. The bond.

Him.

A jolt shoots through my chest, sharp and sudden, like someone punched a live wire into my ribs.

Dante.

He’s hurt.

Not just scraped or bruised— wounded. Bleeding. In pain.

I feel it radiate down the thread between us, that strange, stupid, sacred thread neither of us asked for but exists all the same. His pain wraps around my lungs, squeezing, and my whole body leans forward instinctively like it’s ready to move, to find him, to?—

No.

“No,” I whisper, clutching at my chest like I can claw the ache out. “No, no, no—he’s already in this because of me.”

I force my legs to stay folded beneath me, not rising.

If I go to him, I’ll lead them straight to him. To the one person who’s seen me without my glamor, who’s touched the raw power beneath my skin and didn’t flinch. The one person who might make me want to live, not just survive.

But if Seraphiel’s enforcers find him again because of me?—

I choke on a sob, curling tighter.

I can’t let that happen. Even if it kills me to stay away. Even if I feel like I’m being ripped in half .

He’ll come to you, Seraphiel whispers, like he knows I’m unraveling. He can’t help himself now. He’s tied. Entwined. You opened that door, and now you’ll both drown in it.

“Then drown me,” I snap, breathless. “But leave him the hell alone.”

Laughter hums through the void like the rattle of chains.

I press my palms to the ground. My magic spikes, shadows bleeding out from me in tendrils. The runes twist along my skin, shifting with the surge of energy.

I can’t contain it much longer.

Not here. Not in the in-between.

And gods, it hurts —this holding back. The bond. The burning. The way Dante’s pain threads through me like a song I can’t silence. I want to go to him. Wrap around him like the night and promise I’ll make it stop.

But I don’t because I’m the reason he’s bleeding. And Seraphiel was right about one thing: I am changing.

Something inside me is stretching awake. Something that’s been sleeping since the day I was born in a circle of bone and stolen light. It stirred when Dante touched me. It howled when he kissed me.

And now? Now it wants everything. But I can’t afford that. Not if it means destroying the one person who looked at me and didn’t see a weapon. He saw Liora. He said my name like it wasn’t cursed. Like it was worth something.

I press my forehead to the ground, shadows curling protectively around me, sealing me in. And I do the only thing I can. I wait.

And pray to gods I stopped believing in long ago that he survives whatever they just did to him.