Page 13 of The Sin Binder's (The Seven Sins Academy #4)

Silas is ahead of me, striding through the school corridor like we’re storming a goddamn hostage situation. One hand up to his mouth, the other pointed at nothing in particular, his voice low and serious as he speaks into the imaginary walkie talkie pressed to his lips.

“Copy that, Eagle One. Target is in sight. Operation Bad Bitch is greenlit.”

I don’t even try to stop him.

I just shove my hands in my coat pockets and follow at a pace that says I’ve done this before and I’ll probably survive it again. Which, statistically speaking, is true. Silas’s plans usually only end with minor concussions and once—once—a temporary tail. We don’t talk about the tail.

“You’re not even on a team,”

I say lazily, because I know he wants me to say something, and I’m trying to preempt whatever cringe nonsense is loading behind his teeth.

Silas stops, spins, walks backward while keeping the imaginary radio pressed to his mouth like he's in a Mission: Impossible reboot no one asked for. “Negative, BigMeatEnergy, you’re my man in the chair. Eyes on me. Stay frosty.”

“I’m never frosty. I’m lukewarm at best.”

“Lukewarm is the new lethal.”

“I’m begging you to stop.”

He grins like the unholy menace he is, and keeps walking, this time with exaggerated tiptoe steps like we’re not in a building that’s been abandoned for months and echoing with every goddamn breath.

And yet... I don’t stop him.

Because his chaos fills the space in a way nothing else does. It distracts from how quiet Caspian’s gotten. How haunted Luna’s eyes are when she thinks no one’s watching. From the heaviness in Riven’s jaw when he’s trying not to snap at shadows.

Silas makes noise. Noise means we’re still here.

I round the corner and catch sight of Luna just ahead, her back to me, standing beside Ambrose, who's doing his best brooding gargoyle impression. She turns slightly, and that single glance—half a second, no more—hits me like static.

Every. Damn. Time.

I clear my throat and look away before she can catch me looking too long. Again.

And Silas? He’s now mid-crouch, still holding the fake walkie, making helicopter noises with his mouth.

This is my life.

This. Right here.

I sigh and mutter under my breath, “We’re all gonna die.”

From up ahead, Silas shouts, “Correction! We’re gonna die sexy.”

And Luna laughs—this low, genuine sound that wrecks the breath right out of me.

So yeah. I follow.

Silas hurls himself into the hallway like he’s been launched from a catapult, landing with a skid and throwing one arm out to block our path like he’s the final line of defense in a war we never signed up for. His other hand lifts in slow motion, fingers cocked, thumb raised. Fingerguns. His eyes narrow at me like we’re locked in some sacred, ancient standoff.

I stare at him. Flat. Unmoved. Every inch of me screaming, I will not give you the satisfaction.

He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t blink. The standoff stretches, his arm still outstretched like he’s a damn security laser, waiting for me to trip the beam. My mouth parts to tell him he looks like a hallucination no one asked for, when—

Luna barrels in from behind, drops to the floor in a rolling somersault that’s somehow even more dramatic than his. She pops up beside him with matching fingerguns aimed directly at me, her grin unrepentant, chaotic, unhinged in the way that makes my ribcage tighten and my soul short-circuit.

My brain stops.

Not because she did it. No. Because she committed. Luna always commits. There’s no halfway with her, not even when she’s mimicking Silas’s dumbass moves like she’s auditioning for a supernatural Bond film where the lead wears smudged eyeliner and starts wars with her smile.

Luna raises her eyebrows and flicks her wrists, mock-blasting me with her imaginary guns. “Pew pew, bitch.”

I close my eyes for half a second, long enough to recalibrate my sense of reality. When I open them, they’re still frozen like two idiots mid-scene, both of them waiting for my grand reaction. My deadpan is a skill honed from years of being the only sane person in a room full of feral energy.

I nod slowly. “You’re both banned from caffeine. Effective immediately.”

Silas gasps, clutching his chest. “You wound me.”

Luna steps forward, eyes gleaming, that troublemaker smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. “You love it.”

I should walk past them. Be the adult. But instead, I take two slow steps forward, raise one finger, and poke Silas in the forehead.

“Tag,”

I say, “you’re stupid.”

He wails like he’s been mortally wounded and collapses against Luna’s shoulder. She holds him up while laughing, and it’s that sound—hers—that ruins me.

I look away again before it can crack deeper.

Ambrose’s shadow looms in the next corridor, Caspian still walks like something’s chasing him in his own skull, and Riven’s already ahead, pressing his hand against the warded door like he’s daring it to open or fight back.

But here, in this second, with Silas being a dumbass and Luna looking at me like I hung the moon crooked on purpose... it feels alive. Real. Like the world hasn’t crumbled just yet.

Silas is crouched like a gremlin in the center of the hallway, eyes locked on Caspian with the feral energy of someone who hasn’t slept and probably shouldn’t be trusted with sharp objects. He’s whispering—well, “psst”-ing with all the subtlety of a dying raccoon—as he waves his hands like he’s guiding a goddamn airstrike.

“Caspian,”

he hisses. “Cass. Casspapi. Come on, man. For the drama.”

Caspian doesn’t move. He just stands there with his hands stuffed in his coat pockets, one eyebrow arched in that infuriatingly elegant way that says *I’ve survived horrors you can’t imagine, and now I have to deal with this. He shifts his gaze to me for a moment, a silent plea that says do something.

I don’t. Because I’m the kind of friend who watches the world burn and hands out marshmallows.

Silas is now on his knees. Literally on his knees, hands clasped, begging like Cass is the high priest of cool and he’s here to offer up his soul in exchange for one single barrel roll.

“Please,”

Silas whispers. “Do it for the gods. Do it for your ass. Do it for me.”

Cass closes his eyes, exhales slowly through his nose like he’s meditating through trauma. Then he groans. Loudly. Like his soul is being peeled from his bones. He glances over his shoulder once, mutters something under his breath—probably a prayer or a death wish—and then drops to the floor.

The roll is… beautiful. Fluid. Graceful. Somehow sexy, which is the most Caspian thing ever. Even his barrel rolls have sex appeal.

Silas gasps like it’s Christmas and his birthday and maybe the end of the world all rolled into one. “Yes! That’s what I’m talking about! That’s the kind of commitment I need in this team!”

I clap. Slowly. Deadpan.

Cass rises to his feet like a man who’s just committed a crime against his own dignity, brushing dust off his sleeves without meeting anyone’s eyes. “I hate myself,” he says.

“You should,”

I reply. “But that roll? Ten out of ten. Would watch again.”

Luna’s laughing—quiet but sharp. It cuts under my skin, in a good way. She’s biting her bottom lip to keep it in, watching the chaos unfold with that particular brand of fond exasperation she reserves just for us. For this.

Even Riven, who's still analyzing the door like he’s preparing to dismantle it atom by atom, pauses to glance over with a look that says What the actual fuck is wrong with you all? before returning to the ward. Ambrose doesn’t even bother acknowledging it. He’s leaning against the wall like a bored prince waiting for the world to catch up, but I see it—the flicker of his lips, the amusement he pretends not to feel.

Silas spins toward Luna, arms raised like he’s announcing the second coming. “Your team is ready, Captain Hotpants.”

Luna rolls her eyes. “If you barrel roll through the door, I’m leaving you in whatever magical trap it sets off.”

Silas bows with dramatic flair. “Worth it.”

I just keep walking, hands in my pockets, grin ghosting on my face. Because I’m not saying it—but yeah. This? This is how I survive the madness. One dumbass barrel roll at a time.

Blackwell’s office was supposed to be warded like the jaws of hell. Traps. Curses. Alarms that screamed bloody murder in fourteen different languages. That’s what I was promised when Ambrose pitched this little midnight field trip. What I got instead? A cracked door, half-lit hallways, and a creeping disappointment that’s beginning to gnaw at the edges of my mood like a feral rat with commitment issues.

Riven gestures us forward with two fingers, sharp and silent, like he’s still expecting a blast of defensive magic to rip his arm off. His power’s humming—low and restless—but the wards haven’t so much as hissed at us. We slip through the chapel corridor one by one, all dramatic and ready for chaos, and the damn place is... quiet.

Too quiet.

Silas bumps into me on purpose and grins like a lunatic. “Hey,”

he whispers, “what if the reason Blackwell hasn’t come back is ‘cause he’s dead? Or possessed. Ooooh. Do you think he exploded? That would be a super fun twist.”

“Or maybe he just has better things to do than babysit a bunch of cursed immortals who don’t know how to behave in a library,”

I mutter, sidestepping him. “Unlike some people.”

Silas winks. “You wound me, Eli.”

“I hope so.”

I shove my hands back in my pockets, kicking a loose tile that shifts under my boot. I’ve never liked Blackwell. Too clean, too polished, like everything about him was designed to put people at ease—and that’s what made him dangerous. He wasn’t powerful like Orin or vicious like Ambrose. He was quietly competent, which in our world meant he was the kind of man who'd already buried bodies by the time you realized you were bleeding.

He was placed here by the Council, that much we all knew. His allegiance was never to us, not really. He didn’t teach. He watched. Listened. Reported. Always standing just close enough to be useful, never close enough to trust. And now? He's been gone too long. Long enough that even the fearless are asking questions.

“Why didn’t we just send Ambrose in?”

I ask no one in particular. “This reeks of a solo mission.”

Luna glances over her shoulder. “Because you didn’t have anything better to do.”

“Lies,”

I say. “I had a hot date with unconsciousness. She’s soft, she doesn’t talk, and she smells like chamomile.”

“You don’t even like chamomile,”

she says, and there's that twitch at the corner of her mouth. I watch for it, always. She never laughs the way Silas does, but when she wants to—when she almost does—it’s better than any actual punchline.

Riven pauses in front of the carved wooden doors that lead into Blackwell’s inner sanctum. His hand lifts, not to touch it, but to hover. Test. Sense. The air crackles faintly under his palm, a residual hum that suggests something was here—but isn’t anymore.

“Well?”

I ask. “Are we about to get cursed, or is this another wild goose chase brought to you by insomnia and boredom?”

He looks over at Luna, then back at the door. “It’s clean. Too clean.”

“Cool. So definitely cursed,”

I mutter. “Glad I wore my least flammable hoodie.”

She steps up beside me, her presence brushing against my shoulder like a warm, chaotic storm barely held in check. “Stop complaining. You were the one who said you wanted more excitement.”

“I meant like… a fistfight. Or sex on the roof. Not a Scooby-Doo mystery with ghost traps.”

Silas snorts behind me, and I hear Caspian murmur, “I’d actually pay to watch you try and have sex on a roof. The logistics alone…”

I sigh. Loudly. “Why do I even hang out with any of you?”

Riven’s fingers barely graze the chapel door before it convulses under his touch—groaning, splintering, and exhaling a moan like something ancient waking from a too-long sleep. And then all hell breaks loose.

The door doesn’t open. It ruptures. Not like wood, not like matter, but like a veil that’s been torn wide. The air buckles. The ground stutters beneath our feet. And the hallway erupts in a cold rush of screaming.

Not people. Ghosts.

Dozens—maybe more—spiraling out of the fractured doorway in a violent torrent, each one a blur of hollow eyes and clawed regret. They aren’t just ghosts. They’re echoes. Dead things caught in a loop, reliving their ends. Bleeding magic. Shrieking through the air in a fury of limbs and half-formed memories.

“Fucking—what the hell, Riven?”

I bark, stumbling back as one swipes near my face, a gaunt thing with too many teeth and no mouth. “Touch literally anything else, I dare you!”

“Wasn’t me,”

he grits out, already summoning his power. “There was a sigil under the door. Triggered when it sensed our magic.”

Of course. Of course the cursed office would be booby-trapped with ghost mines. Why wouldn’t it?

Silas is laughing. Laughing, like this is the best day of his undead life. He dodges a screaming woman in a war gown, who flies straight through the wall. “This is incredible!”

he howls. “They’re like angry parade balloons with issues!”

“Shut up!”

I duck another one, dragging time into a crawl. Everything slows. Ghosts become syrupy drags of white and blue, the sound of their screams stretching into a low moan that sets my molars on edge. “Luna, down!”

She drops, bless her, right as a ghost of some long-dead scholar lunges overhead. Her head whips around, eyes wild. She doesn’t scream. Doesn’t flinch. Just watches the chaos, calculating. Planning. It’s hot. It’s really hot. I hate myself for noticing it while the dead do aerial acrobatics around us.

Caspian stumbles out of the path of a spectral knight in broken armor, his face pale but set. He’s not using his magic—not yet. I can see it in the tremble of his hand. Whatever Branwen did to him, it still has a chokehold on his power. And that makes me want to punch something. Or someone. Preferably Branwen.

“Why are they screaming?”

Luna shouts, crawling toward the edge of the hall as I pull her up beside me.

“Because they’re pissed?”

I offer. “Trapped souls tend to get cranky.”

She throws me a glare that could curdle blood. “Helpful.”

Silas grabs a ghost by the wrists—not that it has wrists—and twirls with it like it’s prom night. “Riven! Do something! Call your door-demon girlfriend off!”

“She’s not mine!”

Riven growls, and the ground beneath his feet scorches with residual magic. The heat pulses out of him in sharp bursts. He’s trying to seal the sigil, trying to reverse the pull. But it’s not just summoning. It’s releasing. A vault of rage and memory that’s been building for gods know how long.

Ghosts begin to flicker. Some vanish entirely. Others fade, crackling at the edges. Riven snarls something under his breath and slams his palm to the floor.

And everything stops.

Stillness. As if the hallway forgot how to breathe.

A single ghost remains—floating in front of the door. Female. Tall. Her dress is old—council era. Her face is a mess of beauty and ruin, and she stares at Luna with eyes that see.

“You shouldn’t be here,”

the ghost whispers. Voice like torn silk.

“I know,”

Luna replies quietly.

And then she’s gone. Snapped out of existence like she never was.

Riven slumps. Silas groans, disappointed. Caspian exhales shakily, and I lean my head back against the wall, heart thudding like a war drum in my ribs.

“Next time,”

I say flatly, “can we not touch ancient doors with curses older than sin?”

Luna nods, brushing ghost dust off her sleeves. “Noted.”

Silas claps his hands once. “Let’s do it again!”

Ambrose

So how the hell do we get through a door we can’t touch?

The question hangs in the thick quiet. No ghosts left to scream. Just the creak of old stone settling and the pulse of residual magic underfoot—angry, defensive, and not ours.

“Do we knock?”

asks flatly, deadpan. “Maybe apologize to the dead for breaking their little tantrum seal?”

Silas raises a hand, eyes gleaming with faux seriousness. “I nominate Caspian to seduce the door.”

Caspian, arms crossed, doesn’t even flinch. “I don’t seduce furniture.”

“You could,”

Silas drawls. “Bet you’d be great at it. Whisper sweet nothings to the hinges. Maybe show a little thigh.”

I glance at Caspian, but he’s already looking away, shoulders tense. He hasn’t touched his power since Branwen. Not even a flicker of it. And while no one’s said it out loud, we all feel the gap. Lust without temptation is just sorrow with good cheekbones.

Silas makes a sudden noise—half gasp, half dramatic inspiration—and spins toward the door like he’s just discovered fire. “Stand back,”

he says, waving a hand as if he’s about to defuse a bomb.

“Why do I feel like this is going to be the opposite of helpful?”

I mutter, but I don’t stop him.

He pulls his shirt off with a flourish like he’s auditioning for a role in an erotic circus, and plants both feet like a summoner about to call down thunder. But instead, with a few muttered words and a sparkle of magic that smells suspiciously like ozone and bubblegum, a tiny Silas appears beside him.

Shirtless.

Grinning.

“Ta-da!”

Silas beams. “Meet Mini Me. Now with 90% less impulse control.”

Tiny Silas winks at Luna—who looks deeply concerned—and then scampers toward the locked door. His proportions are perfect. Smaller frame, still impossibly cocky. He crawls under the old wood like a cat-burglar on pixie dust, muttering things like, “Gonna find your secrets, spooky office,”

and “This ass was made for infiltration.”

Riven pinches the bridge of his nose like he’s deciding whether homicide is a justifiable reaction.

“You know,”

I murmur to Luna without looking at her, “there’s a very real possibility that Silas is the most dangerous one of us.”

“Not possible,”

she mutters back. “Definite.”

A click echoes through the hall. The door groans. Not violently this time—just opens, like it’s reconsidering its entire existence in the face of pure chaos.

Tiny Silas peeks back around the edge and throws us double finger-guns. “You’re welcome, peasants.”

Then he vanishes in a pop of glitter and smugness.

Silas bows like he’s just performed Hamlet naked.

“That... actually worked,”

Caspian says under his breath.

“Of course it worked,”

I say, already stepping forward, voice low and dry. “The universe rewards idiots and chaos. Haven’t you been paying attention?”

The door stands open now. Darkness yawns inside the office, deep and undisturbed. And for the first time, I feel it—something old in the air. Something not meant to be seen.

“Stay close,” I murmur.

We step into the dark together.

The air is wrong. Not stale, not heavy with time the way old places get when they’ve been left alone too long—but clean. Impossibly so. No dust on the books, no webs in the corners. Not a single sign of disuse. It feels… kept. Tended. And that’s far worse.

Silas pulls his shirt back on, though, in true Silas fashion, he doesn’t bother with the buttons. He looks like a half-drunk pirate on vacation, but there’s a stillness to him I don’t miss. Even he feels it—this isn’t just a locked door and a few old ghosts. Something’s been here recently. Something might still be.

“We should split up,”

I say quietly, my voice the only one that doesn’t echo. The acoustics are off—flat, like the space swallows sound before it can make it past the person beside you. “We’re looking for anything on the Pillars. Records. Diagrams. Notes. Preferably something that doesn’t require decoding ancient tongues and blood rites to read.”

“Ugh,”

mutters, dragging his fingers down the spine of a shelf. “You mean no blood rites? Why do I even come on these trips?”

“Because you love me,”

Silas offers, grinning over his shoulder.

“Because Luna asked,”

snaps back, but there’s no venom in it.

Caspian doesn’t speak. He heads for the far wall, where the books look oldest—spines brittle, some barely holding together. His fingers hover instead of touch, like even now, he’s afraid he’ll break something just by being near it.

Luna moves past me without a word, I watch her brush her hand along the edge of the desk, her eyes narrowing when she finds the surface pristine. No dust. No smudges. It gleams like someone polished it this morning.

“There’s no way no one’s been in here,”

she murmurs, more to herself than anyone else.

“No,”

I agree. “Which means we’re either expected… or trespassing on something older than Blackwell.”

Silas flips a book upside down, rifles through it, then tosses it over his shoulder. “No secret codes. No naked doodles. This guy’s a disgrace to evil headmasters everywhere.”

“Please don’t destroy everything until we find something useful,”

I say, stepping toward the center of the room and letting my hand drift across the air above the books. My power prickles at my palm. Something in here is possessed—but not by me. Not yet. Whatever claim’s been laid on this place isn’t one I can overwrite without cost.

And I’m not in the mood to bleed.

“We’ll be here all night,”

mutters, already slumped into one of the old chairs with a book open on his lap. “Should’ve brought snacks.”

“We did,”

Silas replies, holding up a pouch of gummy bears and promptly shoving a handful into his mouth.

I don’t bother asking where he got them.

Instead, I focus on the books. The Pillars. There has to be something—anything—about their creation, their magic, their link to Luna. We can’t keep moving blind.

I pick one at random. The title’s faded, but my power whispers the knowledge into me the moment my fingers brush the leather. Council Archives: Generation Three. Not what I want. Not yet. But close.

Behind me, Luna climbs the rolling ladder along the back wall, scanning from the top shelf down. A vision in black, cut by moonlight bleeding through the stained glass. She doesn’t know I’m watching.

She never has to.

I already know how this night ends.

I just haven’t decided if I’ll let it happen.

Luna climbs higher.

One foot hooks on the next rung of the rolling ladder, the other props out just slightly, balancing her weight. She reaches for a spine just out of range, fingers grazing it with that maddening elegance she doesn’t know she has. Her shirt lifts as she stretches. The edge of her spine curves, a shadow between skin and hem. Her hips shift. The slope of her ass arches out, perfect, offered without intent.

And the room forgets how to function.

Silas stops mid-page flip, mouth open like he’s about to say something ridiculous but forgot how words work. stares, blinking like he’s trying to rationalize the view into something respectable—and failing, miserably. Even Caspian, broken and quiet as he’s been, pauses. His eyes track upward, locked to the way Luna moves like gravity’s never had a hold on her.

She plucks the book free, frowns at the title, then slides it back in. No idea she’s just committed a war crime with her back pocket.

“I’m going to kill that ladder,”

mutters under his breath.

“Not before I marry it,”

Silas adds, completely sincere.

Luna turns her head over her shoulder. “You know I can hear you.”

makes a noise like he’s been caught doing something heinous—which, technically, he has—and immediately busies himself with a book on magical flora. It’s upside down.

Silas winks at her, unrepentant. “Just saying, if the ladder gets mysteriously enchanted and starts purring when you climb it—don’t blame me.”

She rolls her eyes and keeps searching.

I push off the desk and cross to the far shelves, tracing the titles absently with my fingertips. The books whisper at my skin, threads of ownership unraveling with every touch. They want to be claimed. The whole damn room does. Magic laced into the mortar, the kind that tastes like centuries-old secrets—something older than the Council, older than the school.

Blackwell didn’t build this place. He inherited it. But he fed it.

And he didn’t clean this room himself.

“Luna,”

I say without turning.

She hums in response.

“Check anything bound in crimson leather. That’s Council archive protocol. Especially if the binding smells like copper.”

“Why would I sniff books?”

“You’ll understand when you find it.”

Silas snorts. “That’s the most Ambrose thing I’ve ever heard. ‘Smell the books, Luna.’ Next he’s going to ask her to lick them for residual magic.”

“I will lick the next one if it means getting out of here before sunrise,”

Luna mutters.

Caspian’s quiet laugh surprises all of us. It’s the first sound from him that isn’t haunted. He meets my eyes across the room, and for a second, something dangerous flickers there—like he remembers how to be wicked, how to burn bright instead of breaking. Then it’s gone. Doused. But it lingers.

An hour.

We’ve combed through shelf after shelf, skimmed pages brittle with time and stinking of magic soaked too long in secrets. Riven is bent over Blackwell’s desk, rifling through paper with a kind of violence that makes the drawer handles flinch. His jaw ticks every few seconds, which means we’re getting nowhere.

Luna’s on the floor now, cross-legged, a stack of books around her like a protective ring. She’s flipping through them fast, efficient, a frown between her brows that hasn’t let up since we entered. I’ve seen her kill things with less effort.

And then there’s Silas.

He’s in the corner, not reading, not searching, not even pretending to be useful. He’s squaring up with a statue—some winged relic I vaguely remember from the old chapel ruins, its stone face chipped in a permanent sneer. Silas mimics the pose, one arm thrown dramatically out, the other curved like he’s either about to deliver divine wrath or confess his undying love to a squirrel.

“Oh mighty pigeon god,”

Silas intones, deadpan but loud enough to break what’s left of the room’s sanity, “grant me thy stony wisdom, or at least make my biceps look like yours.”

doesn’t even look up from the book he’s only half reading. “If that thing comes to life and murders you, I’m not helping.”

“I’d help,”

Luna says, not bothering to glance up. “Help the statue, I mean.”

I press my fingertips against the spines of a row labeled Arcane Governance & Supernatural Infrastructure. Nothing about the Pillars. Nothing about containment systems or soul-binding contracts. Just policies. Regulations. Dead-end pages meant to sound impressive while hiding everything that matters.

Riven slams a drawer shut, hard enough to jolt the desk forward a full inch. “There’s nothing here.”

“There might be,”

I counter, calm even as irritation needles behind my ribs. “But Blackwell wouldn’t be stupid enough to label it.”

Luna stands and brushes off her knees. “Then where would he hide it?”

I meet her gaze across the room, sharp and deliberate. “Same place every coward hides what they fear will be used against them. Somewhere he doesn’t want even himself to find it.”

She blinks once. Then she gets it.

The room falls silent—well, as silent as it can get with Silas whispering to a statue about leg day. She walks past the bookcases, past the portrait-lined walls, toward the stained glass window on the far end. The one of Blackwell himself, all stoic gaze and sanctimonious robes. Pretentious bastard.

I follow her, the others watching now, curiosity pulling them from their distractions.

She reaches out—hesitates—and then presses her hand against the painted glass.

It doesn’t give.

“Try under it,”

I say. “Or behind.”

Riven’s already moving, dragging a chair over and gripping the frame. “If he built this into the wall, there’s a cavity. Something shallow. We just have to—”

The glass hums.

Faint. Barely audible. But real.

And then it shifts, a shimmer across the surface like heat warping vision. The image of Blackwell dissolves, ink bleeding into gold, and beneath it—

A door.

No handle.

Just a sunken keyhole carved into obsidian.

“Okay, that’s not ominous at all,”

mutters.

Luna glances at me. “You’re the one with a thing for locks and deals.”

I smile. Cold. Slow. “Let’s see what he was so desperate to keep buried.”

I raise my hand.

And the door responds.

Silas steps in front of me like he’s the one who coaxed secrets from stone, like he bled the lock open with charm instead of me luring the door to life with nothing but my voice and power. He plants his hands on his hips like a cartoon prince, eyes glittering with mischief and something too close to satisfaction.

Then Luna smiles at him. Soft. Fond. A private little moment carved from the mess of shadows and dust and mystery, and she gives it to him.

Not me.

That smile should be mine.

I move forward without thinking. Not charging—no, I’m far too composed for something as impulsive as that. But I glide past Silas with the silent intent of reclaiming what’s mine, stepping over the shadow threshold. Only Silas—chaotic, maddening Silas—sees it as a challenge.

He spins, arm shooting out in front of me like we’re children and this is some imaginary line I’m not allowed to cross without permission.

“Whoa whoa whoa,”

he says, blocking the doorway like a wall of grinning, unpredictable fire. “No skipping the line, Dalmar. Chivalry's not dead yet. It’s just shirtless and leading the way.”

I stare at him. “Get out of my way.”

Silas leans in like he’s about to whisper a secret, but then pivots dramatically toward Luna instead. “Babe, tell Ambrose to stop trying to steal my thunder. I earned this main character moment.”

Luna bites back a laugh—bites it, like it’s something decadent—and that makes it worse. She shakes her head, brushing past both of us now, stepping into the doorway like she owns it, which, of course, she does. The room reacts to her, pulses with her presence. Even the stone seems to breathe differently around her magic.

“You’re both ridiculous,”

she murmurs.

But she doesn’t take it back. Doesn’t take the smile she gave Silas and hand it to me instead.

I step forward again—this time slower. Controlled. Calculated. But Silas side-steps with me like we’re dancing, and grins over his shoulder like he knows what he’s doing. Like this is a move in a game he’s already winning.

“Touch me again, and I’ll make sure that statue you were flirting with earlier finds a way to marry you.”

He just winks.

“Wouldn’t be my worst relationship.”

Behind us, groans. “Can we not turn this into another show? Just pick an order and go. We’ve got cursed floorboards to step on, or possessed books to argue with. Priorities.”

But I don’t move. Not yet. Because I’m still watching Luna, and I’m thinking about the way her smile folded around someone else. About how she didn’t even glance at me when I opened the door. And I’m wondering—

Why the hell does that bother me this much?

The answer coils in my chest, sharp and venomous. Because I don’t want her to smile at anyone the way she smiles at him. Not unless I’ve taken that smile first. And I will.

I step inside last, but I don’t lose.

I never lose.

She stops at the top of the stairs, hand brushing Caspian’s shoulder like it belongs there. It’s not a tease, not her usual play—it’s soft, gentle. Worse. She lingers just long enough for it to mean something. He doesn’t flinch. Just tips his head like he’s grateful for it. Like he needs it. She gives it anyway.

And then she moves.

Down the steps like she’s floating, like her feet don’t even feel the weight of this place anymore. And when she passes Riven, she winks. A flick of lashes, that small twist of her lips—his. He catches it, of course. Winks back, just as quiet, just as complicit. And the look they share? It’s some wordless language I’m not invited to understand.

I stand at the top of the stairs and watch it all happen below me like I’m some ghost to my own goddamn story. They have their moments. Their touches. Their little carved-out spaces of belonging.

Me?

I get nothing.

Because I give nothing.

That’s the lie I tell myself to keep the ache from unraveling into something I can’t patch over. But tonight, it doesn’t hold. Tonight it feels like rot. Like every wall I’ve built is a cage she keeps choosing not to step into.

And that should comfort me.

But it doesn’t.

Because there’s a corner of me—black and cruel and burning—that wants her gaze. Wants her attention. Wants her teeth bared just for me, even if it’s in anger. Anything. But she doesn’t even bother. Doesn’t look up. Doesn’t pause. She just leaves me there.

I follow, eventually. Slowly. Deliberate steps down the stairwell, my hand trailing along the railing, leaving behind the ghost of possession in the polished wood. Not because I need the support. But because I want the house to remember I passed through it.

Unlike her.

Who passes through everything without being held.

But she will be.

Eventually, even the untouchable stops running.

Silas waits on the landing like he’s the one who planned all of this. Arms crossed, that smug little tilt to his grin—he knows I’m watching him. He lives for this. For the drama. For the subtle art of absolutely ruining my life with a well-timed smirk and a finger poke.

“You’re pouting,”

he says, flicking my chest with two fingers like that somehow settles the conversation.

“I’m not,”

I grit out through my teeth, because the others are still in earshot and the last thing I need is Luna thinking I’m the jealous type. I am, of course, but that’s not the point.

“You are. Your lip’s doing that twitchy thing.”

“I’m brooding.”

He hums thoughtfully like he’s analyzing a particularly complex painting. “You’re upset I took your thunder.”

“You stole it. Right out from under me. That moment was mine—mine to have, mine to ruin, mine to own—and you waltzed in and flexed like a goddamn idiot and she smiled at you like you invented gravity.”

He blinks once, slowly, then nods like a priest delivering last rites. “I can fix this.”

My entire body freezes. “Silas—”

But he’s already winking and bounding down the stairs with too much purpose for someone who’s never once in his life had a real plan. I lunge after him, fully prepared to throttle him before he opens that disaster mouth of his—but , like the fucking traitor he is, steps in front of me and stretches.

“Don’t ruin this,”

says, yawning theatrically. “Let him dig the hole.”

“He’s going to set the entire forest on fire just to bury the body,” I snap.

shrugs. “Then we roast marshmallows. You brought this on yourself.”

Below us, Silas sidles up to Luna with the subtlety of a peacock in heat.

“I mean,”

he says loudly, too loudly, “it was really Ambrose who figured everything out. Brilliant. Brilliant bastard. Did I tell you he—he collects rare poetry books? Loves cats. Cries during sad movies. Honestly, the most emotionally mature out of all of us. So brave. Like, if bravery was a guy, it’d be Ambrose with a sword.”

I’m going to murder him.

Luna turns slowly, blinking at Silas like she can’t tell if he’s having a stroke or trying to flirt. “Are you… okay?”

“Just setting the record straight,”

Silas beams. “Ambrose is deep. And totally not emotionally repressed. And he smells like cedar and dark intentions, you know?”

“Oh my gods,”

I groan, trying to shove past , who’s now laughing. Full body laughter, head back, arms crossed, loving every second of this.

Silas keeps going.

“He once saved a kitten. Named it Omen. He writes secret poetry in a journal he hides under his pillow. Just devastating metaphors. You should definitely ask him to read one sometime—preferably when he’s shirtless. Really brings the words to life.”

Luna raises a brow. “Does he?”

“Absolutely. He’s just shy. But deeply romantic. You know, brooding types, they don’t show it, but he thinks about you all the time. Like—constantly. I’m sure he has, like, a whole file in his brain of your expressions.”

Silas turns around and gives me a thumbs up.

I’m going to destroy him.

Slowly.

Lovingly.

Possessively.

And with great care.