Page 15 of The Sin Binder's (The Seven Sins Academy #4)

One second he’s finishing a circle with eyeliner like it’s some harmless sketch on a café napkin, and the next? The air shifts. No other word for it. It bends—like reality just leaned in to take a better look.

Riven moves fast—faster than I expect—grabbing Silas by the back of his shirt and hauling him away from the binding just as the lines begin to glow. The circle flares with a low, humming heat. Not fire. Not light.

Desire.

And then she steps out.

Not Luna. No—Luna’s next to me, frozen in place, the bond between us going taut with her shock, with a flush that starts at her throat and crawls all the way up.

But the creature stepping through? It's her.

She’s every inch Luna, but designed like a sin. Hair loose and tumbling over her shoulders like spilled ink, eyes dark and knowing, lips painted the color of bitten fruit. And the lingerie—fuck me—it’s nothing subtle. She’s wearing the kind of silk that should be illegal. Dark red, see-through, edged in black lace that barely conceals the shape of her thighs, the curve of her breasts, the soft hint of—

“Holy shit,”

Elias says reverently, one step from dropping to his knees.

Even Ambrose twitches. Like he didn’t mean to look, but now that he has, he can’t quite make himself stop.

We all take a step forward. It’s unconscious. Like a magnetic pull. Even Riven’s frozen. His jaw’s tight, eyes locked on the twin like she’s a threat and a fever dream all at once.

Except for Luna. The real one. Who stands beside me redder than a fucking sunrise and probably one second from murdering Silas. Who’s grinning like a lunatic. Smug. Proud. Like he meant to conjure his fantasy and make it our collective nightmare.

The not-Luna curls a finger under her chin, tilting her head. Her voice slides out like smoke, warm and slow.

“I am the manifested fantasy of the one who completed the circle,”

she purrs. “You get three questions. Only you may ask them.”

She looks straight at Silas.

And he—fuck—he actually blushes. His mouth opens. Closes.

Luna groans beside me. “You manifested a sex doll version of me,”

she says, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Out of all the things you could’ve summoned—”

Silas shrugs, sheepish and totally unrepentant. “I didn’t know it would work.”

“You finished a forbidden circle in the middle of a locked wing of a supernatural academy.”

“I didn’t know it would work this well.”

The clone steps forward, barefoot, unbothered by the ancient stone beneath her. Her gaze rakes over all of us, but lands on Silas again, eyes glinting.

“Three questions,”

she repeats. “Ask wisely.”

And I can’t help it. I lean toward Luna and murmur, just loud enough for her to hear, “You should wear that for real sometime.”

She elbows me in the ribs. Hard. Worth it.

Silas looks between all of us like he's been handed the nuclear codes and zero adult supervision. God help us all.

I let Silas spiral.

Honestly, what else am I going to do? Wrestle the eyeliner from his hand? Physically restrain him from asking something like “Does Ambrose wax?”

Because if anyone would waste a question on that, it’s Silas.

So I lean against the archway, arms crossed, pretending to examine a crack in the stone. In reality, I’m doing my best to not look at the lingerie-drenched fantasy version of Luna standing in front of us like she just stepped out of one of my old, unhinged dreams.

She’s still standing there, unbothered. Every inch of her designed to tempt. Designed to burn. The sway of her hips. The tilt of her lips. The knowing, sultry weight of her gaze.

It’s not her, and I know that. But fuck—it’s still her. And it takes everything I have not to stare outright. It’s like trying to ignore a shooting star streaking across a black sky—you don’t mean to follow it, but you do. You track the glow even as it fades.

The real Luna shifts beside me, arms tight across her chest, glaring at Silas like she’s two seconds from strangling him with her bare hands. Her discomfort is visceral. I feel it echo through the bond like a ripple of heat—not jealousy, not quite—but something too tangled to name.

I drop my gaze, force my focus on Silas, who is pacing now like he’s cracked some world-ending equation. His mouth moves, silent, as he mutters options to himself, glancing at the fake Luna, then the wall, then the circle on the floor, then back again.

And I know that look.

That fuck-I’ve-made-a-mess-and-now-I-need-to-make-it-worse-to-fix-it look.

“Silas,”

I say quietly, and he snaps his head up like a dog hearing its name in a thunderstorm. “Don’t waste the questions.”

He blinks at me.

I nod toward real Luna. “We need to know about the pillar. How it works. What it’s for. And how the hell we get Orin and Lucien back.”

Silas rubs a hand over his face, dragging it down like gravity suddenly doubled. “Right. Right. Yes. Important things. Serious things. Not dick size rankings.”

Luna groans. Elias mutters something that sounds like "Just ask already before she disappears in a puff of hotness."

And the fantasy-Luna just smiles.

“Ask your first question,”

she says, and her voice echoes across the stones.

Silas stands straighter, dramatically clearing his throat, his shirt still somehow unbuttoned like he’s the fucking protagonist in a bad romance novel. He looks at her with the seriousness of someone about to sign a demonic contract and says—

“I want to know how to unlock the pillar’s true function.”

The copy-Luna blinks once. Then she moves—slowly, sensually, every inch of her a deliberate temptation as she steps forward, until she’s nearly nose to nose with him.

She leans in. “That knowledge comes with a price.”

Silas frowns. “What kind of price?”

“Only one question per answer,”

she reminds him with a smile. “You’ve used your first.”

The silence that falls is thick. Real Luna’s jaw clenches. I feel her reaching for patience like it’s a sword on a too-high shelf.

Silas hesitates, a rare flicker of anxiety moving through him like static.

And I sigh, low and bitter. Because if he fucks this up—if we don’t learn what we need—I will throw him through the next warded door myself.

He’s not grinning now. He’s pacing like a caged thing, casting frantic glances between the wall, the real Luna—tense and stiff behind him—and her sultry, summoned echo still waiting within the glowing lines. The fantasy version stands barefoot, her posture designed to wreck us, hips cocked, voice like silk spun from secrets.

She’s beautiful. Of course she is. Even if I’m cracked and wrong and haunted, I’m still a man, and I still want. Still crave. I tell myself not to stare. I do it anyway. Because this isn’t just a trick. This isn’t a joke. This isn’t just Silas being Silas. This is a circle old enough to make time hesitate. And it’s offering answers.

Silas steps forward again, his voice a rasp. “What’s the pillar for?”

The fantasy-Luna doesn’t blink. Doesn’t tease. Her answer is ice sliding into the gaps of our foundations.

“It’s where Sin Binders go to die.”

My stomach drops. Not twists. Not churns.

Drops.

I don’t even realize I’ve taken a step back until my boot scuffs against the stone floor. I don’t say anything. None of us do. But every nerve in my body lights up like a flare. My skin remembers what it felt like in that place. The stillness. The wrongness. The emptiness.

Except it hadn’t been empty, had it?

Branwen had been there. That thing wearing a smile and chains. But that place wasn’t just hers. Not if what this Luna-copy says is true.

What if it wasn’t just Branwen?

What if all the others—every Sin Binder before Luna, every person chosen and ruined by that magic—are still there? Trapped. Waiting. Dying slowly in a place that’s supposed to be a grave.

I feel sick.

It wasn’t just the silence in that place. It was the absence. Of sound, of hope, of escape. A prison built for gods disguised as girls.

And Luna—

Luna’s still bonded to me. I feel her emotions pulse through that tether like a second heartbeat. She’s trying not to break. I want to go to her. I want to pull her against me and tell her you are not going to die there, not like them, not like that.

But I don’t. I can’t. Because the fantasy Luna is still speaking. And Silas—God help us—is still asking questions.

His voice is quieter now. Almost reverent. “How do we get Orin and Lucien back?”

She tilts her head like a predator.

And then she says it.

“Ambrose has to die.”

It lands like a curse. Like a blade to the chest. No theatrics, no flames. Just… stillness. Then the aftershock.

My breath stalls. The world narrows to a pinpoint. I whip my head toward him.

Ambrose doesn’t move.

Doesn’t blink.

Doesn’t flinch.

Because of course he doesn’t. That’s Ambrose. My best fucking friend. The one who taught me how to weaponize charm. The one who always has a plan. Who always knows what everyone wants before they say it. He looks at the fantasy like he expected her to say it. Like he welcomes it.

And that breaks something in me.

Because he’s supposed to be mine. Not in some pathetic way. But in the real way. The brother-in-arms kind of way. The I’d-die-for-you-before-I-thought-twice kind of way.

But he’d let himself die for them?

For her?

Luna stands frozen behind Silas. Her expression unreadable. I don’t know what scares me more—how devastated she looks... or how much she doesn’t try to stop it. Doesn’t cry out. Doesn’t scream no.

And I—

I hate how I understand it.

The Luna-copy begins to fade, her sultry smile the last to go.

Silas turns slowly, blinking like he’s just been shaken awake.

The circle flickers, dies.

And Ambrose? He just watches it disappear like it confirmed something he’s been waiting to hear. Something he knew was coming. Something he’s already decided to accept.

The silence doesn’t just break—it shatters.

And everyone rushes to fill the void left behind by her words. The fantasy. The not-Luna. The echo of some magic older than all of us, fading back into whatever realm it was pulled from, like it never existed in the first place. Except we all heard her. We all heard her.

“It’s where Sin Binders go to die.”

“Ambrose has to die.”

Now everyone’s talking at once, overlapping voices like weapons drawn too fast—sharp, loud, anxious. Silas is pacing in agitated little circles near the smudged remnants of the binding circle, eyeliner still clutched in one hand like a failed talisman. He’s talking to no one and everyone, something about not meaning to pull a truth demon, and maybe he thought it would be a cat. “A sexy ghost cat,”

he mutters. “Would’ve been easier on morale.”

Elias throws his head back with a dry, “We’re gonna die. We’re all gonna die. I knew it the moment I said yes to this fucked-up field trip,”

but it’s not real panic in his voice. He’s always like this—sarcastic, smug—but now his fingers are twitching like he wants to slow the world down and stay there, stuck in the safety of his own seconds.

And Riven—Riven is standing too still. The kind of still that makes your blood run wrong. Arms crossed, jaw clenched, the bond between him and Luna humming too loud across my own. I feel the echo of it, the echo of her, and it only makes my gut tighten harder.

But Ambrose—He just stands there. Perfect posture, unreadable face. The light from the circle still flickers faintly across his jaw as if refusing to let him fade with it. Like even the magic knows it’s just painted its crosshairs on him.

I watch him.

And I don’t know what I want from him.

Maybe some kind of reaction. Shock. Denial. Even a fucking smirk and a dry, “Well, I always knew I’d go out beautifully.”

But he doesn’t give me anything. Which makes it worse. Because he should. He should look at me and say “this is bullshit”

and tell Luna not to worry and tell me we’ll find another way.

Instead, he just... absorbs it. Accepts it like a verdict he saw coming from miles away. Like a man who’s been carrying the gallows in his pocket for years, just waiting for someone to notice.

And it breaks me a little.

Because I love him.

Because I hate him.

Because he’s mine, even if not the way Luna is, and the idea of this place taking him—this place, this world built on bones and secrets—makes something in my chest crack.

“Fuck this,”

I say, louder than I meant to.

All heads turn toward me.

I run a hand through my hair, hating how shaky it is. “We’re just gonna believe that thing? That copy of Luna—that walking wet dream of magical regret—and just accept it?”

I laugh, harsh and brittle. “It’s Silas’s fantasy. Not exactly a paragon of truth and subtlety.”

Silas scowls. “Hey. That was a very refined fantasy.”

Luna doesn’t speak. She’s still as a statue, eyes on the floor, one hand curled into a tight fist against her thigh.

And I can’t stand it. Not on her. Not when she’s supposed to burn, not dim.

I turn to Ambrose.

“Say something,”

I demand. “Please.”

He lifts his gaze to mine, and for one second—I see it.

The fracture. The despair. The fear. The weight of something he never intended to put down.

Then it’s gone. Polished away.

“I’m not afraid of dying,”

he says. Calm. Chilling. “I’m afraid of what happens if I don’t.”

Luna flinches.

And suddenly I can’t breathe. Because maybe that place isn’t just a prison. Maybe it’s a balance. A scale. Maybe Ambrose is the price. And maybe—if he doesn’t pay it—

We all burn.

“I mean—hypothetically—Ambrose can’t die die,”

Silas says, gesturing in that wild, circular way like he’s hoping the movement alone will summon logic. “Maybe she meant, like, something metaphorical. You know, soul stuff. Symbolic combustion. Emotional sacrifice? Whatever.”

He says it like it’s supposed to make sense. Like any of this makes sense.

I drag a hand down my face, fingers scraping against the stubble I haven’t bothered shaving. “What the hell is metaphorical about ‘Ambrose has to die,’ Silas?”

He lifts a shoulder. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s like one of those ‘only the ego must perish’ kind of vibes.”

I blink slowly. “Have you met Ambrose?”

Silas grins. “Okay, so... like... ego death times a thousand.”

And it hits me—how close we are to laughing. We’re all standing in this ridiculous circle, still feeling the aftershock of magic that stank of desire and regret and fake-flesh lingerie, and we’re seconds from cracking jokes. From pretending it’s not serious.

But it is. Fuck, it is. Because I looked into Ambrose’s eyes and I saw resignation. I don’t think he plans on surviving this. I don’t think he ever did.

The others keep talking, words bouncing like pinballs around the room, voices overlapping—until I stop hearing them altogether. My gaze shifts to the circle again, the scorched mark still faintly glowing, like it wants more from us. Always more.

That thing said this is where Sin Binders go to die.

And when I was in Branwen’s realm, when I was hers—bent, not broken—I only ever saw her. Only ever felt her.

But... what if it wasn’t just Branwen?

What if that place... that pillar... isn’t just her domain?

What if there are others? All the Sin Binders before Luna. Buried but not gone. Waiting. Watching. Rotting in a space between memory and ruin. Their tether. Their hell.

My stomach turns.

And Luna—our Luna—she’s tethered now. To me, to Riven, to Elias and Silas and whatever the fuck Ambrose is holding himself back from becoming. She’s stronger than anything I’ve ever touched, but what if even that isn’t enough?

What if we’ve just set her up to fall into a cycle that none of us can stop?

And Ambrose—fuck—Hasn’t spoken since that awful calm answer about not being afraid to die. Because he thinks he has to. Because he thinks we’ll be safe if he does.

And I hate him for it. And I love him more than I want to admit, because that’s what friendship with Ambrose is—unspoken loyalty carved between your ribs like a blade. You’d bleed for him before you’d ever say you would.

I step closer. “What if we find another way?”

Ambrose finally looks at me, and it’s worse than before. Because his eyes are gentle now. Soft. Like he’s already said goodbye.

“There isn’t always another way, Cass,”

he says. “You know that.”

“Bullshit.”

“You of all people should understand sacrifice.”

“You’re not a sacrifice.”

“No,”

he murmurs. “I’m the consequence.”

And I don’t know how to argue that. Not when the world has already started to rearrange itself around him, like the story’s waiting for him to fall so the next chapter can begin.

“Then fuck the story,” I say.

Silas stops pacing. Elias looks up from where he’s been pretending not to listen. Luna’s eyes find mine, full of too much knowing.

“I’m not letting you die to fix this,”

I tell Ambrose. “And if you try, I’ll follow you in just to drag your cold, arrogant ass back.”

And that’s not a promise.

It’s a curse.