Page 18 of The Sin Binder's (The Seven Sins Academy #4)

The second that doorbell rings, it’s like the laughter is vacuumed out of the room.

The sound cuts through all of us, and the amusement dies sharp in our throats like someone’s snapped the thread that held the moment together. My stomach drops—not because we’re expecting anyone. No one ever rings the bell. People who come to this house don’t knock. They bleed their way inside, crawl through cracks in the walls, or set the place on fire and wait for us to answer.

Silas stiffens first, hoodie spell forgotten, and slinks toward the window with the kind of suspicion that’s earned, not learned. He peeks between the heavy curtains, eyes squinting. “Well, shit.”

He glances back at me, then at Luna, who’s already standing, her laughter wiped clean, replaced by something sharper.

“It’s Alistair.”

That name lands like a punch to the chest.

The room shifts again, the way it always does when someone mentions him. Like even the walls know better than to breathe too loudly around Apathy.

Luna’s already halfway to the door before Silas finishes saying his name. No hesitation, no second thought. She doesn’t even look back to check if I’m following—she knows I will. Always do.

I drag a hand down my face and force myself upright, casting one glance at Caspian, who looks more like himself now that he’s smiling again, though there’s a flicker of something fragile still tucked behind his eyes.

Riven stays seated, arms crossed over his chest, watching Luna with that feral protectiveness stitched into every inch of him. He doesn’t get up. He doesn’t need to. He knows I’ll follow.

I catch up with her at the door.

Alistair’s standing there like he walked out of a painting no one wanted to hang. Sharp-edged, ethereal in a way that feels less godly and more hollow—like the void wore a man’s skin and learned how to smile without meaning it.

His posture’s loose, casual, but I know better. He’s not here on accident.

“Alistair,”

I greet flatly, leaning against the doorframe like I haven’t spent my entire existence avoiding this exact kind of reunion.

He glances at me, expression unreadable. “.”

But his attention flicks past me immediately, locking onto Luna like she’s the only one in the room worth speaking to. Without a word, he holds out an envelope.

Luna hesitates for half a second before she steps forward and takes it from him, her fingers brushing his just briefly. She reads the name written on the front—hers—and her breath catches.

“It’s from Layla.”

She doesn’t say it like a question. Just fact.

The letter’s thin, neat handwriting visible even through the heavy vellum. Luna’s hands tighten on it like it might dissolve if she holds it too hard, then she looks up at Alistair, jaw set.

“Can I write her back?”

she asks, already pulling the door wider, already half turned toward the hallway like she’s ready to sprint upstairs.

Alistair nods once. “That’s why I’m here.”

Without another word, Luna’s gone, letter clutched to her chest, bare feet silent against the hardwood as she disappears up the stairs.

And just like that, I’m left standing with Alistair.

The door hangs open. The night pressing in cool and empty behind him.

He doesn’t move to come inside. Doesn’t move to leave, either.

It’s awkward. And I don’t do awkward. I survive on snark and bad decisions, not whatever the hell this charged silence is between us.

“So,”

I say after a beat, crossing my arms. “Didn’t think you were the mailman type.”

Alistair’s lips twitch faintly, like he can’t decide whether to be amused or bored. “Consider it charity work.”

I snort, leaning heavier against the doorframe. “That’s new. Since when do you care enough to deliver letters?”

“Since she asked.”

He glances past me again, scanning the living room where the others are probably trying to listen in, and then looks back like he’s trying to decide if this conversation is worth the effort.

It’s not. It never is with him.

But I step back anyway, holding the door wider.

“Come in.”

Alistair arches one brow. “Not sure that’s a good idea.”

“Neither am I,”

I admit. “But if we’re going to stand here like idiots, we might as well do it somewhere warm.”

He exhales slowly, like the weight of existence itself is a chore, then steps inside, brushing past me without so much as a sound.

The door clicks shut behind him.

Alistair stands there like the ghost of all my bad decisions, shoulders loose, expression flat. I hate how quiet he is. Always have. Like the world is already dead to him and he’s just lingering because he forgot how to leave.

We stand in the foyer like two assholes at a party neither of us want to be at.

I clear my throat because apparently, I hate myself today. “So…”

I drag the word out, crossing my arms over my chest and rocking back on my heels. “How’s Layla?”

His gaze flickers to me, unimpressed. “She’s fine.”

Flat. Bored. Like the question barely grazes him. Like he doesn’t care about the answer—but I know that’s bullshit. You don’t deliver letters in the middle of the night if you don’t give a damn.

I narrow my eyes. “That’s it? ‘Fine’? You walked halfway across the fucking continent to drop off a letter, and all you’ve got is fine?”

He exhales like the effort of speaking is too much. “She’s alive.”

“Wow.”

I make a show of clapping slowly. “You should write poetry.”

Alistair shoots me a look that could peel paint off the walls. But then something cracks—something small, something reluctant—and he shifts, looking down at the floor like the answer might be hiding there.

“I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing,”

he mutters finally, voice low enough that if I wasn’t me, I might miss it.

I blink. And then I grin, sharp and slow, because he hates asking for anything. Especially this.

“Holy shit.”

I lean back against the banister dramatically. “Did you just admit you need help? Hold on, let me savor this.”

“Don’t be a dick.”

“That’s literally all I know how to be.”

He sighs again, like I’m the most exhausting thing in existence. Which is fair.

“She’s different,”

he says after a beat, like he has to force the words out one by one. “Not like them.”

I raise an eyebrow. “You mean not like the rest of us? Or not like the rest of the world you’re so convinced is rotting from the inside out?”

He doesn’t answer, which is answer enough.

“She’s warm,”

he says finally, voice quiet. “And I don’t know what to do with that.”

It guts me a little, the way he says it. Because I know that feeling. The way something good feels dangerous when you’re convinced you don’t deserve it.

I scrub a hand through my hair. “You talk to her?”

His mouth twists. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

“Wrong answer.”

He scowls at me, but I keep going.

“You think if you just stand there looking like a sad, sexy apocalypse, she’ll figure it out? Newsflash, Al—you’ve got to actually fucking talk.”

“She’s not like Luna,”

he mutters.

That hits something in me, and I shake it off fast, covering it with a smirk. “No shit. No one is.”

Alistair looks at me then, eyes darker than they should be. “How do you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Keep her.”

The question guts me more than it should. Because the truth is—I don’t. Not really. None of us do. We’re just the idiots orbiting her gravity, hoping she doesn’t decide to burn us alive.

I swallow it down, force a smile.

“Easy,”

I say lightly. “I never give her a reason to leave.”

Alistair looks at me like he knows that’s a lie. Before either of us can say something worse, footsteps echo on the stairs. Luna’s coming back.

Luna’s smile hits like a blade between the ribs—sharp and soft at the same time, and I hate how easily it slips under my skin. She’s holding the letter like it weighs nothing, but I know better. Everything she carries, she carries like it’s light, until you realize it’s a boulder strapped to her chest.

Alistair glances up the second she enters, and I don’t miss the way his shoulders ease, the crack of relief that splits through his apathetic shell. As if her smiling is proof that whatever Layla’s written isn’t as bad as it could’ve been. As if Luna’s smile is still something that matters in his decaying worldview.

She crosses the room, steps sure and quiet, and presses the letter into Alistair’s hand like it’s some fragile thing. “For Layla,”

she says softly. “And… thanks. For being decent to her.”

I swear to all the gods I don’t believe in, Alistair physically flinches at the compliment. His fingers twitch around the envelope like it’s laced with poison, his gaze flicking up and down her face like he’s not sure how to process gratitude.

“Wasn’t doing anything special,”

he mutters, voice a little too fast, a little too awkward.

Luna tilts her head at him, smile still curling at the corners of her mouth. “It was special to her.”

And because Alistair has no chill and never has, he blurts, “What’d she say about me?”

I choke on my laugh, covering it badly with a cough as Luna’s brows lift. She looks over at me like she can’t believe he actually asked, like I’m the translator for Dain family dysfunction. Which, fair.

Alistair’s face flushes faintly, the closest thing to color I’ve seen on him in a century, and he immediately looks away, pretending to be deeply interested in the floorboards.

“She said,”

Luna starts, dragging it out, “that you pretend not to care, but you listen more than anyone.”

Alistair’s mouth twitches like he wants to deny it but knows he can’t.

“And that sometimes,”

she continues, her gaze softening, “the quiet ones hurt the loudest.”

That floors him. I see it in the way his spine straightens, the way his fingers tighten around the letter like he’s trying to hold himself together.

Luna, sweetly, doesn’t linger. She just pats his arm once—light, brief—and then glances at me, that crooked smile aimed like a dagger.

“I’m going back to bed,”

she says, and I know she means it. She’s exhausted, and after what just happened tonight… yeah, I’d want to curl away too.

The moment she disappears, the weight slams back into the room, heavy and awkward.

Alistair clears his throat, shoving the letter into his coat like it burned him.

“Don’t say a word,”

he mutters, already turning toward the door.

But I can’t help myself.

“Oh, I’m gonna say a lot of words.”

Alistair's halfway to the door when Silas barrels out of the hallway like he’s late for a party he wasn’t invited to, hoodie still slung over his lean frame like a curse he refuses to shed. He’s grinning, but it’s that kind of grin—a little cracked at the edges, a little too bright. The kind that says he’s riding the chaos high, because if he stops, he might have to think about things too long and too hard.

The hoodie—stitched with subtle wards in the seams, a low hum of magic clinging to the fabric—doesn’t hesitate. The second Silas steps into the room, his voice, his own damn voice, spills secrets like a wound that won’t close.

“I once spent three weeks convinced I was allergic to moonlight.”

Alistair freezes, then glances at me like I’m responsible for this circus. Which, to be fair, I usually am. But this one? Pure Silas self-sabotage.

I cross my arms, leaning lazily against the doorframe. “He’s a special breed,”

I tell Alistair. “You get used to it.”

Silas shoots me a wink, then rolls his shoulders like he’s a walking, talking confessional booth.

“I don’t know how babies are made.”

Alistair snorts before he can stop himself. I drag a hand down my face, biting back my own laugh. That one never gets old.

“And one time,”

Silas’s voice continues, unrelenting, “I tried to impress Luna by telling her I could lick my own elbow. I dislocated my shoulder.”

Alistair blinks. “That tracks.”

Silas throws his arms up, hoodie and all. “It’s endearing! I’m endearing.”

“You’re something,” I mutter.

The hoodie keeps going, like a storm you can’t shut off. “I cried when I saw a baby goat once. Like, ugly cried.”

Luna’s laugh echoes faintly from wherever she’s disappeared to. Caspian’s voice follows, choked and breathless, clearly dying in the other room.

Alistair looks back at me like he can’t quite believe what he’s witnessing. “You live like this?”

“This is a Tuesday,”

I deadpan. “You should see Wednesdays.”

Silas shoots me a grin over his shoulder and points dramatically. “Hey! I heard that.”

The hoodie, like it knows he’s enjoying the show, delivers the coup de grace: “I Googled what foreplay was last week because I panicked I wasn’t doing it right.”

Alistair coughs into his fist, shoulders shaking. I can’t even look at him without smirking.

Silas shrugs, completely unbothered, arms wide like he’s waiting for applause. “You’re welcome.”

The room settles for a breath, the magic still faintly sparking along the hem of his hoodie. Alistair glances toward the door, probably praying Luna comes back soon to rescue him from this ridiculous scene. But she doesn’t.

I shift off the wall, hands stuffed in my pockets, and tilt my head at Alistair. “You good?”

His mouth twitches like he wants to say no, but instead, he looks at Silas—who’s still grinning like an idiot—and mutters, “Yeah. I think I get why Layla likes it here.”

Silas’s grin stretches so wide, it looks like it might snap his damn face in half. He flicks his gaze back toward where Luna disappeared, all mock-casual like he hasn’t just detonated the most uncomfortable question in existence.

“Soooo,”

Silas drawls, voice syrup-smooth and irritating as hell. “You sleeping with Layla yet?”

Alistair stiffens like someone shoved an iron rod down his spine. His eyes cut toward me—like I’m going to save him—but I lean back against the wall and raise a brow, folding my arms because if anyone deserves this hell, it’s him.

And then he blushes.

Alistair Dain—Apathy incarnate, the perpetual void who looks at the world like it owes him nothing—fucking blushes. A faint, traitorous pink crawling across the tops of his high, cold-blooded cheekbones.

“No,”

Alistair mutters, voice brittle as if the word scrapes his throat on the way out. His eyes flick away like the floorboards are suddenly fascinating.

Silas’s grin grows teeth. He circles Alistair like a shark scenting blood, all loose limbs and chaotic energy that never knows when to quit. “No?”

he parrots. “That’s tragic. But not unexpected. You got the personality of a funeral.”

I snort, biting back something mean because this is actually kind of glorious.

Alistair glares, a flicker of something dangerous sliding through his features, but then—like he’s choking on it—he leans forward and blurts, “How do I seduce her?”

Silas freezes.

I choke.

For a second, no one breathes. And then Silas recovers like the smug bastard he is, eyes lighting up like someone handed him a match and a room full of gasoline.

“Oh, you poor, sad thing,”

Silas coos, clapping a hand on Alistair’s shoulder like they’re old friends instead of two disasters on opposite ends of the spectrum. “First mistake—you’re asking me.”

Alistair scowls but doesn’t pull away. Probably because he knows Silas is about to feed him bullshit, but he’s desperate enough to listen anyway.

Silas leans in conspiratorially. “Alright, here’s what you do. First—you gotta stare at her like you’ve never seen another human being before. Dead behind the eyes. Like she’s an alien who’s about to abduct you. Girls love that.”

I cover my mouth to keep from laughing, but it slips out anyway—a sharp, muffled noise.

“And then,”

Silas continues, warming up like he’s delivering a sermon, “you have to neg her. Real hard. Tell her she looks like she hasn’t slept in weeks. Like her hair’s a disaster. Bonus points if you throw in something cryptic about how love is a social construct.”

Alistair’s brow furrows, genuinely considering it like he’s filing this away for later.

“And finally,”

Silas says, tapping Alistair’s chest, “you show her you’re emotionally unavailable. Tell her you’re incapable of love. Maybe drop a casual line about how nothing matters and you wouldn’t even save a kitten from a tree.”

Alistair narrows his eyes. “That’s not seduction. That’s nihilism.”

Silas beams. “Exactly. Works every time.”

I can’t help it. I laugh, full and sharp, because watching my brother—apathetic, bored, and always two steps from oblivion—being fed this shit is better than anything I could’ve scripted.

Alistair shifts, clearly uncomfortable but not walking away. “You’re both idiots.”

Silas salutes him. “And yet, we’re the ones getting laid.”

The front door creaks faintly down the hall. Luna’s voice filters toward us—light, like she’s unaware of the absurdity happening in the foyer.

I push off the wall, smirking at Alistair’s grimace. “You ready to go back to the circus, or do you need more advice on how to ruin your life?”