She is Keira Donnelly again.
She is Crowley, too.
The name matters less than the fire behind it.
She begins ticking off what we already know.
"They know about the pregnancy. Moretti had eyes on the midwife. Padraig's giving them intel, and someone else in Brussels is backing it all with Donnelly money that should have been locked up years ago."
"And the Elders?" I ask.
"They want peace on paper," she says.
"But not one of them believes in it. They're hedging bets. They think if they keep everyone just unsteady enough, they can stay in power."
I nod again, slower this time.
"So we give them instability."
Her smile is faint, but there is steel behind it.
"We stage a split, Ruairí."
23
KEIRA
Ruairí's skin is still warm against mine and it is the kind of warmth that settles into the bones and lingers long after the body has cooled.
For a while, I simply let him have me, the clean weight of his hand on my hip, the heat of his breath on my collarbone, the lull of his heart that drowns out memory and prophecy alike.
Our bodies are a tangle of muscle and ache, the sheet kicked to the floor, his torso streaked with old scars and new bruises, my thigh marked with a fading crescent of his teeth.
We are a battlefield, and this is our only armistice, and perhaps that's why it always feels truer than anything else.
I keep my ear pressed to his chest, counting misshapen beats, pretending I don't hear the world outside the window rebuilding itself for the morning.
A cold pulse of gray-blue sky seeps through the glass, illuminating the cracked ceiling, the warping at the edge of the walls where the damp creeps in.
The room smells like his aftershave and clean sweat and the faintest trace of gun oil, a low note that never really leaves us, no matter how often we try to wash it away.
There is nothing gentle in the way he holds me, but it's hisidea of gentleness—the unspoken promise that as long as I am here, the world cannot touch me, not even at the corners.
He runs his fingers up and down my spine in a lazy rhythm, almost thoughtless, but it tells me everything about where his mind is.
His touch is more deliberate now than it was just an hour ago, almost reverent, as if he's memorizing each vertebra, each groove of bone, each old fracture that healed slightly wrong.
I wonder if he's counting them, if he remembers the story behind each one, or if he's only pretending so that I'll believe him when he says nothing will happen to me while he's alive.
He's always been good at lying, but I've always been better at hearing the truth inside the lie.
He is still here, still tethered to the weight of what just passed between us, not rushing off, not planning his next move, just... here. I know I should give him a moment before I speak, should let us have a few more breaths of peace before I ruin it, but peace is a luxury we cannot afford.
I wish I could let him have it, the illusion that the bed is a world apart from the rest, that nothing will ever breach the walls as long as his body blocks the door.
I want to give him that, but I know how quickly illusions shatter in this house, in this city, in this life.
"I'm going to send word," I say, quietly but with the same certainty in my voice.
