Slowly, like he’s testing the gravity in the room, he turns fully to face me. I step out of the shadows, hands in front of me, not threatening. Not shrinking.
“Mr. Crane,” I say softly, dipping my head in what I hope is somewhere between professional and respectful. “Apologies. I was?—”
“Don’t,” he says.
His voice is low. Rough. Like it hasn’t been used much in recent years. But it wraps around me anyway, deep and dark and weighted with something I can’t name.
I pause. “Don’t...?”
“Explain,” he finishes. “You were curious. Now you know. This wing is not for you.”
I nod once, careful. “Understood.”
He studies me for a moment, those eyes unreadable. Then, just as suddenly as he appeared, he turns and keeps walking, disappearing around the corner without another word.
I exhale only after the echo of his footsteps has vanished.
Well. That went... about as well as expected.
But there was something in that brief exchange I didn’t anticipate.
Something that unsettled me more than the rules, more than the locked doors, more than the silent threats curling through the walls.
There was pain in him.
Not the dramatic, performative kind. But the quiet sort. The kind that gets buried so deep it begins to rot inside you. I recognized it because I’ve worn it too—held it close, hid it beneath a smile or a clipped tone or a well-practiced shrug.
He’s broken, but not hollow.
And I don’t have a clue what it means.
All I know is I’m not afraid of him.
But I probably should be.
4
DARIUS
The house is quieter than usual.
Not silent—that would be a comfort, a return to the stasis I’ve cultivated like a monk in penance—but quieter, in the way a forest goes still before a storm. The walls hold their breath now. The wind outside doesn’t rattle the windows so much aswatch. And the fire in my study, despite the crackling wood I fed it, burns lower than it should, like even it knows better than to make too much noise tonight.
Because she’s here.
And I feel her everywhere.
I sit in the leather armchair near the hearth, my elbows resting on my knees, fingers laced together so tightly I can feel the bones strain. My jaw is locked, my shoulders hunched, and my skin itches in a way I haven't felt since the last time the Pact stood shoulder to shoulder in the old hall, chanting the ancient words and pretending they could be stronger than fate.
We were fools.
All of us.
Cassian, with his silent strength and unspoken guilt. Rafe, all rage and blood and barely leashed instinct. Malek, the lion whofancied himself a god even before the world bowed to him. And me—Darius Crane, the architect of our cage. I gave it a name. Gave it rules and a purpose.
But in the end, I gave it nothing that could keep it from falling apart.
The memory presses against the edges of my mind, sharp as glass. I let it come.
