His eyes darken, and for a heartbeat, I think he’ll kiss me again. Instead, he takes a step back, running a hand over his face, muttering something I can’t catch. When he looks at me again, some of the edge is gone, replaced by somethingreluctant. “You’ll tell me everything,” he says finally. “No half-truths.”
“I said I would,” I agree.
“And you’ll stay in my sight. No more disappearing acts,” he says, narrowing his eyes at me.
“Fine.”
He nods once, like he’s trying to convince himself this is the right decision. “You wanted to help, Ember? Congratulations. You just made yourself indispensable.”
I smile faintly. “Then you better start getting used to it.”
Rook doesn’t smile back, but I catch the smallest twitch at the corner of his mouth before he turns away—just enough to tell me I’ve rattled him.
And maybe, for the first time, I’ve won something that actually matters.
Chapter 28
Ember
The house feels too big when it’s like this. Not empty—never empty. Just… held. Like something vast and living is crouched around me, breathing through the walls, listening. The kind of silence that presses instead of soothes. The kind that remembers.
Rain ticks against the windows in a slow, patient rhythm, steady enough to almost lull me into forgetting what happened last night. Almost.
I curl into the corner of the library couch, book open but unread, my fingers tracing the edge of a sentence I can’t seem to finish. I’ve been on the same page for ten minutes. Maybe longer. The words blur, but my mind doesn’t.
Rook’s jaw. Wraith’s hands. The way the room had gone sharp and feral and too close.
And then the shouting—and crash. The sound of knuckles meeting bone, and curses muttered under heated breath.
I swallow, my grip tightening on the book.
Footsteps come from down the hall. Light, steady and controlled—has to be Ash.
I don’t need to look up to know—it’s in the rhythm, the way he moves through space like a ghost that’s decided haunting is an art form. Quiet without being careful. Present without announcing it.
He stops near the shelves, eyes skimming the rows of old spines like he’s searching for a distraction. Or pretending to. “Didn’t think I’d find you here,” he says.
“Observation skills on point as usual.”
He ignores the bite in my voice, sliding a book from the shelf and turning it in his hands. His presence fills the room like static before a storm—subtle, charged, impossible to ignore. The faint scent of smoke and cedar follows him, grounding and unnerving all at once.
“What are you reading?”
“Something with less blood than usual,” I reply sweetly.
He glances over his shoulder, green eyes sharp and impossibly calm. “You don’t strike me as the type who reads to escape.”
“I don’t,” I say, thumbing the page. “But it’s quieter than being the reason half the house wants to kill each other.”
A beat passes between us and I can’t be sure if he’s going to comment on what I said until he does. “Most things are.”
A small laugh escapes me before I can stop it. It’s brittle. Tired. “You always this charming?”
“Only when I’m trying to distract someone.”
“From what?” I ask, huffing slightly.
“Whatever’s eating them alive.”
