"They were calling your name. Asking why you'd done it, why you'd turned against them. The betrayal broke their hearts before it killed them."
The floor felt unsteady beneath her feet.
All this time, she'd carried the grief of losing them. The anger at their betrayer. The guilt of surviving when they hadn't.
She'd never considered that they might have died hating her.
"So they exist," she said when she could speak again, "but they're not... them."
"They're echoes." His voice was soft now, almost tender. "Broken echoes of their worst moment, played forever. And seeing you would either mean nothing to them, or it would cause them pain beyond imagining."
Her parents weren't just dead. They were imprisoned in their own anguish. Forever believing she'd destroyed them.
"That's why you didn't tell me," she whispered.
"Yes."
They stood in the corridor, separated by mere feet but feeling like worlds apart. She felt tears prick at her eyes and blinked them back furiously.
The weight of it was crushing.
"I'm sorry," he said quietly, and she heard genuine pain in his voice. "I'm so sorry."
She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
Then she made the mistake of looking up at him.
His expression held something she hadn't seen before. Recognition. Like he knew exactly what it felt like to lose someone and never get them back. To be surrounded by the dead and still be completely alone.
For a moment, standing there in the aftermath of devastating truth, she thought maybe they could comfort each other. Maybe this shared understanding of loss could bridge the distance he'd been maintaining.
"Dante—" she started, moving toward him.
His expression shuttered immediately. The vulnerability vanished behind cold blankness.
"The investigation," he said, his voice going flat. "The spirits mentioned visitors asking about ward construction."
She actually laughed, a broken, disbelieving sound. "Are you serious right now?"
"Thessa deals in riddles. Her information could point anywhere."
No. She wasn't going to let him do this. Wasn't going to let him use her grief as another barrier between them.
"Stop," she said, her voice shaking. "Just stop."
"The pattern is building?—"
"I don't care about the pattern!" The words came out sharper than intended, but she was raw, and he was retreating like none of this mattered. "My parents are trapped in a nightmare of thinking I destroyed them, and you're talking about ward construction?"
His jaw tightened. "I'm trying to?—"
"You're trying to avoid." She closed the distance between them, watched him force himself not to back away. "You've been avoiding me for a week. You ran from your own garden rather than acknowledge what's happening between us. And now you're using my grief as another excuse."
"There's nothing happening between us beyond the investigation."
She stepped back.
"Nothing?" Her voice came out small, and she hated herself for it.
