Liora crosses her arms. “She doesnothave claws.”
I gesture. “Watch.”
Pepper slips. My muscles tense on instinct, ready to leap—but she catches herself with a fierce little growl, fingers digging into the foam like it’s soft wood. She swings back onto the platform and lifts her chin defiantly.
“See?” Pepper says. “Told you!”
Liora’s eyes flicker to mine. There’s that guilt again. That fear. That almost-truth hovering between her teeth.
I move slower than I want to. “She’s strong,” I murmur. “Stronger than she knows.”
Liora swallows. Hard. “Yeah.”
Pepper plops down the climbing wall in a sliding heap. She smacks into my shin and doesn’t even blink.
“Ow,” she says mildly. “Gyon, can we do it again?”
“Yes,” I say before Liora can open her mouth.
She gives me a look. A sharp one. But she doesn’t stop us. She watches while I show Pepper how to balance, how to crouch, how to push power into her legs. The crew stares but pretends not to. Pepper mimics me perfectly. My chest aches with pride so fierce it almost makes me weak.
When Pepper runs off to grab a juice pouch, Liora finally speaks.
“You’re good with her.”
I breathe out slowly. “She’s… easy to be good with.”
Liora bites her lip. She looks like she’s trying to work up the courage to say something. My heart slams in my ribs.
Say it. Tell me. Tell me she’s mine.
Instead she says, “Thank you for helping. I know you don’t have to.”
Something deep in me snarls.You’re wrong. I do.
Before I can answer, Pepper runs back, trips over a prop wire, and slams her knee into the floor. My entire body lunges—but she sits up immediately, face scrunched, and?—
Growls.
A perfect, tiny, Reaper-cub growl.
She stands, wipes her knee, and says, “I’m fine.”
I stare. Liora stares too, horror and awe warring on her face.
Pepper sees our expressions and frowns. “Why are you both looking at me like that?”
I kneel. “Because you’re brave.”
She grins, showing her teeth. Sharp—not literally, but the attitude is there. The spark. The fight.
I feel something inside me loosen.
That night, when I sleep, I dream.
Not of death. Not of the Maze. Not of losing Liora in fire and smoke.
I dream of a little girl with braids and fire in her hands. A little girl laughing at me. Calling me something I’ve never heard out loud but feel in my bones:
