“I—“ My throat tightened. Grey spots danced in my vision. “You lost so much blood. You should’ve let me call a doctor.”
“I trusted you.” His fingers slackened on my wrist, his thumb brushing the sensitive skin. “I wasn’t wrong.”
He was swaying. I tried to stand to catch him, but my knees buckled the moment I put weight on them. The floor rushed up.
I stumbled, clutching the edge of the sink to keep from hitting the tiles. My breath came in shallow, ragged bursts.
“Selene?” Riven’s hand was on my arm instantly—weak, shaking, but there. Even half-dead, his instinct was to steady me.
“I’m okay,” I said, though the room spun like a carousel. “Just… dizzy. The magic…”
“It cost you,” he murmured. He sounded angry with himself.
“Cheaper than a funeral,” I managed.
I forced myself upright, using his grip as an anchor. We swayed there for a second, leaning heavily against each other—him bleeding out the last of his adrenaline, me hollowed out by the spell.
Neither of us could make it down the hall alone.
“Come on,” I whispered, looping my arm around his waist again. “Let’s get you to bed. Before we both fall over.”
He let me hoist him to his feet, breathing hard as I half-carried him down the hall and into a dim, quiet bedroom.
I lowered him onto the bed; he sank back with a pained exhale, the mattress groaning under his weight.
I tugged the blankets over him.
He watched me through half-open eyes, his gaze softening in a way I didn’t understand—or didn’t dare understand.
“Selene,” he murmured, voice fading. “If I—if I hadn’t reached you in time?—“
“You did.” I brushed a stray lock of damp hair from his forehead before I realised what I was doing. “You did.”
His eyes closed for a moment, then reopened—barely.
“Don’t… leave,” he breathed.
Something in my chest folded in on itself.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
A faint, almost-smile touched his mouth—a ghost of a smile, exhausted and fragile.
“Good,” he whispered.
And then his eyes fluttered shut, his breathing evening out, drifting into sleep.
I sat on the edge of the bed, hand still trembling, watching the rise and fall of his chest, the storm battering the windows beyond.
He was safe.
He was alive.
And gods help me—that should not have mattered as much as it did.
The house settledaround me like it was breathing—slow, deep, and age-old.
I had been lying awake in the armchair for hours, but sleep refused to come. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw flashes of the lift shaft—Riven staggering, the wet crack of bone, the glint of a knife in the rain.
