Not stands. Crawls. Slow and silent, staying below the bed’s line of sight.
My nails dig into stone. I want to rip through this wall with my bare hands.
“How?” I turn to Kestra.
She’s pressing against the wall, eyes closed as she whispers. The space shimmers.
Finnian doesn’t stand but crawls faster, out of sight of Amarantha.
My stomach twists in knots. I can’t figure out where to look. Him. Her. Then back again.
I hold my breath as he stands slowly, now at the wall.
Amarantha rolls over.
We all freeze.
Finnian stares at her. One breath. Two.
Then he steps backward through the wall.
Into my arms.
I catch him. Pull him tight against me. Tighter than I should. Tighter than I’d let myself before.
“I’m sorry.” The words come out broken. “I’m sorry I wasn’t?—”
“Don’t.” His voice is raw. Wrecked. “You’re here now.”
I’m here now.
His hands shake where they grip my arms. He smells wrong—like her perfume, like something rotten underneath.
“What did she?—”
“Later.” His voice cracks on the word. “Please. Later.”
I swallow the questions. File them away. Later.
But beneath all of it, beneath everything they did to him, he’s still Finnian.
Still mine.
And I wasn’t there for him.
Distance didn’t protect him. Distance just meant he crawled through that alone.
The logic I’ve been clinging to shatters like ice on stone.
Distance didn’t protect him. Distance just meant he crawled through that alone.
The purple magic pulses at my edge, then floods inward.
Not painful. Not invasive. More like...settling. Like something that’s been circling finally found a place to land.
There you are,it seems to say. That’s the one. That’s the answer I needed.
I don’t know what I just passed. Don’t know what any of this means.
