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The rejection from his words slices deeply through the bond. I try my hardest to ignore it, but he sees it in my deflated expression. His anger dies, and silence falls between us again as he moves toward the door.

“Wait!” I blurt as I fight back the tears burning my eyes. Kylian pauses. “Are you coming back here before you go?” My voice breaks embarrassingly.

He doesn’t turn, nor does he answer. He just leaves, shutting the door between us. For a long moment I just stand here, staring at the door as if it might open again, as if he might turn around and take back what he said.

CHAPTER 58

• Alessia •

THE SILENCE STRETCHES until it starts pressing in from all sides, until the stone walls feel too close and the space too empty.

When it is clear Kylian isn’t returning, I get up, catching my reflection in the darkened window. So much time has slipped by without me realizing. Staring at my hollowed cheeks, the purple shadows under my eyes, I barely recognize myself. It’s as if the more he ignores and rejects me, the greater the toll it takes on my body.

Deciding that I don’t want to sit in this room any longer, I leave.

The castle is busier now. Voices carry through the corridors as people move toward the main hall where the guards and workers gather in the evenings. I follow the noise without thinking too hard about where my feet are taking me.

Eventually the smell of bread and something roasted reaches me along with the low hum of conversation. I let it wrap around me because it feels normal, and normal is something I haven’t had in so long.

I spot Arlo before he sees me. He’s leaning against a wall, watching the room with that same quiet awareness he always has, cataloging everything around him without making it obvious. When his gaze lands on me, a grin splits his face.

“I figured they had you locked up,” he says.

I shake my head, stopping in front of him.

“I asked Eagan if I could have dinner with you, but he said you were with the king.” He pushes off the wall, and I can see the effort it takes him to keep his voice easy, to not ask the questions I know he’s holding back.

“I needed air,” I reply, even though that isn’t entirely true. He doesn’t believe me, but he doesn’t push. He never pushes.

“He didn’t hurt you, did he?” Arlo questions, his eyes already scanning every inch of my visible skin for injury.

“No, of course not. Kylian has never deliberately hurt me.” That isn’t true, not when his whip cut gashes into my skin or when his words cut deeper than anything physical I have ever felt.

He studies me, his gaze flicking over my face before it darts to my neck. He exhales and nods toward the tables filling the hall. “Come on. You can eat with me for once.”

I glance around properly then, noticing the long tables lined with food, the human guards already seated alongside workers and civilians from town in a way that feels almost normal. Sprinkled among them, vampires sit drinking from goblets, casually. There is no fear here. Laughter and conversation rises in pockets around the room, and it feels like stepping into something familiar from my childhood, back when the entire Arcanum would gather every full moon.

That thought makes me miss Sable even more.

We find a place in the middle, squeezed between a group of guards arguing loudly over something trivial and a pair of older women already halfway through their meal. Arlo sits across from me, leaning forward slightly as he reaches for a piece of bread and tears it in half, offering me the bigger portion without thinking about it. That’s just who he is, who he has always been.

“This almost feels like home back at the farm,” he says, glancing around with a faint smile. “Well, before the freeze. Man I miss home. Never thought I would miss that place.”

His words settle strangely. Home. I don’t know what that means anymore. I’m not sure I ever did.

“We could have that again,” he adds after a moment, his voice quieter now.

I look down at the plate in front of me, picking at the food without really tasting it. “Arlo—”

“I’m serious, Ali,” he whispers, leaning closer. “We don’t have to stay here. We don’t have to be part of whatever this is.”

My gaze lifts despite myself. “And go where?”

“Anywhere that isn’t this,” he replies without hesitation, and the certainty in his voice almost breaks me. “We can go back and get Mom and Angie. We’ll find somewhere away from all of this, somewhere quiet where no one cares what you are, and we just . . . live.”

The way he says it makes something twist deep in my chest, because I can see it. I can almost feel it. The simplicity, the peace, the version of a life I once believed I wanted before everything got ripped apart and stitched back together wrong.

“You make it sound easy,” I murmur, because the picture he paints is too clean, too untouched by the reality I know waits for someone like me.