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“I should do a lot of things. Eat vegetables. Drink more water. Stop antagonizing supernatural death traps.”

“That last one would be wise.”

“Let’s not get carried away.”

He looked back at me, and in the dim cabin light, the exhaustion hit me harder. Not physical exhaustion, though there was plenty of that. His face held the kind of tired that sleep couldn’t touch. A century in Hell had carved itself into him. Survival had kept him alive, but it had not been gentle. It had not returned what it stole.

And yet when the Hellmark pulled, he had not run back toward the Pit. He had made a tactical choice. He had trusted us. Trusted me.

I squeezed his hand before I could talk myself out of it. His gaze dropped to our joined fingers.

“I felt it,” he said quietly.

“The tether?”

“No.” His thumb moved once along the side of my hand, rough and careful. “When you blurred it. For three seconds, there was nothing.”

The words should have been simple. They were not.

He looked at me then, and every joke in my head packed a suitcase and fled.

“No pull,” he said. “No command. No presence waiting underneath my skin.” His voice went rougher. “I had forgotten what that felt like.”

Oh. My heart hurt. I hated that. So naturally, I tried to be my usual sarcastic self.

“Well,” I said, voice only slightly less steady than I wanted, “good news. Turns out I’m extremely annoying to Hell.”

His eyes warmed. “I noticed.”

“Rude.”

“Useful.”

“That’s better.”

He looked down at our hands again. “Thank you.”

The sincerity was too much.

“Nope.” I shook my head. “We are not doing heartfelt cabin confessions while the Hell leash is eavesdropping. Very bad ambiance.”

Something outside scratched against the far wall. Knox moved instantly, putting me behind him with one smooth step. I did not even get a chance to object before three shadows slid past the window.

Low. Fast. Wrong.

The cabin Wards flared bronze.

Something hissed.

Then another scratch.

Longer this time.

Testing.

Knox reached into Guy’s satchel and pulled out one of the binding knives. The blade shimmered dull silver-black, its edge etched with tiny runes.

He handed it to me hilt-first.