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He blinks, caught off guard. Human, just for a second. “Thirty-four.”

I turn, lift the pan, and set it on the butcher block between us. Cinnamon bread, torn soft at the edges, steam ghosting up into the cold air.

“Happy birthday,” I say quietly. “Savage Saint.”

He doesn’t answer. He just sets the blade down—slow, careful—like the metal weighs more than it should.

The bread sits between us, sweet and ordinary in a world that’s neither, and I feel it then—that subtle, irreversible shift. We’re still sharp. Still half-feral. Still broken in places that may never heal.

But the space between us finally feels claimed.

Not safe.

Not gentle.

Just…chosen.

XV

Savage Saint

She didn’t flinch.

That’s the problem.

I’ve seen fear before—raw and loud and holy. I’ve seen people freeze in place like prayer might save them. I’ve seen them beg. I’ve seen them lie to themselves about bravery until the moment came and took the truth out back and shot it.

Selah Crow did none of that. She stood in blood and iron and rot and asked me to teach her how to stay standing.

Not how to kill. How to endure.

That’s worse.

I wanted to say no again. Louder this time. Wanted to shove her back toward the house, toward the lie that fences and distance still mean something. Wanted to put my body between her and the world like I always have—like proximity is protection.

But she didn’t ask for that.

She asked for choice.

That changes the rules.

I’ve buried enough people to know the difference between someone who wants safety and someone who’s done begging for it.

The second kind survives.

The world never forgives that.

She’s already there.

I felt it the second she stepped closer instead of back—felt the shift in the air, the way the land held its breath. Violence knows its own long before it learns what to hunt.

She doesn’t know that yet.

That’s what I’m afraid of.

One of Cass’s boundary markers flickered—still standing, still intact—but the air around it felt…wrong. Like it had been counted and dismissed.

I told her monsters don’t raise saints. That’s true. Monsters don’t teach mercy. They teach efficiency. They teach restraint the hard way. They teach you where to put your hands—and when to pull them back before something precious breaks.