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“I prefer thorough.”

He nudges our joined hands, looking far too smug for someone currently held together by painkillers and stubbornness.

Fuck me, I could listen to him argue with me for hours if it meant never seeing him in that basement again.

For a second, he almost looks like himself again. Then the expression slips away.

“The merchant—Vera—gave me the page. Just like that.” His gaze drifts toward the window. “For years, I kept wondering why me. I thought if I burned it sooner, maybe they would have left us alone.”

The confession lands harder than it should. Or maybe exactly as hard as it should.

“The first year after it happened, every time I saw someone standing too long outside the house, I thought they were there for us.” His voice grows quieter. “Every time the comm rang late at night. Every time somebody looked at me for a second too long. At first I thought if I was careful enough, they’d go away, but they didn’t.”

For a second, all I can think about is him being twelve years old and carrying that alone.

“Sometimes I think I should’ve just stopped running.” He stares back up at the ornate ceiling overhead. “Just once turned around and asked them what they wanted from me.”

Without thinking, I shift closer. “Rowan⁠—”

“I was scared,” he admits, the words cracking somewhere in the middle. “Scared for Sola. Scared for my parents. Scared for myself.” He swallows. “I didn’t want to die.”

I keep holding his hand, staring down at our joined fingers while something uncomfortable settles deep inside my chest.

Light. All that time, and nobody knew. He lived with that fear for years.

The last of the evening light spills across the bed as silence stretches between us. Before I can talk myself out of it, I reach into my pocket.

I’ve been carrying the damn thing around all evening, waiting for the right moment, long enough to know exactly how ridiculous that is. Still, a part of me can’t help hoping he’ll love it as much as I do.

Rowan’s gaze shifts to me. “What?”

Instead of answering, I place the object in his palm, watching confusion flicker over him before his fingers slowly curl around it.

At first, he doesn’t recognize it. Then his eyes widen. “Ciaran.”

The band catches the last of the evening light, silver and black and polished enough to pass for jewelry. Not the battered medical band Vera ripped from his wrist. This one is different. Better.

For a second, he just stares at it, brushing his thumb across the polished metal as though he isn’t quite sure it’s real. “You found it?”

I look away, suddenly finding the carved molding on the wall fascinating. “Yeah.”

“When?”

A humorless laugh slips out. “When do you think?”

The answer hits him.

The basement.

Rowan’s gaze drops back to the band resting in his palm, tracing the edge with careful fingers while silence settles between us. “You kept it?”

I shrug, feeling strangely self-conscious about the whole thing. Ridiculous. Getting shot at never made me this uncomfortable. “I had it repaired.”

“Why?”

Because after dragging you out of that basement, I couldn’t stop thinking about everything they’d taken from you.

Instead, I settle for, “It seemed important.”