Morning came in slowly.
Not bright, not clean—just a dull gray light pushing its way through the uneven motel curtains, turning the room into something softer but no less tired. The flickering neon outside had finally gone quiet, replaced by the distant hum of early traffic and the occasional murmur of voices carrying faintly from the parking lot below.
Faylan hadn’t really slept.
She’d drifted in and out of something that wasn’t quite rest—half-dreams, half-thoughts, flashes of her mother’s handwriting and the echo of that steady pulse beneath her ribs. Every time she’d gotten close to real sleep, something had pulled her back up again.
The letter sat on the bedside table.
Folded now.
But not forgotten.
Faylan lay on her back staring at the ceiling, one arm tucked behind her head, the other resting loosely across her stomach. The room felt smaller in the daylight. Less eerie, maybe—but more real. Less like a place outside the world and more like a decision she had actually made.
Which meant she couldn’t pretend it didn’t count.
A quiet sound pulled her attention.
Paper.
Soft scratching.
Faylan turned her head.
Seina sat cross-legged on the edge of the bed near the window, sketchbook open in her lap, pencil moving in light, careful strokes. Her hair fell loose around her shoulders, still slightly damp-looking from the fog outside, and the early light caught faint silver in her eyes when she glanced down at the page.
She looked calm.
Too calm for everything that had happened.
Of course she did.
“Have you been up all night?” Faylan asked, her voice rough with disuse.
Seina didn’t look up right away. “Mostly.”
Faylan let out a quiet breath. “That’s concerning.”
“That’s accurate.”
That earned the smallest smile.
Faylan pushed herself up slowly, the mattress creaking in protest beneath her. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and sat there for a second, elbows resting on her knees, staring at the floor like it might offer answers if she looked long enough.
It didn’t.
Nothing did.
Her gaze drifted to the letter.
Just sitting there.
Like it hadn’t completely rewritten her understanding of her life a few hours ago.
Faylan reached for it without thinking, fingers brushing the worn paper, and something in her chest tightened again.
You were never meant to live an ordinary life.
“Did you read it again?” Seina asked quietly.
Faylan glanced up.
Seina was watching her now, pencil still in hand but forgotten.
Faylan shook her head once. “Didn’t need to.”
Seina nodded slightly, like that made sense.
Silence settled between them again, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. Just full. Heavy with things neither of them had figured out how to say yet.
After a moment, Seina closed her sketchbook and set it beside her.
“We should go home,” she said.
There it was.
The normal suggestion.
The logical next step.
Faylan stared at the floor for a long second before answering.
“…you should.”
Seina didn’t react immediately.
Didn’t argue.
Just watched her.
“Fay.”
Faylan exhaled slowly, dragging a hand through her hair. “Sei, I mean it. You should go home.”
“And you shouldn’t?” Seina asked gently.
Faylan laughed once, low and humorless. “Not yet.”
“Because of Dad?”
“Because of everything.”
She finally looked up, meeting her sister’s gaze.
There was no irritation there now.
No defensiveness.
Just something steady.
Resolved.
“I can’t walk back into that house and pretend nothing changed,” Faylan said. “I can’t sit at the kitchen table and act like we didn’t just find out Mom—” Her voice caught slightly, but she pushed through it. “—that she knew all of this. That she died for it.”
Seina’s expression softened, but she didn’t interrupt.
Faylan continued, quieter now.
“And I definitely can’t do it while Dad is still… like that. He’s not going to tell me anything. He’s just going to try to lock everything down tighter.”
Seina tilted her head slightly. “And what are you going to do instead?”
Faylan looked at the letter in her hands.
Then back at her.
“Figure it out,” she said simply.
There was a beat.
Then Seina nodded.
Not because she agreed.
Because she understood.
“That’s a terrible plan,” she said.
Faylan huffed a quiet laugh. “I know.”
“You’re going to get yourself into something.”
“I already am in something.”
That lingered between them.
Seina shifted slightly on the bed, pulling one knee up as she studied her sister.
“I can stay,” she said after a moment.
Faylan shook her head immediately. “No.”
Seina’s brows pulled together. “Why not?”
“Because,” Faylan said, softer now, “if something happens, I don’t want you here for it.”
Seina’s expression changed.
Not offended.
Not hurt.
Just… aware.
“You think you can keep me out of it?” she asked quietly.
Faylan held her gaze. “I’m going to try.”
Seina let out a slow breath through her nose, something almost like a smile touching the corner of her mouth.
“You’ve never been good at that.”
“Doesn’t mean I won’t try harder this time.”
That landed.
Seina looked down briefly, then back up.
“I felt something last night,” she admitted.
Faylan stilled slightly.
“What do you mean?”
Seina hesitated, searching for the right words. “When I got here. Before I knocked. It felt like…” She frowned faintly. “Like the air around your room wasn’t the same as everything else.”
Faylan’s stomach tightened.
“The same how?”
Seina shook her head slightly. “I don’t know. Just… different.”
Faylan swallowed.
The letter felt heavier in her hands.
If the old blood begins to answer in you…
She pushed the thought away.
“See?” she said lightly, though it didn’t quite land. “Exactly why you should go home and pretend everything is normal for at least one more day.”
Seina didn’t smile this time.
But she nodded.
“Okay.”
Faylan blinked. “Okay?”
“Okay,” Seina repeated. “I’ll go home.”
Suspicion flickered briefly. “That was too easy.”
Seina shrugged. “You’re going to do what you want anyway.”
“…rude.”
“Accurate.”
Faylan almost argued.
Almost pushed.
But she didn’t.
Because Seina wasn’t wrong.
And because part of her was relieved.
If Seina went home, she’d be safe.
Or at least safer.
That had to count for something.
Seina slid off the bed and grabbed her sketchbook, tucking it under her arm before turning back to Faylan.
“You’ll call me?” she asked.
Faylan hesitated for half a second.
Then nodded. “Yeah.”
Seina’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Actually call me. Not text me three hours later saying ‘I’m fine’ like that means anything.”
Faylan smiled faintly. “I’m fine.”
Seina gave her a look.
“…I hate you.”
“You love me.”
“Unfortunately.”
Faylan stood, closing the small distance between them. For a second, she just looked at her—really looked—taking in the familiarity of her face, the steadiness in her expression, the quiet strength she carried without making a show of it.
Then she pulled her into a hug.
Seina didn’t hesitate.
She wrapped her arms around Faylan immediately, holding on just a little tighter than before.
“Be careful,” Seina murmured.
Faylan closed her eyes briefly.
“Always.”
“Not always,” Seina said softly.
Faylan huffed a small laugh against her shoulder. “Okay, occasionally.”
“That’s worse.”
They pulled back after a second, neither of them moving far.
Seina studied her face one last time, like she was trying to memorize something.
“Call me,” she said again.
“I will.”
A beat.
Then Seina turned and headed for the door.
Faylan watched her go, the room already feeling a little emptier with each step she took. The door opened, letting in a slice of gray morning light and the distant hum of the waking town.
Seina paused just before stepping out, glancing back once.
Then she was gone.
The door clicked shut behind her.
Silence settled in again.
Faylan stood there for a long moment, staring at the closed door, the letter still in her hand, her chest tight with something she couldn’t quite name.
Then, slowly—
she exhaled.
And for the first time since everything had started unraveling, the quiet didn’t feel like something pressing in.
It felt like space.
Space to move.
Space to choose.
Faylan turned back into the room, her gaze drifting to the mirror, to the bed, to the letter.
To herself.
“Okay,” she said softly.
Not scared.
Not calm.
Something in between.
“Let’s see what happens next.”
The room stayed quiet after Seina left.
Not empty exactly—Faylan didn’t think quiet places ever really felt empty anymore—but still enough that she could hear every small thing separately. The faint buzz of the motel sign outside. The hum of the ancient air-conditioning unit. A muffled car door slamming somewhere below. The uneven drip of water from a pipe in the bathroom sink.
Greythorne was awake now.
Moving on without her.
And for the first time in a long time, Faylan wasn’t quite sure where she fit inside it.
She stood in the middle of the room with the letter still in her hand, staring at the closed door like Seina might walk back through it if Faylan changed her mind quickly enough. But she didn’t. The silence held.
Good, Faylan told herself.
Seina was safer away from this.
That thought should have made her feel better.
Instead, it only sharpened the edges of everything else.
Her mother’s handwriting. The attic. Daniel’s face when he saw the envelope. Rowan lying to her with that careful, infuriating softness he always used when he thought he was protecting her. Cassius’s smile. Caspian’s stare. The word Veinborn sitting in her chest like a stone.
Faylan moved at last, dropping onto the edge of the bed and dragging both hands over her face. She felt wrung out—like she’d cried too much, thought too much, and still somehow wasn’t any closer to understanding anything.
“Awesome,” she muttered into her palms. “Amazing. Love a complete life collapse before lunch.”
She lowered her hands and looked at the letter again.
The paper seemed almost harmless now, resting against her fingers in soft folds, its edges worn with age. But she knew better. Everything had shifted after reading it. Not because the words had been cruel, but because they had made everything else make sense in the worst possible way.
The bell.
The dreams.
The way people looked at her now—like they saw something she didn’t.
The way her own body had started answering questions she didn’t know how to ask.
Her gaze drifted toward the mirror over the dresser. For a second she thought about checking her reflection again, just to prove to herself it would behave this time.
She didn’t.
She wasn’t that brave.
Or that stupid.
Instead she stood, crossed to the rattling little sink beside the bathroom door, and splashed cold water over her face. The shock of it helped. A little. She stared at herself in the yellowed mirror above the sink—tired eyes, damp hair pulled back messily, mouth set in a line that said she was one inconvenience away from making truly terrible choices.
At least she still looked like herself.
Mostly.
“That’s comforting,” she said under her breath.
She dried her face with one of the stiff motel towels and went back to the bed, this time sitting cross-legged with the letter spread open in front of her. She read parts of it again, slower now, her eyes catching on different lines than before.
Do not trust the Houses.
Your father knows some of this. Not all.
If they have already found you—be clever before you are brave.
Faylan stared at that last line the longest.
Her mother knew her too well.
Because brave was easy. Brave was emotional. Brave was marching back home and demanding answers from Daniel until one of them snapped. Brave was finding Rowan and forcing him to tell her what he knew. Brave was walking straight toward danger because at least then she’d be the one choosing it.
Clever was harder.
Clever meant sitting still when she wanted to explode.
Clever meant thinking.
Planning.
Looking at the pieces before she shoved them together badly and cut herself open on the edges.
Faylan exhaled slowly and leaned back against the headboard.
“Okay,” she murmured. “So let’s be clever.”
The words sounded ridiculous in a motel room that smelled faintly like bleach and sadness, but she meant them.
She needed information.
Not feelings, not instincts, not the half-lies people kept feeding her like she was too fragile to hold the truth.
Real information.
What were the Houses?
What did Veinborn actually mean beyond “congratulations, your blood is apparently a supernatural problem”?
Why had the twins come now?
And Rowan—
Faylan’s mouth tightened.
Rowan knew something. More than something. Enough to go tense the second those two walked into the shop. Enough to lie smoothly and expect her to let him get away with it.
Her anger, which had cooled into something manageable after Seina left, flared warmer again.
“You’re in so much trouble,” she informed the empty room.
The room, unhelpfully, did not respond.
She looked down at the letter once more, then carefully folded it back along the creases. This time she didn’t put it away immediately. She held it a second longer, thumb brushing over the broken wax seal and the symbol pressed into it.
A circle. Branching lines.
The same thing from the chest.
The same thing from the half-hidden markings under the rug.
Her pulse answered faintly beneath her ribs.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Faylan stilled.
The sound wasn’t outside.
Not a bell. Not footsteps. Not the motel pipes settling.
It was inside her again. That measured little rhythm. Less frightening now that she recognized it, but somehow more intimate. Like something in her had developed opinions.
She pressed two fingers lightly to the inside of her wrist.
Warm skin.
Steady pulse.
And just beneath it—
for the briefest flicker—
silver.
It flashed under the surface of her veins like light catching on moving water, faint but unmistakable.
Faylan jerked her hand back.
“Nope.”
She stared at her wrist.
Nothing.
The skin looked normal again.
She hated that almost more than if it had stayed visible. At least then she could point at it and say: there. There is the terrifying thing. That’s the problem.
Instead, it vanished fast enough to leave her wondering if she was losing her mind in increasingly stylish ways.
The air in the room had gone subtly cooler again.
Not dangerously.
Just enough that the fine hairs on her arms lifted.
Faylan looked toward the window.
The curtains were still, but a weak line of daylight slipped through the gap between them, pale and gray over the carpet. Somewhere outside, a gull cried faintly.
Normal sounds.
Normal day.
She almost laughed at the thought.
Then she got up and crossed to the window anyway, pulling the curtain aside just enough to look out. The parking lot below sat half-full now, a couple of cars gleaming dull silver in the weak light. The office sign buzzed on and off. Beyond the motel, Greythorne stretched out in pieces—low rooftops, narrow streets, the hint of fog still clinging where the sun hadn’t fully reached.
From here, the town looked ordinary.
So ordinary it was insulting.
Faylan rested her forehead lightly against the glass and closed her eyes for a second.
She didn’t want to go home.
That truth sat plainly inside her now.
Not because she didn’t love Seina. Not because she didn’t even love Daniel, despite everything. But because home didn’t feel like home anymore. It felt like a house with a secret under the floorboards and a man in the kitchen who thought silence could keep monsters out.
Maybe it had.
For a while.
But that time was over.
When she opened her eyes again, her expression had changed. Not softer. Sharper, maybe. More set.
She let the curtain fall back into place and turned away from the window.
All right.
She wasn’t going home yet.
She wasn’t calling Rowan either, because if she heard his voice right now she might actually kill him, and that felt inconvenient.
What she was going to do was think.
And maybe walk.
Greythorne had always made more sense when she was moving through it. When she could feel its streets under her feet, watch people’s windows glow on, listen to the town breathe around her. If there was something shifting beneath the surface, maybe she’d feel it better out there than trapped in this room.
The thought settled in her with surprising certainty.
Yes.
Outside.
She needed air, motion, a place where her thoughts wouldn’t bounce back at her off cheap motel walls.
Faylan grabbed her jacket from the chair and slipped it on, tucking the letter safely into the inside pocket before checking it twice because apparently that was who she was now. She ran her fingers once over the folded paper through the lining, grounding herself with the feel of it.
Then she paused with her hand on the doorknob.
A strange sensation passed over her.
Not fear.
Not exactly.
More like awareness sharpening all at once.
Like someone, somewhere, had just looked up because they sensed something too.
Faylan slowly turned her head toward the mirror above the dresser.
Her reflection stared back at her.
Tired. Pale. Green eyes bright in the weak light.
And just for a second—
the silver shimmered there again, around the edges of her irises like moonlight caught in moss-dark water.
Then it was gone.
Faylan stood very still.
Her fingers tightened around the doorknob.
“Okay,” she said softly, voice steadying as she heard it. “Then let’s find out who’s looking.”
And with that, she opened the door and stepped back into Greythorne.
Greythorne was softer after dark.
Not gentler.
Just less honest.
By the time Faylan left the motel and wandered back toward the heart of town, the gray daylight had thinned into evening and then slipped fully away. Streetlamps had taken over in pale amber pools, their light blurring at the edges where fog gathered low along the sidewalks. Shop windows reflected passing headlights in brief streaks. Music drifted faintly from somewhere deeper downtown—muted, lazy, the kind of sound that made the night feel dressed on purpose.
Faylan kept walking.
She hadn’t really chosen a destination at first. She’d just needed motion. Air. Distance from the motel room and its stale walls and her own thoughts circling the same broken places. But Greythorne, like always, had a way of guiding people where it wanted them to go.
Or maybe that was just tonight.
Her boots carried her down Lantern Street, past darkened storefronts and one late-open café, past the square where the clock tower rose in the distance like a warning she refused to look at directly. Every so often that strange, measured pulse stirred low beneath her ribs again, subtle enough now that it felt less like panic and more like direction.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
Faylan hated that she was starting to listen to it.
By the time she stopped, she was standing outside The Briar Room, a narrow little bar tucked between an old tailor’s shop and a florist that closed at six but still smelled faintly of earth and roses even at night. The Briar Room’s black-painted windows reflected more than they showed. A single brass lamp above the door cast a warm low glow over the sign, which was tasteful enough to suggest expensive drinks and terrible choices.
“Of course,” Faylan murmured. “This feels healthy.”
She went in anyway.
The bar inside was dim in a deliberate way, all dark wood and amber glass and low conversation. Music hummed softly through hidden speakers—not loud enough to overwhelm, just enough to stitch the silence between tables into something smoother. Candles flickered in shallow brass holders. The back wall was lined with shelves of liquor that caught the light like colored fire.
It smelled faintly of cedar, citrus peel, old whiskey, and perfume.
Adult.
Warm.
Dangerous in a prettier outfit than the forest had worn.
Faylan paused just inside the door, letting her eyes adjust.
A few people sat scattered through the room—two women in one corner leaning close over cocktails, an older man reading something at the far end of the bar, a couple at a back table speaking in low, intimate tones. Nobody paid her much attention.
Good.
She moved toward the bar and slid onto an empty stool near the middle, setting one elbow against the polished wood. The bartender—a woman with silver hoop earrings and the expression of someone who had seen too much to be surprised by anything—lifted her gaze in quiet question.
“Something strong enough to make my life feel less weird,” Faylan said.
The bartender looked at her for exactly one second too long.
“Vodka soda,” she decided.
Faylan sighed. “That judgment was incredible, actually.”
The woman’s mouth twitched faintly. “You’ll live.”
“Debatable.”
By the time the drink arrived, cool with lime and entirely too clear to be comforting, Faylan had convinced herself this had been a good idea.
Not smart.
Not mature.
Not stable.
But good.
Because the bar was warm, and anonymous, and nowhere near her house. Because nobody here knew what a Veinborn was. Because no one could see the letter tucked inside her jacket like a second pulse. Because she could sit here for ten minutes and pretend she was just a girl with a bad week instead of a bloodline problem with eyes.
She took a sip.
It burned pleasantly.
“See,” she muttered to herself. “Very normal.”
“You do seem committed to that word.”
Faylan went still.
She knew that voice.
Smooth and low, with amusement curled through it like smoke.
She turned slowly on the stool.
Cassius stood beside her as if he had always been there.
Not looming. He didn’t need to. He just occupied space in a way that made the rest of the room feel arranged around him. Tonight he wore black again—of course he did—but softer somehow than he had in the shop, the dark collar of his coat open at the throat, the line of it framing pale skin and the easy, elegant danger of him. His hair fell in dark, slightly careless strands that somehow looked intentional anyway. In the bar’s low amber light, his face was all sharp planes and shadow, his eyes dark until they caught the candlelight and gave back something warmer.
Something hungrier.
Faylan’s pulse tripped.
Not the steady tapping.
Something more mortal.
“Wow,” she said, turning back toward her drink. “I really need to stop manifesting people.”
Cassius’s mouth curved.
“I was beginning to think you’d never come in.”
Faylan glanced at him again, slower this time.
“Were you waiting for me?”
Cassius pulled out the stool beside hers and sat with unbothered ease. “That depends.”
“On?”
“Whether the answer would make you leave.”
Faylan lifted one eyebrow. “Confident.”
“Observant,” he corrected.
She snorted softly and took another sip of her drink, pretending her skin hadn’t gone a little warmer.
He smelled different here than he had in the shop. Cleaner. Darker. Something expensive and faint beneath it all, like smoke over spice, but under that—still—there was that strange wrong rightness about him. The thing her body noticed before her mind did. The thing that made her chest feel aware.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
Cassius looked at the glass in her hand. “That seems disappointing.”
Faylan followed his gaze. “Excuse you, some of us enjoy clear beverages and self-destruction.”
A soft laugh escaped him.
“That,” he said, “I believe.”
The bartender passed by and wordlessly set down a short glass of something amber in front of him.
Faylan looked at it, then at him. “So you were waiting.”
Cassius picked up the glass but didn’t drink yet. “I prefer to think of it as trusting my instincts.”
“Your instincts told you I’d come to a moody bar alone after reading a secret dead-mom letter?”
His eyes lifted to hers at once.
And there it was.
The thing that made her forget the room for half a second.
Because he knew.
Not the details, maybe. Not the words on the page.
But enough.
Enough to make her stomach tighten and her grip shift on her glass.
“You’ve started looking for answers,” he said softly.
Faylan held his gaze, forcing herself not to flinch.
“That sentence sounds incredibly creepy when you say it like you’ve been watching me.”
Cassius tilted his head. “Would it help if I lied?”
“No.”
“Then no.”
Faylan let out one breath through her nose, halfway between irritation and a laugh. “You are impossible.”
“And yet you stayed.”
That landed a little too cleanly.
Faylan turned fully toward him then, one arm braced against the edge of the bar, pretending the movement was casual and not because she needed to study him up close.
He was unfairly beautiful.
There. She admitted it internally, like a responsible adult making peace with a terrible situation.
Not soft beautiful. Not warm.
The kind of beauty old paintings tried to warn women about. Mouth built for dangerous promises. Eyes too knowing by half. A face that looked composed even while saying unsettling things, which honestly should have been a crime.
Cassius seemed to notice the direction of her thoughts and enjoyed it immediately.
His mouth curved.
“You’re staring again.”
Faylan rolled her eyes. “You brought your own lighting. It’s distracting.”
That earned a real smile—slower this time, more pleased.
“You think I’m pretty, then.”
“Don’t ruin it.”
Cassius leaned one elbow against the bar, angling toward her just slightly. Not enough to corner. Just enough to narrow the space between them. The air shifted with it.
The room around them blurred a little at the edges—not literally, just in the way attention does when it decides one thing matters more than everything else.
“You’re avoiding home,” he said.
It wasn’t a question.
Faylan’s mouth tightened. “You’re awfully informed for someone who’s just passing through.”
Cassius finally took a sip from his glass, eyes still on hers over the rim. “I told you before. I make observations.”
“Okay, well, here’s one for you.” Faylan lifted her own drink slightly. “I don’t like being followed.”
Cassius set the glass down with a soft click.
“I haven’t followed you.”
That should have reassured her.
Instead, it made her more uneasy.
Because if he hadn’t been following her and still knew where she’d gone—
“Then how did you know I was here?”
For the first time since he’d sat down, his expression changed.
Not much.
Just enough.
The amusement stayed, but something older moved underneath it. Something more serious. His gaze dropped briefly—very briefly—to the center of her chest, right where that impossible measured pulse kept sounding beneath her ribs.
Then his eyes rose to hers again.
“I felt you,” he said.
The words slid through her like cold silk.
No joke.
No smile.
Just truth.
Faylan forgot to breathe for a second.
The steady rhythm in her chest answered instantly, stronger now.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
Cassius noticed.
Of course he noticed.
His eyes darkened, not in color exactly, but in attention.
“You’ve begun to hear it too,” he said, voice low enough now that the words seemed meant only for her.
Faylan stared at him. “Hear what?”
He watched her for a beat, as if deciding something.
Then he leaned closer.
Not enough to touch.
Enough that she could feel the shift in temperature between them, the faint coolness of him against the warmth gathering in her skin. Enough that she could see the fine dark sweep of his lashes, the shape of his mouth when it wasn’t smiling, the terrible intimacy of someone lowering their voice because they already assume you’ll listen.
“The blood,” he murmured.
Faylan’s fingers tightened around her glass.
“What does that mean?”
Cassius’s gaze dipped once more, to the collar of her jacket this time—where the letter rested hidden inside—before lifting again.
“You know enough to ask better questions than that.”
Her pulse kicked.
Infuriating.
Magnetic.
She should leave.
She knew she should leave.
Instead she said, “Then give me a better answer.”
Cassius looked at her for a long second.
There was something almost approving in it. Something that made heat rise unexpectedly under her skin, half anger, half something she did not have time to unpack in a bar with a beautiful menace.
“You’re not afraid of me,” he said.
Faylan laughed softly, though the sound came out thinner than she wanted. “That’s a weird amount of confidence for someone I barely know.”
“No,” Cassius said, and the word was quieter than the rest. “It isn’t.”
The bar around them continued on in soft blurs of sound—glass touching wood, low voices, music drifting—but none of it reached her properly anymore. Not with him looking at her like that. Not with every instinct in her body pulling in two directions at once.
Run.
Stay.
Faylan wet her lips unconsciously, and Cassius’s gaze dropped to the movement before returning to her eyes.
That tiny shift of attention felt far too intimate.
“Tell me something true,” she said.
His expression sharpened.
“All right.”
He moved closer again, close enough now that if she turned her head even slightly their shoulders might touch.
“Here’s something true,” he said softly. “You should have stayed hidden.”
The words should have sounded cruel.
Instead they sounded almost like regret.
Faylan’s brows drew together. “That’s not exactly comforting.”
“No,” Cassius said. “It isn’t.”
She searched his face, trying to understand the contradiction of him. The danger and the restraint. The amusement and that dark, fleeting sadness she could almost swear she’d seen pass through him just then.
“Why do I feel like you’re warning me and threatening me at the same time?”
Cassius’s mouth curved, but faintly now.
“Because I haven’t decided which one you’ll listen to.”
Faylan should have hated that answer.
Maybe she did.
But her body had become deeply unhelpful in the presence of this man and his voice and the way he kept sitting just inside her space like temptation had been tailored for him personally.
She looked down at her drink for one brief second, trying to recover enough of herself to form a coherent thought.
When she looked back up, his gaze had softened just a fraction.
Dangerously.
As if softness on him was rarer, and therefore much worse.
“You’re upset with the wrong people,” he said.
Faylan let out a short breath. “Bold of you to assume I’m not upset with everyone.”
That made him smile again.
There it was—the sharp, beautiful version.
“You might survive this after all.”
Faylan shook her head, but this time her own smile threatened at the edges despite herself. “You are the worst person I’ve met this week.”
Cassius lifted his glass in a tiny mock toast.
“And yet not the one you walked away from.”
That one hit.
It hit because it was true.
Because she had walked away from home, from Rowan, from explanations that smelled like protection and felt like control.
But here—here she was.
Sitting with the one person who radiated danger so clearly it should have made the choice easy.
Instead, it made it honest.
Faylan looked at him, really looked at him, and said quietly, “I haven’t decided if that’s brave or stupid.”
Cassius’s eyes held hers.
“In my experience,” he said, “it’s usually both.”
And for one suspended, terrible, electric second—
neither of them moved.
Not close enough to touch.
Close enough that the possibility of it sat openly between them anyway, warm and reckless and alive.
Then the bartender set down a fresh napkin with a pointed little glance at Faylan’s untouched lime wedge, and the spell broke just enough for air to return to the room.
Faylan looked away first, pulse a mess now, and took another sip of her drink to steady herself.
When she set the glass down, Cassius was still watching her.
Not smiling this time.
Just watching.
Like he already knew she wasn’t done asking questions.
And worse—
like he was counting on it.