The night had settled heavy on his shoulders by the time he stepped through the threshold of the safehouse, the scent of damp stone and burning wood curling around him like a phantom's touch. The air inside was warmer than the cold streets he had left behind, but the shift in temperature did nothing to thaw the creeping chill beneath his skin. The door swung shut behind him with a low, aching groan, the sound swallowed almost instantly by the suffocating quiet of the house, a silence that felt too thick, too sentient, as if the very walls were watching, waiting, holding their breath along with him.
He had done this before.
The weight of taking a life had long since become familiar, settling into him like a second skin, a dull presence that no longer startled him when it made itself known. Years of training had ensured that. Years of orders given in cold whispers, of steel meeting flesh, of knowing exactly where to strike, how deep to drive the blade, how long it would take for the body to crumple. He had been taught to ignore the shift of the world each time a target was removed from it, to focus on the mission, on the objective, on the clean execution of a task meant to keep them alive for another day.
But something about tonight was different.
Something had followed him back, something that refused to be ignored.
It clung to him like a shadow just beneath his skin, weaving itself into the spaces between his ribs, pulling at him with a weight that felt too subtle to grasp, yet utterly inescapable. He should have dismissed it as nothing more than the lingering remnants of adrenaline, the slow unraveling of his body's tension now that the job was done. And yet, it wasn't fading.
The blood on his hands should have been just another stain, just another confirmation that the mission had been successful, that the Order's enemies were fewer than they had been yesterday. But for the first time in years, he couldn't shake the feeling that he had made a mistake.
He had been so certain.
Certain when he drove the blade home, certain when the man's body seized before collapsing, certain when the final breath left his lips in a shuddering exhale. The scene had been clean, as it always was. He had stepped back into the shadows, unseen, unnoticed, slipping through the veins of the city before it could even register what had been taken from it. He had followed protocol. He had done everything right.
Then why did it feel like he had done something terribly wrong?
His movements remained precise as he stepped further inside, stripping off his gloves with methodical care, his breath measured, controlled. But his pulse was still elevated, just slightly. His chest felt too tight. And deep in the marrow of his bones, something hummed.
It wasn't fear.
It wasn't exhaustion.
It was a warning.
A slow, insidious vibration at the edge of his awareness, a whisper beneath his skin, something unseen pressing against the edges of his mind, telling him that the night was not yet finished with him.
He hadn't turned on the lights. The dim glow of the fireplace had been enough to cast the room in shifting amber hues, its flickering illumination stretching long, reaching shadows across the wooden beams overhead. The fire's glow bent the darkness into something restless, something that curled and twisted against the walls like elongated fingers, stretching toward him, twisting in shapes that his mind refused to name. The heat should have been comforting, the crackling wood a steady, grounding sound beneath the weight of his thoughts, but the warmth of the room did nothing to chase the cold settling beneath his skin.
His muscles remained coiled, his body too tight, too ready, too braced—as if he were still expecting something unseen to crawl out from the depths of those shadows. The absurdity of it grated against his already frayed nerves. He knew better than to let exhaustion get to him. He had been doing this for too long to let one mission, one kill, one night, leave him so unnerved.
He had always been careful. Always precise.
He did not make mistakes.
And yet, the certainty that should have settled in his chest like a dull, familiar weight, like the satisfaction of a job done, instead felt jagged, like something that had lodged itself beneath his ribs and refused to be dislodged, like something clawing its way to the surface in slow, agonizing increments. He exhaled sharply, shaking his head as if the motion could dislodge the feeling, could silence the quiet hum of unease thrumming beneath his skin.
Routine. He needed routine.
It was what tethered him, what kept him grounded, what reminded him that he was still here, still in control, still real.
Removing his coat. Setting his weapons aside. Peeling the bloodstained fabric from his skin. These were the steps that brought him back to himself, the things that had always been unquestionably real, the simple, methodical process of cleaning up after a job, of moving forward.
But then—there was movement.
Subtle. Soundless.
Not the creak of wood or the shifting of shadows, not a presence one could hear so much as sense—a delicate shift in the air, a change in the weight of the silence, a quiet pressure pressing against the edge of his awareness.
He did not have to turn around.
He already knew she was there.
Luna had always been there.
The firelight caught in strands of her pale hair as she lingered near the window, the soft glow making her seem almost ethereal, as if she weren't entirely bound to the same reality as the rest of them. She sat with her posture languid, one knee drawn up, her fingers tracing absent patterns against the wood beneath them. Her gaze was unfocused in that way of hers, drifting, thoughtful, impossible to tell whether she was truly looking at him or staring through him, seeing things he could not.
She did not speak immediately.
She never did.
Luna had always had a way of making silence feel full, of stretching it until it became a presence in itself, something that pressed against the walls, that filled the space between words with things left unsaid.
And then—finally, in a voice quiet, distant, soft as falling ash, she murmured,
"The crows have been talking."
The words should have meant nothing. They should have been just another of her cryptic musings, another wisp of half-truths wrapped in something too abstract to hold onto. But the way she said them—the way the syllables slipped from her tongue with quiet finality, the way the firelight flickered as if reacting to the weight of her voice—sent a slow, cold shiver down his spine.
He clenched his jaw, willing the tension from his body, but it did not leave.
He told himself he was tired.
He told himself that the weight in his limbs was exhaustion, not unease.
He told himself that his heartbeat was only quickened by the lingering effects of adrenaline, not by the way she was watching him, not by the way she tilted her head as if she already knew what he refused to admit.
He did not ask what she meant.
He did not want to know.
Instead, he moved past her, deliberate and unhurried, toward the small basin where he could wash the blood from his hands. The water ran clear at first, then pink, then deep red as it swirled in thin rivulets down the drain. He scrubbed harder than necessary, the bristles of the brush biting into his skin, as if he could erase the feeling along with the stain, as if he could silence the whisper in the back of his mind that insisted, something was wrong.
Behind him, she shifted.
A sound so soft it barely registered, the faint rustling of fabric barely audible over the crackling fire, but somehow, he knew it mattered.
Then—her voice again, quiet, smooth, almost absentminded.
"You killed the wrong man."
The air changed.
A sudden, sharp tightness pressed against the room, thick enough that he could feel it settling in his lungs, pressing against his ribs. His grip tightened around the edges of the basin, the cool porcelain grounding him when nothing else did. His breath slowed, measured, controlled—but his pulse did not.
The weight in his chest became unbearable.
He turned.
Slowly.
Carefully.
His expression remained unreadable, his body steady, but his eyes—his eyes gave him away.
Shadowed. Tight at the edges. Dark.
"I don't make mistakes."
The words left his lips with the same cold finality that had always carried him through war, through battle, through every mission that required him to be unshakable, unwavering, untouchable.
But Luna did not flinch.
She met his gaze without hesitation, her silver-blue eyes reflecting the firelight like molten metal, something unreadable shifting beneath their depths.
She tilted her head slightly, gaze lingering, sharp but soft, patient but unyielding.
And then, after a moment that stretched just long enough to feel like an eternity, she murmured,
"No. You don't."
It should have been a reassurance.
It wasn't.
Because she hadn't looked away.
Because something in her voice told him that she was waiting for him to realize it himself.
Because the certainty he had once held—the certainty that should have anchored him, that should have settled in his chest like solid stone—was slipping further and further from his grasp.
He ascended the narrow staircase with deliberate slowness, each step measured, each movement careful, as though the air itself had shifted, thickened with something unseen, something that settled against his skin like a whisper of breath against the nape of his neck. The dim corridors of the safehouse stretched before him in uneven shadow, the flickering glow of candlelight bending at unnatural angles, casting the wooden beams into long, reaching silhouettes that curled and shifted as if something unseen moved within them.
The floorboards creaked beneath his boots, the sound swallowed almost instantly by the suffocating hush that seemed to press in from the walls, stretching unnaturally through the space. There were people here, voices that should have made the house feel less desolate, less haunted, and yet, the weight of solitude clung to him with an almost suffocating grip.
It had only been a week since Draco dragged him through the threshold of this so-called sanctuary, a mere seven days since he was thrust into the fragile, uneasy coexistence of the eight of them, but despite the presence of old acquaintances and reluctant allies, despite the faint murmur of voices drifting through the lower rooms, it was her presence that unsettled him most.
She was a specter lingering at the edges of his awareness, a quiet hum in a space that should have been empty, an ever-present pull just beyond the edge of his vision. He could feel her without seeing her, a soft pressure at the back of his mind, like the sensation of being watched when there was no one there. No matter how much he tried to ignore it, he could feel her—her.
She was not the same girl he remembered from Hogwarts.
The one who wandered the corridors with faraway eyes and a dreamy voice, who spoke of things no one else believed in, who seemed to exist just outside of reality, unbothered by the ridicule and skepticism thrown her way. She had been strange then—strange, but harmless. A curiosity, an oddity that was easy to dismiss with an exasperated sigh or a roll of his eyes, a thing of childhood myths and whispered absurdities.
But now, standing beneath the same roof, moving through the same spaces, he found that she was no longer so easy to dismiss.
She was not a little girl anymore.
That much was undeniable.
Somewhere between the war and now, between the past he tried to leave behind and the uncertain present he now inhabited, she had become something else. She had become something that unsettled him more than he cared to admit, something he did not know how to define, something that did not fit neatly into the categories of what he understood.
She had become ethereal.
Not in the soft, fragile way of a girl untouched by the world, but in the way of something too still, too knowing, too in tune with things beyond the tangible.
She was gorgeous now, a word he had never thought to associate with her before, but there was no denying it. It was not a beauty of warm smiles and easy softness, not the kind that invited admiration or affection. It was something sharper, something otherworldly, something that felt like it did not belong entirely to this plane of existence.
It was in the way she moved—slow, unhurried, with the grace of something weightless, as if the air itself shifted to accommodate her, as if the world knew better than to resist the space she occupied. It was in the way she tilted her head at odd angles, not in the manner of someone absentmindedly lost in thought, but as though she were listening to something no one else could hear.
Her presence had changed. She had changed.
There was something in the way she carried herself now, in the way she spoke with a voice that had deepened, smoothed into something quieter, richer, threaded with meaning beneath its softness. It was no longer the dreamy lilt of a child lost in fantasy—it was the voice of a woman who knew things others refused to acknowledge, a voice that slipped through the air like a secret only meant for those willing to hear it.
She was angelic, but not in the way one would describe something pure and untouched.
She was angelic in the way of something beautiful, yet distant. In the way of statues carved into the walls of ancient cathedrals, eyes hollowed with unknowable wisdom, hands extended in gestures of either salvation or judgment. She was something holy and untouchable, and yet, she moved among them, walked beside them, existed in the same space, as if she belonged here—when she did not belong anywhere.
He told himself it was unease.
That was why he watched her more than he should. That was why his gaze lingered when she passed by, why he found himself waiting for the sound of her voice in conversations that did not involve her, why his mind caught on the memory of her like a hook snagged beneath his ribs.
It was unease.
It was the natural discomfort of sharing a space with someone who existed between the known and the unknowable, someone who made the edges of reality blur, someone who unsettled the air itself when she moved.
But deep down, he knew better.
Deep down, he knew it was not only unease.
She unsettled him.
And yet, he could not look away.
~~~
The water ran hot, scalding against his skin, but he barely noticed the sting as he stood beneath the steady, relentless stream, his head bowed, his hands braced against the cool, slick tiles of the shower wall. Steam curled around him in thick, swirling tendrils, blurring the edges of the small, dimly lit space, making it feel even more removed from reality, more like the inside of some forgotten dream. The scent of iron clung to him, thick and metallic, mingling with the faint bite of soap and damp stone, refusing to be washed away as easily as it should have been. He had been here for what felt like an eternity, watching the water swirl down the drain in slow, lazy spirals of red, but no matter how many times he scrubbed, no matter how long he let the heat work against his skin, the blood refused to leave him entirely.
It was different this time.
Not like before.
He had washed away blood countless times, had stood beneath showers just like this, letting the evidence of what he had done be stripped away by water that always ran too hot, as if he could burn away the weight of it, as if he could make himself clean. But tonight, the sensation was different, the blood clinging to him in a way that made his stomach turn, thick and unyielding, as if it had seeped into his pores, as if it had become a part of him. He dragged his hands over his arms, over the planes of his chest, pressing his fingers into the grooves of his skin, feeling the slick resistance, the way it refused to be scrubbed away entirely.
It should be gone by now.
It should have faded into nothing, just another ghost of a memory that would dissolve with time, but it wasn't. It was still here, still thick, still clinging, like something refusing to be forgotten. The sensation of it made something coil deep in his gut, unease curling like smoke, slipping beneath his ribs, pressing against the fragile certainty he had clung to since stepping back into the safehouse.
He had done his job. He had completed the mission. He had eliminated a threat.
And yet, the blood remained.
The heat of the shower did nothing to chase away the cold that had settled beneath his skin, a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature of the room and everything to do with the way the night refused to let go of him. The memory of it sat heavy in his mind, the way the body had crumpled, the way the air had shifted in the seconds after the kill, the way something had lingered in the silence that followed. He had walked away. He had done what needed to be done. But something had changed, something had unraveled in the moment when his blade had slid through flesh, and now, standing beneath the water, watching the last remnants of red disappear into the drain, he couldn't shake the feeling that it wasn't over.
He tipped his head back, letting the water cascade over his face, his breath slow, steady, controlled, but beneath it, beneath the rigid restraint he forced himself to maintain, the unease gnawed at him, refusing to be ignored.
The blood should have washed away by now.
But somehow, he could still feel it.
~~~
After pulling on a pair of worn sweatpants and an equally loose t-shirt, Theo padded barefoot down the creaky staircase, the lingering warmth of the shower still clinging to his skin. Steam curled at the ends of his hair, the damp strands brushing against his forehead, but the heat did little to dispel the weight pressing against his chest. It sat there, dull yet unrelenting, an ache just beneath his ribs that refused to settle, a tension that no amount of scalding water or deep breathing could fix.
The house had quieted in the way that it always did at this hour—the kind of silence that only settled when most of its inhabitants had either gone to bed or had buried themselves in the work that kept them sane. But as he moved toward the kitchen, the faint clink of a spoon against ceramic and the rustle of parchment told him that someone else was awake.
Hermione.
She sat at the long wooden table, her back slightly hunched over a steaming cup of tea, the glow from the single candle flickering against the sharp angles of her face. Her eyes skimmed over the intricate blueprints sprawled in front of her, fingers idly tapping against the rim of her mug, the steady rhythm betraying the intensity of whatever plan she was working through. The sight was familiar, comforting in a way he hadn't expected.
Pausing in the doorway, he watched as she muttered something under her breath, adjusting a note in the margins before taking a slow sip of her tea. It was the same scene he had walked in on countless times before—her relentless mind refusing rest, her thoughts too full to be contained by something as trivial as sleep.
Finally, he stepped forward, stretching his arms over his head as he greeted her with a familiar drawl.
"Granger."
She glanced up, her lips twitching at the corners, though she didn't roll her eyes the way she normally would at his lack of formality. Instead, she sighed, shifting slightly in her seat before cradling her mug between her hands.
"Theodore," she said, voice light but pointed. "I think we're well past the stage of calling each other by surnames, don't you?"
He smirked, pulling out a chair across from her, sinking into it with all the ease of someone who had spent enough sleepless nights in this very spot.
"Hermione," he said finally, testing the name, rolling it off his tongue like something foreign yet oddly familiar.
She hummed approvingly before tilting her head, her sharp gaze sweeping over him with the kind of careful assessment that made him feel like she was cataloging every unspoken thought. She had a way of doing that—of seeing through people before they were ready to be seen.
"Are you okay, love?" she asked, the endearment slipping out naturally, the way it always did when she softened toward people she cared about.
He leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest as he offered an easy shrug, as if the motion could shake off whatever lingered inside him.
"Yeah, of course. Everything went as planned. No mishaps."
Her eyes narrowed slightly, as if trying to find the lie in his words, but before she could press further, she glanced toward the doorway and sighed.
"Draco is coming down soon to have a quick meeting."
Theo arched a brow, his lips curling into something mischievous as he leaned forward, resting his forearms against the table.
"Draco, is it now?"
Hermione groaned, rubbing at her temple as if she could already feel the headache forming.
"Oh, gods, Theo, stop. That's his name."
His smirk deepened, amusement flickering in his gaze as he tilted his head. "Oh yes, darling, I heard you scream that name two nights ago."
The reaction was instant.
Hermione's face flushed a deep shade of crimson as she choked on her tea, coughing violently before glaring at him, horrified.
"Theodore."
He only grinned wider, thoroughly enjoying himself.
"Might want to practice your silencing and contraceptive charms," he added, lifting his mug in a mock toast.
"Nothing happened!" she sputtered, her voice slightly too high, slightly too defensive.
Theo chuckled, shaking his head as he took a slow sip of his tea.
"I may be inexperienced, Hermione, but I'm not deaf."
She groaned, burying her face in her hands. "Keep that between us?" she mumbled, voice muffled. "I don't want the others to know."
He studied her for a moment before nodding, his smirk fading into something quieter. "If it helps you sleep better at night, sure."
Her shoulders sagged in relief, though the pointed glare she shot him still held a warning.
"You're insufferable."
"And yet, you'd be lost without me." He smirked, reaching for one of the blueprints, lazily scanning it before sliding it back toward her.
She rolled her eyes but didn't argue, instead nudging his foot under the table in silent gratitude. He nudged her back, the easy rhythm of their banter settling into something comfortable, something familiar, something that made the safehouse feel a little less cold.
Draco finally descended the stairs, his footsteps sharp and deliberate against the wooden floor, his presence shifting the air in the room with the same quiet authority he had always carried. His platinum hair was slightly disheveled, as if he had been running his hands through it in frustration, and there was a shadow of exhaustion clinging to the sharp angles of his face.
Without preamble, he strode into the kitchen, a stack of parchment clutched tightly in one hand, his other pressing against the bridge of his nose as if physically bracing himself for whatever headache the coming conversation would bring. He barely spared Theo and Hermione a glance before dropping the pages onto the table with a weighty thud, exhaling sharply as he pulled out a chair.
"We need to go over the details," he said at last, voice clipped, all business, though beneath it, exhaustion lingered.
Theo leaned back in his chair, stretching out with practiced ease, expression amused as he lazily reached for his tea.
"Good evening to you too, king," he drawled, watching as Draco barely resisted the urge to roll his eyes.
Hermione shot Theo a warning glance before turning back to Draco, her demeanor shifting in an instant.
"Alright, let's start from the beginning. What do we know?"
Draco rubbed at his temple before tapping the parchment, a detailed map blooming across its surface, ink bleeding into neat, precise lines.
His gaze flicked to Theo. "The hit was clean?"
Theo nodded, exhaling as he shifted in his seat.
"As clean as it could be. No collateral, no loose ends."
He hesitated.
"But something felt off."
Draco's gaze sharpened. "Off how?"
Theo didn't answer right away. He stared at the map, at the carefully inked lines and names, but all he could see was the alley, the blood that had been too thick, the moment the air had changed.
His jaw tightened.
"The blood," he said finally. "It was wrong."
Draco's fingers curled against the table, his expression unreadable.
Theo exhaled. "That's exactly what I'm saying."
Draco leaned back, his voice laced with something close to exasperation.
"You weren't followed, so it's not the Death Eaters.
A pause. A pointed look.
"Why don't you just get some sleep, Prince?"
Theo barely muttered an excuse before pushing himself up from his seat, his movements measured but firm, needing to put as much space as possible between himself and the conversation unraveling downstairs. The weight of Draco's scrutiny, the sharp edge of Hermione's concern, the implications of his own unease—it all pressed against him, thickening the air in the room until it felt suffocating. He needed distance. Needed the quiet. Needed something that wasn't the analytical stares of his supposed allies picking apart every detail of the night he was trying desperately to forget.
His boots barely made a sound against the wooden stairs as he ascended, his body moving on autopilot, muscles tensed even as he forced himself to breathe through the discomfort coiled tight in his chest. He reached his room faster than he expected, the door closing behind him with a soft, final click that should have brought relief but somehow only deepened the tension settling into his bones.
Solitude. Finally.
Except it didn't last.
Time moved strangely in his exhaustion—minutes passing in a slow, heavy blur, or maybe it had only been seconds—and then came the knock. Light. Deliberate. A presence that made the air shift before the sound had even fully settled. He didn't need to turn around to know who it was. He could feel it. The same way he always could. The same way he had, for days now, ever since stepping foot inside this safehouse.
She was standing in his doorway when he finally turned.
"Theodore."
His name, quiet but certain, slipped from her lips like an inevitability, like something that had already been written into the night before he had even arrived. He met her gaze, trying—failing—to ignore the way his own name sounded when she said it, as if it belonged to someone else entirely.
"Lovegood," he returned, voice carefully neutral, a thin barrier of detachment between them, one he wasn't sure he knew how to maintain when it came to her.
She watched him, unblinking, unreadable, before tilting her head slightly, as if listening to something he couldn't hear. And then, in that same soft, unwavering voice, she said the words he didn't want to hear.
"You killed the wrong person."
His shoulders stiffened, jaw tightening as frustration sparked beneath his ribs. Not this again. Not her, of all people, adding to the doubts already gnawing at his subconscious. He exhaled sharply, forcing himself to remain composed.
"Stop this, okay? I don't make mistakes. I told you already—he's dead."
Luna didn't flinch, didn't look away, didn't waver in that infuriating way of hers, as if the world could crumble around her and she would still be standing exactly as she was.
"That's not what I heard."
His fingers curled into fists before he could stop them, tension winding through his frame like a taut wire ready to snap. He should have ignored her. Should have pushed past her, dismissed her words as nothing more than the usual cryptic nonsense. But something about the way she said it, the certainty in her voice, made his stomach twist in a way he didn't like.
His breath left him in a sharp exhale, forced and thin. "From who, pray tell?"
She didn't hesitate.
"From the crows."
A short, bitter laugh nearly left his throat, but the sound died before it could fully form. Instead, he stared at her, searching for any trace of amusement, any hint that she was toying with him, pushing him just for the sake of it.
But she wasn't.
She was serious.
And that—more than anything—sent an icy shiver down his spine.
Luna stepped forward, only slightly, only enough for the dim candlelight to catch in her hair, silver strands reflecting a glow that made her look untouched by the weight of the moment, eerily calm in the face of something that shouldn't be real.
"The person isn't there anymore," she continued, voice absent of inflection, as if she were merely stating a fact, as if she weren't shattering the fragile grip he had on reality.
For a fleeting second, something inside him faltered. His carefully constructed certainty cracked, just enough to let something else seep through.
He had seen the body fall.
He had watched the life drain from his target's eyes.
He had walked away knowing—knowing—his job was done.
And yet, she stood before him, claiming otherwise. Speaking of crows and whispers and impossibilities as if they were truths written into the very fabric of the world.
Bloody hell.
Theo exhaled through his nose, pressing the heel of his hand against his brow as if that alone could erase the creeping unease from his mind. He was exhausted. That was all. This was exhaustion.
Nothing more.
"Everything is fine, Lovegood." The words left him heavier than he intended, almost as if they were meant to convince himself as much as they were meant for her. "I am fine. Nothing happened."
She didn't argue. Didn't push. Didn't do anything except study him, gaze sweeping over his face like she was searching for something beneath the surface, something he wasn't sure he wanted her to find.
And then, finally, she inclined her head just slightly, the ghost of a knowing smile barely tugging at the corner of her lips.
"If you say so."
She turned without another word, her steps light, effortless, like she had never truly been there at all.
The moment she disappeared down the hall, Theo let out a slow breath, running a hand down his face. The space she had occupied felt different now, like something invisible had been left behind, something heavier than her presence alone.
He swallowed hard, staring at the now-empty doorway, at the space where she had stood.
And for the first time since he had returned to the safehouse, he wasn't sure if he was alone.
~~~
Sleep had refused to come, no matter how many times he shifted onto his side, no matter how deeply he inhaled, no matter how forcefully he willed his mind to quiet. The room was dark, the air thick with the kind of silence that should have been restful, should have been calming. But it wasn't.
Not tonight.
Not when the weight of her words clung to him like damp fabric, pressing into his skin, refusing to let go.
You killed the wrong person.
The phrase echoed in his mind, looping endlessly, as if spoken into the marrow of his bones, as if it had nestled itself into the very rhythm of his breathing.
He exhaled slowly, staring at the ceiling, at the faint patterns of shadows shifting against the wooden beams. But all he could see was **the way she had looked at him when she said it—**so sure, so utterly certain.
So goddamn certain.
Frustration curled in his gut as he rolled onto his stomach, pressing his forehead into the pillow, as if he could suffocate the thought before it could fully take root. But the moment his eyes slipped shut, the past rose to meet him, unbidden.
A flash of silver in the dim light—his blade, smooth and precise, cutting through air before sinking into flesh. A sharp inhale, the last breath of a man who never saw it coming. The familiar sensation of a heartbeat stuttering, slowing, stopping beneath his hand. He had been efficient, as he always was. It had been over in seconds.
Clean.
No hesitation.
No mistakes.
And yet—
His jaw tightened, fingers twisting in the sheets as he threw an arm over his eyes, as if he could block out the memory, but it was too late.
It replayed in perfect clarity, except now, something was wrong.
The way the blood had pooled had been off, the scent of iron thicker than usual, clinging to the back of his throat. The moment the body hit the ground, the air had shifted—not just in the way it always did after a kill, but in a way that felt different.
Wrong.
Like something unseen had taken notice.
He had ignored it then.
Had chalked it up to exhaustion, to the paranoia that sometimes followed high-stakes work.
But now—
The crows have been talking.
Theo's jaw clenched as he sat up abruptly, his body humming with restless energy as he ran a hand through his hair, fingers tugging at the strands in frustration.
He was letting her get into his head.
He knew this.
Knew that Luna spoke in riddles, in half-truths wrapped in whispers, in things most people dismissed outright. He had always thought she lived in a world slightly adjacent to reality, one foot in something intangible, something no one else could see.
But tonight—
Tonight, she had spoken with such certainty, and that unnerved him.
His gaze flickered toward the window, toward the inky blackness beyond the glass. The house remained still, silent, undisturbed. And yet, the feeling in his gut refused to leave, a cold knot tightening with every passing second.
The person isn't there anymore.
He didn't want to believe her.
Didn't.
But the thought kept circling back, digging into his ribs like a blade, refusing to let go.
Another memory, sharp and sudden—
The man's face.
The way his eyes had widened, not with fear, but with something else.
Recognition.
A flicker of something unreadable in that final second, lips parting as if he had been about to say something, but the words had never come.
Theo exhaled harshly, dragging a hand down his face.
He was being ridiculous.
He was exhausted. He needed sleep.
But still—
Still, he found himself throwing back the covers, his feet hitting the cool wooden floor as he rose, restless.
He didn't know where he was going, didn't have a destination in mind, but staying in this room, in the suffocating dark with only his thoughts and her words gnawing at the edges of his sanity, was not an option.
Maybe a walk through the safehouse would clear his mind.
Maybe, if he stayed awake long enough, if he let the night stretch long enough, his thoughts would stop circling back to that moment—
To the way the night had seemed to breathe when the life left his target's body.