The bench beneath us was too cold for comfort and too warm for nostalgia. The kind of temperature that didn't ask permission—it just settled into your skin and waited to see what you'd do with it.
She didn't move for a while.
Didn't speak.
Her head remained on my shoulder like she'd forgotten gravity worked both ways.
I glanced at her hand. Still close. Still open. Like she was waiting to lace her fingers through mine again if I didn't make her ask for it.
"Do you want to stay here?" I asked eventually.
She blinked. Not slow, not fast. Just once.
Then: "For a little."
I nodded.
The tracks stretched ahead, rusted and ruined and perfect. I liked them because they didn't go anywhere. No momentum. No destination. Just proof that movement used to happen.
And then didn't.
She finally straightened, not fully—just enough to pull her knees up onto the bench and tuck them under her chin. Her arms looped around them, a soft cage of her own making.
"I think I hate silence a little less when it's like this," she said.
I didn't reply.
Didn't need to.
She looked at me then.
Not like she was trying to read something.
Like she was trying to remember what it meant to be seen without consequence.
"Tell me something true," she said.
I raised an eyebrow. "That's a Dangerous game."
"I know," she murmured. "Play it anyway."
I looked out over the rails. Then back at her. And said—
"I wasn't supposed to feel anything for you."
Her eyes widened. Slightly.
"That's the truth?" she asked.
"No," I said. "That's the beginning."
She blinked. The silence between us shifted again. From weight… to warmth.
"Then tell me the rest."
And just like that, the game stopped being dangerous.
And started being real.
The platform was still warm beneath us, holding the heat of a day already beginning to forget itself. The light slanted sharper now, catching on the curve of her cheekbone, the edge of her jaw. She wasn't hiding from it anymore. Just resting in its last glow.
"Lucien," she said, after a long pause. "I meant it."
I glanced at her. "Meant what?"
"When I said I wanted to keep that photo. I wasn't trying to be poetic."
"I know."
She turned her head slightly, looking at me without lifting it from my shoulder. "I've forgotten faces before. Names. Whole decades. But this… I don't want it to blur."
"It won't," I said. "Not this."
She nodded. Slowly. "Because you'll remember it for me?"
"No," I said. "Because I won't let you forget it."
She was quiet again, but it was the kind of quiet that hummed with meaning. Like her silence was making room for something real to land.
"You didn't ask who the kiss was with," she said suddenly. "The one I remembered."
"I didn't need to."
"But you wanted to."
I looked ahead, toward the empty rails. "Yeah. I did."
She shifted, sat up slightly so she could face me. Her eyes searched mine—not testing, not teasing. Just looking for somewhere steady to put the truth.
"It was another vampire," she said. "One who thought power made him worthy."
"And did you want it?"
"I wanted to feel something." She looked down. "But it wasn't this. It wasn't you."
I exhaled through my nose. Not angry. Just tired of history.
"I don't need your firsts," I said.
She looked up again.
I reached for her hand, laced my fingers through hers. "I just want to be the last one that matters."
That made her smile.
Not soft.
Sharp.
Like it meant something.
"You already are," she said. "You broke me to prove it."
"And now?"
She leaned in, brushed her lips to mine—not with heat, but with something quieter. More honest.
"Now I'm choosing it."
I kissed her back.
Not to claim.
To confirm.
She rested her forehead against mine. "Lucien?"
"Yeah."
"Don't let me forget this either."
"I won't," I whispered. "Even if you do."
And we stayed like that. On a forgotten bench, in a city that no longer remembered what it had lost.
Letting the sky darken around us.
Letting the silence say everything else.
——————————————————-
Elsewhere, the city was not quiet.
A rooftop, three districts over. High enough to see the haze gather where the sky met concrete. The wind moved faster here—reckless, unfiltered, loud. It tangled through the open collar of a man's coat as he leaned over the edge of the building, a cigarette pinched loosely between two fingers.
Meme Oshino didn't smoke.
But he liked holding the habit.
It made people underestimate how much time he spent watching.
Below, the traffic was slow. Not lazy. Just uncertain. Like the city itself had started noticing the cracks in its skin.
He exhaled—just breath, no smoke—and tapped ash that didn't exist onto the ledge.
"I was wondering when you'd show up," he said without turning.
A shadow peeled itself from the doorway behind him. No footsteps. Just pressure. The kind that rearranged air without asking.
"I'm not here for a greeting," the woman said. Her voice was dry, ageless. As if time passed through her throat but didn't stop.
Meme smiled faintly. "No one ever is."
The woman stepped closer. Her coat—long, high-collared, fraying at the sleeves—moved like it remembered combat. Her eyes were the kind that had seen too many endings and not enough beginnings.
"I sensed a shift," she said. "A boundary pulled out of orbit."
"That'd be Lucien," Meme replied. "He doesn't really care where the lines are. Just how fast he can make them blur."
The woman's mouth flattened. Not disapproval.
Something colder.
"Is he dangerous?"
Meme paused.
Then shrugged.
"Yes. But not recklessly. He burns like a slow match. You don't notice the fire until it's behind your teeth."
She was quiet for a moment. Then: "And the aberration killer?"
"She's not the same," he said. "But you already knew that."
"She chose him."
"She didn't have a choice."
"Same thing, sometimes," the woman murmured.
They stood there in silence, watching the city. Somewhere below, a siren wailed and vanished again. Just another pattern in the distance. Just another sign something was coming undone.
"How long before he finds you?" she asked.
Meme finally looked away from the street. Met her gaze.
"I think he already has."
—————————————————-
Lucien's POV
Her forehead rested against mine. Quiet. Unmoving.
She stayed there like the moment could be held in place by proximity alone. As if stillness could suspend consequence.
And I let her.
Because I knew she needed it.
Because I'd designed her to.
"I won't let you forget," I said softly. Almost tenderly.
But there was nothing soft about the reason.
It had started back at the temple.
The breaking.
The unraveling.
Everything after that—every bathhouse, every donut, every arcade neon reflection in her gold-tinted eyes—was just reconstruction. A carefully curated afterglow.
Not a romance.
A ritual.
The illusion of warmth is the most elegant kind of leash.
And she clung to it like a lifeline.
She sat back slightly. Just enough to look at me. Her eyes scanned mine, too full of belief for her own good.
"You say things like that," she whispered, "and they feel like they're already true."
I smiled the way I always do when I'm winning.
"They are."
Truth is a funny thing when someone else lets you define it.
She looked at me like I was steady. Like I was real.
Like I hadn't planned the bathhouse just to watch her submit in steam. Like I hadn't chosen the donut shop to remind her of sweetness—so she'd associate me with the first one she tasted since childhood. Like I hadn't steered her to the arcade, to the rooftop, to the quiet bench beneath the city's ribs, all to give her a shape to wrap herself around again.
Mine.
I didn't need to trap her with chains.
Just kindness.
Just memory.
Just enough quiet nights to make her forget that she'd been broken.
"You're not pretending," I murmured, thumb grazing her knuckles. "But you're not resting either."
She hesitated. Briefly. Her breath caught.
"Because if I stop hovering," she said, "I fall."
I said nothing.
She added, softer: "And I don't know what you'll do to me if I fall all the way."
That part was honest.
And so was my answer.
"If you fall," I said, voice low, intimate, "then fall into me."
Because that's what she'd been doing this whole time.
Falling. Deeper. Quieter.
And I'd been there every step of the way. Arms open. Smile warm. Not to catch her—
To own the fall.
She didn't hesitate this time. Didn't question.
She let me bring her hand to my lips.
Not lovingly.
Precisely.
I kissed her knuckles like I was sealing something. Then lowered her hand slowly, keeping her fingers wrapped in mine.
She looked at me with the kind of awe that hurts to fake. Lips parted. Eyes soft.
She thought this was healing.
She thought this was safety.
And maybe it was. In the way fire is warm before it burns.
She rested her head on my shoulder again. Slower this time. Willingly. Her breath steadied against my collar like she belonged there.
I let her.
Of course I let her.
The sky outside was turning violet-blue—the kind of hue that always came before consequences.
She didn't see the way I watched the horizon.
Didn't feel how still I was beneath her weight.
She just exhaled like the worst part was behind her.
But the worst part was me.
Three blocks away, I felt it.
A flicker of presence.
Meme Oshino.
Still watching. Still waiting.
He'd seen the veil, seen what I'd done to Kiss-shot—but he didn't understand it. Not fully.
He thought I'd hidden her away.
He didn't realize I'd reshaped her in plain sight.
She shifted again, her fingers brushing mine under the bench.
Not in fear.
In trust.
And that—God, that was the sweetest part.
Because she'd stopped looking for the exit. She'd stopped wondering what I'd taken.
She didn't know this warmth wasn't free.
She didn't know I'd let her bask in the sunlight just to show her how much I could give back—after taking everything.
And I wasn't cruel for it.
Not entirely.
Because somewhere in that performance… I started enjoying the script.
She made it easy.
Easier than I expected.
There were moments—quiet ones—where her presence wasn't a weapon to be honed or a goddess to subdue. Just… a girl beside me. A little too fragile to crush. A little too warm to discard.
But affection without control is just sentiment.
And I don't do sentiment.
So I held her tighter.
Let her think this was love.
Let her believe the lie I whispered into shape between donuts and silence.
Because she wanted it to be real.
And that?
That made it easy to make it real enough.
————————————————-
The sky was bleeding its last colors.
Blue, violet, gold. Like someone had wrung it out too hard and left it dripping across the edges of the buildings.
She hadn't moved.
Still curled into my side like that was the only direction left in the world worth facing.
Her hand stayed in mine. No tension. No hesitation. Just weightless belief.
"I like this," she whispered.
"Mm?"
"This. Now. You."
I didn't respond right away. Just let the silence stretch around her confession like it needed room to breathe.
If I answered too quickly, it would sound like manipulation.
If I waited too long, it might sound like cruelty.
So I gave her the answer she wanted in the exact time she needed it.
"I like it too."
It wasn't a lie.
That was the trick.
I'd given her so many half-truths she stopped checking for sharp edges. And now? Even honesty was just another blade I could sheath in warmth.
She tilted her face toward mine. Her eyes were soft, tired in that way immortals rarely get—because exhaustion means something touched you. Something got close.
"I used to think I'd be alone forever," she said.
I didn't say anything.
Let her keep going.
Let her dig the wound for me.
"I thought that was the price. For surviving. For living so long. I thought… maybe that was what I deserved."
I turned toward her. Carefully. As if I were the one being given a gift.
"You don't deserve that."
"But I did," she said quickly. "And then… I met you."
She was trembling, barely. That kind of tremble that doesn't come from fear—but from the feeling of finally having something to lose.
And I smiled.
Just enough.
Not with cruelty.
With care.
Because this?
This was it.
The final thread.
The last knot in her heart she hadn't offered me yet.
And she was giving it freely.
I lifted our hands between us. Let my thumb brush over the back of hers like a question I already knew the answer to.
"You're not alone now," I said. "You're mine."
That made her blink.
Not in fear. Not in confusion.
But in that startled, fragile way people do when they realize they've been claimed and don't mind it.
"Yours," she repeated.
Her voice cracked on the word like it wasn't used to being spoken out loud.
I leaned in, brushing my lips against her temple. Slow. Reverent.
"I'll keep you," I murmured. "Even when you forget why you asked to be kept."
And she smiled.
God.
She smiled.
That quiet, stunned kind of smile that only happens when someone realizes they feel safe. That they've stopped checking for exits. That they've chosen you even if they don't remember the cost.
She rested her forehead against my jaw.
"I feel real again," she whispered. "Like a person. Like I'm not… just power in a cage."
I nodded.
"I know."
And that was true too.
Because I had built the cage from scratch.
Just soft enough she forgot it had a lock.
We stayed like that for a while. The lights in the city came on one by one, like a slow confession.
The air tasted clean. The kind of clean that always comes right before you're about to bleed.
I ran my thumb along her wrist one last time.
Memorizing the pulse.
The trust.
The silence.
Then I looked past her.
To the alley two blocks ahead.
Where the sigil had started to glow again.
Where the edge of the story waited—hungry.
One more beat.
One more breath.
Then I whispered against her skin:
"Time to go."
Because the warmth was over.
And I had knives to unsheathe.
—————————————————-
We stood there at the edge of the street, haloed by flickering neon and silence.
Kiss-shot's hand in mine. Her head still slightly tilted, her hair catching what was left of the city's fading glow. She looked like someone who'd finally been allowed to breathe after drowning slowly.
She didn't know I'd timed the air.
"I like this," she whispered again.
"This?"
"This... everything." Her fingers squeezed mine gently. "You. The quiet. The way it all feels like it matters."
I didn't respond.
Not because I felt nothing.
But because what I felt wasn't meant to be spoken here.
Not yet.
It was almost time.
But not quite.
She leaned her head against my shoulder again, and I let her. Let her think the world had softened just for her. That I was staying. That this was permanence.
And maybe for a moment, I almost let myself believe it too.
But the Grimoire stirred against my chest like it had been holding its breath.
And then I felt it.
That pulse.
That low, hollow hum beneath the skin of the world. Not a sound. A shift.
A promise.
A power.
It unfurled inside me like breath—hot and strange and right. The Grimoire whispered its name into my thoughts with no ceremony:
Gatewalker.
Not a portal.
Not an escape.
A direction.
My breath stilled, just for a second. My senses stretched wider than the sky. I could feel other worlds blooming just past the membrane of this one—new laws, new monsters, new games to play. New crowns to claim. And for the first time, I could choose one.
I could leave.
Anytime.
But I wouldn't leave alone.
She was almost perfect now.
Obedient. Loyal. Rewritten.
Not fragile anymore.
Shaped.
But still missing the final piece.
Her heart.
And not the poetic kind.
The literal one. The true anchor of her power and past. The seat of her identity. The part Meme Oshino kept hidden like he thought it still mattered who she used to be.
He was the last thread.
Once I had it, she'd be mine in a way no vampire in any universe had ever belonged to anyone.
And once I had her?
I wouldn't need this world anymore.
She turned her face toward mine, soft and warm and full of a hope she didn't know how to guard.
"Do you ever think we could just stay like this?" she asked.
I looked at her.
And I let the silence stretch long enough for her to believe the answer mattered.
Then I leaned in. Brushed my lips against her hair.
A gesture she'd come to associate with comfort.
With love.
With safety.
With me.
"I don't want to stay," I said.
My voice was low.
Measured.
Intentional.
"I want to take this with me."
She blinked, her fingers tightening just slightly around mine.
She didn't understand.
Not yet.
But she would.
And when the time came?
She'd thank me.
Because some gods don't get a second life.
But she would.
Because I gave it to her.
Because I built it out of ruin and obedience and slow-burning trust.
And soon—very soon—I'd be able to carry her into something bigger than this world ever was.
She didn't know it yet, but this was a goodbye already written.
I turned my head. The sky had gone darker. The world quieter.
And across the street, I could almost feel him watching.
Oshino.
Still guarding the one piece that wasn't mine.
Yet.
———-
Yet.
The word pulsed again.
A beat behind the Grimoire's rhythm. A warning. A promise. A prophecy I intended to fulfill with teeth bared and hands clean.
I turned toward the street.
"Come on," I said, gently. "I want to show you something."
She didn't ask what.
She didn't ask why.
She simply nodded and followed—her fingers still in mine, her gaze still half-dreaming, like she thought this was a continuation of the night, not its end.
The concrete stretched out ahead of us, stained and silver in the dark. The world was thinning by degrees now. I could feel the Gatewalker ability humming behind my ribs, aching to be used, to be tested, to open. But it wasn't time yet.
Not without the heart.
The final piece.
We walked together through a city that didn't know it was about to be left behind. Her pace matched mine effortlessly now. Not out of fear. Not out of obligation.
Because she thought we were going somewhere together.
She thought this was about us.
It wasn't.
It was about completion.
The alley ahead narrowed. A crooked staircase climbed between two buildings like it had been placed there as an afterthought.
I slowed.
She tilted her head. "Lucien?"
My hand tightened just slightly on hers.
Not possessive.
Not cruel.
Just final.
"Oshino's near."
Her expression flickered.
The name meant something. Not enough to alarm her. Just enough to shift the atmosphere.
She didn't ask what we were doing.
But I could feel the shape of the question hanging on her tongue.
I stopped beneath the lowest step.
The Grimoire warmed again against my skin, the script glowing faintly along the cover like it was tasting the moment. Approving.
I turned to her.
She blinked at me. Soft. Curious.
Still unaware.
Still mine.
"This is the part you don't need to watch," I said.
Her smile faltered, just a little.
But she nodded.
Because she trusted me.
Because I'd made sure of it.
I let go of her hand.
She didn't stop me.
And I climbed the stairs alone, toward the quiet flicker of light above, where Meme Oshino waited.
And somewhere in the back of my mind, as the air tightened and the Grimoire pulsed harder in my chest, I thought:
This is the last time I walk anywhere without her heart in my hands.
The stairs ended in a rusted metal platform overlooking the back end of an abandoned temple. The kind of place that wasn't important enough to guard but too sacred to be bulldozed. A purgatory for forgotten faith.
Meme Oshino stood just off-center, as if even now he didn't want to block my path—just make sure I earned the right to walk it.
He didn't look surprised to see me.
Didn't flinch when I stepped into the light.
His cigarette wasn't lit. Of course it wasn't. Just a ritual between his teeth. Like my smile.
"You took your time," he said.
"I was busy rewriting a god," I replied.
He exhaled through his nose. "And here I was thinking you were just dating her."
"She thinks so too."
That made him pause.
Just for a second.
Then he looked away. Toward the altar steps behind him. Toward the stone box nestled between worn prayer ribbons and dust.
I didn't need to ask what was inside.
I could feel it.
The hum. The pulse. The history.
Her heart.
"She doesn't need it anymore," I said.
"No," he replied. "But that doesn't mean you deserve it."
I stepped forward once.
Only once.
Enough to shorten the distance between us without breaking the moment.
"I shaped her without it," I said. "That's the proof."
"Or the crime."
We stood in silence.
The city below us made no sound. Not a siren. Not a breeze. Just the thrum of something inevitable circling the edge of the scene.
He looked tired.
But not weak.
Not naive.
Just someone who'd seen this kind of thing play out too many times across too many names and still held out hope that maybe, just maybe, this time the boy with the sharp smile would hesitate.
"I'm not here to lecture you," he said. "I'm not even here to stop you."
"No?"
He shook his head.
"I'm here to see what kind of man you are—when the girl isn't watching."
That almost made me laugh.
But I didn't.
Because he was right.
She wasn't watching.
I'd told her not to.
And she'd listened.
Because I'd made sure she would.
"I'm the kind of man who finishes what he starts," I said.
Then I moved.
Not fast.
Not flashy.
Just forward.
And in that movement, the Grimoire lit beneath my shirt—ink crawling along my spine, uncoiling like a weapon that didn't need summoning.
Oshino didn't step back.
He reached into his coat.
Pulled out a charm.
Paper. Old. Marked in something darker than ink.
"Before you do this," he said, "you should know something."
I stopped.
Only because he let me.
He held up the charm between two fingers.
"This isn't hers."
I stared.
"What?"
"This," he said, lifting it higher. "This isn't her heart."
My expression didn't change.
But something inside me narrowed.
"Explain."
He smiled.
Not kindly.
Not sadly.
Just… knowingly.
"You broke her body. You tamed her will. You rewrote her story. But you never touched her core."
He let the paper fall.
It didn't burn.
It didn't vanish.
It landed.
Soft.
Unimpressive.
Ordinary.
I stepped forward again.
"You're lying."
"No," he said. "I'm reminding you. She never gave it up. Not to me. Not to you. Not even to herself."
My jaw clenched.
Because he was telling the truth.
And I hated him for it.
"She hid it," he continued. "Deep. Somewhere you haven't touched. Somewhere you can't."
"That's not possible."
He smiled again.
"It is when you choose to forget who you are. She buried it the moment she chose you. Because she didn't want it anymore."
I stood there, heartbeat steady, fury calm.
And then I laughed.
Quiet. Cold.
"You think that stops me?"
"I think it's already too late."
And I realized something then.
This wasn't a battle.
It was a mirror.
He wasn't trying to protect her.
He was watching to see if I'd flinch at the reflection.
I didn't.
I walked past him.
Straight to the altar.
Picked up the box.
Opened it.
Inside—
A stone.
Flat.
Lifeless.
Just like her.
Before me.
Before all of this.
I turned back.
And Oshino?
He was already gone.
———————————-
The stairs creaked beneath my steps, not from weight but from intention—each footfall deliberate, like I was retracing something holy. The box in my hand felt lighter than it should have. Not because the stone was worthless, but because it had confirmed something far more valuable: she still had it. Her heart. The last piece. Not buried in some altar or sealed by Oshino's clever hands—but resting, sleeping, waiting within her. And that meant this wasn't a conclusion. This was a beginning disguised as closure. It changed nothing, not really. It just meant I would need to go deeper.
When I stepped back onto the alley floor, the air had cooled. The neon behind her cast slanted shadows across the bench where she sat, curled inward slightly, not with fear but with obedience. She hadn't moved. Hadn't called after me. Hadn't tried to follow. That was the beauty of it. I hadn't needed to tie her down—I'd simply asked her not to come. And she'd listened, because I had made her trust the silence more than her own instincts.
She looked up when she heard me. Not eagerly. Not anxiously. Just… attentively. Like she was waiting for instruction, or maybe a story. I didn't sit beside her this time. I stood in front of her, close enough that the toe of my shoe nearly touched hers. Her knees were still pulled up onto the bench. The image was almost childlike, if you didn't know what she could do with a finger.
"There's something we need to talk about," I said—not with tension, but with that slow, shaping cadence I knew she'd learned to interpret as gravity. Her gaze didn't waver. I could see her thinking—trying to read my face for warmth or warning, trying to guess whether this was a moment she needed to brace for. That was good. Uncertainty meant she was still pliable. "The box was empty," I continued. "Oshino left me a stone, but not the one I wanted. The one I need. It wasn't your heart."
Her lips parted slightly, but no sound came. I saw her shoulders tense, then release. Not from fear—not yet—but from something like confusion. She didn't understand, and I wouldn't let her ask until I was done.
"I know what he's trying to do. He wants me to think the game's changed. That you've kept something from me. That this was never mine to take. And maybe, on some level, he's right. Maybe you did hide it. Maybe not consciously, but deep. Somewhere even you can't find. Somewhere not even you know how to reach. Because you gave me everything else—your body, your loyalty, your name—and you thought that was enough. And it was, for a while."
I paused then, crouched slightly so we were eye-level again. She didn't move. Her eyes were glassy—not in the way people cry, but in the way they process something too heavy to immediately lift.
"But here's the thing," I went on, more softly now, though my voice never lost its edge. "It's not enough anymore. I need the part you didn't mean to hold back. Not because I want it for power. Not even because it's the last piece. I need it because it's the part of you that still flinches when I say forever. It's the part that still wonders if I'd keep you if you stopped being beautiful. If I'd stay if you forgot how to please me."
Her mouth opened again—instinctive—but she didn't interrupt.
"I'm telling you this because I want it to come from you," I said. "Not because Oshino tricked you into fear. Not because you think I'll hurt you if you don't. I want your heart not in my hand, but in your voice when you say mine. When you say it and mean it. Because when you give it—when you finally, fully choose me—there won't be anything left of the girl you used to be."
She sat very still, breathing shallow now. I could see the edge of realization dawning behind her eyes—he's not taking it. He's waiting for me to give it. And that, more than anything, was the trap. Because choice made it permanent. Choice made it hers.
I reached up and brushed her cheek with the back of my hand—slow, reverent, like I was thanking her for something she hadn't yet offered. "You're almost there," I whispered. "But I'm not dragging you the rest of the way. You're going to walk. And when you do, I want you to remember—this wasn't a leash. It was an invitation."
I straightened and turned slightly, leaving the space open for her to move. To follow. To speak. But I said nothing else.
Because if she was going to give me her heart, it had to be in silence.
It had to be her idea.
————————————-
Kiss-shot's POV
She didn't know what he meant.
Not fully.
Not the way he probably needed her to.
But she understood enough.
She understood that he'd gone somewhere alone, and come back looking like he'd lost something he didn't want her to see. She understood that his voice was a little softer now—not gentle, not weak, but heavier, like it had been weighed against something invisible and still hadn't settled.
And she understood that he was asking for more.
Not with cruelty.
With intention.
She sat very still, trying to keep her breathing quiet so he wouldn't think she was unraveling. Because she wasn't. She wasn't afraid. She didn't even feel hollow. She felt… present. Fully, painfully, beautifully here. With him. In this moment that felt like it had claws beneath the silk, but she didn't care.
Because he was still looking at her like she mattered.
And that had always been enough.
When he crouched in front of her, her pulse lifted. Just a little. Just enough to remind her that her body remembered what it felt like to be wanted—by him. Not in a way that scorched. In a way that left marks you never wanted to fade.
He spoke of her heart like it was something sacred.
Something hidden.
Something she hadn't meant to keep, but maybe… maybe she had. Not out of deception. Out of fear. Because if she gave it to him—really gave it—there would be nothing left to give. Nothing left of her but his name in her blood.
And that didn't scare her.
It made her feel worthy.
Like maybe she could finally offer him something that mattered.
She didn't flinch when he touched her cheek. Her skin warmed under his fingers like it remembered the pressure. She leaned into it without meaning to.
He told her she was almost there.
And he was right.
Because she was already falling again. Not like before. Not like the temple. Not like when he broke her open and filled her with new meanings.
This was slower.
Quieter.
Like choosing gravity.
She stood.
Didn't speak.
Didn't blink.
Just reached for him.
And when her fingers found his, she folded them in his palm like she'd been practicing the gesture forever.
Because maybe she had.
Maybe that was what love looked like in this new shape—not a question, not a plea, but a hand already offered before it was asked for.
He said he didn't want to take her heart.
He wanted her to give it.
And in that moment, she realized something she hadn't said out loud.
She already had.
She just hadn't known where she'd put it.
Until now.