Page 80 of Veil of Ashes

He tilts his head slightly. “No?”

“She has one.”

Enzo’s gaze sharpens—not hostile. Recognizing something. A shift.

I pick up one of the envelopes, open it slowly. New passports. European origin. Under names that don’t exist—yet. The details are clean. Tight. You can tell when someone built them like they cared.

He cared.

But that doesn’t make this redemption.

I close the envelope and place it on the table.

Sylvara still hasn’t spoken.

She’s watching. Listening.

Waiting.

And because she’s letting me speak for both of us, I make it count.

I take a slow step forward. Just one.

“If you ever contact her again—if you even breathe her name—I won’t hesitate,” I say.

Enzo doesn’t move.

I go on. “You gave her blood. But she gave herself everything else. Her name doesn’t belong to you anymore.”

His jaw tightens, but he nods once.

“No argument,” he says.

Good.

I step back.

Sylvara’s eyes flick between us. She reaches for the second envelope, opens it, and scans the contents.

Then she looks up at him. Her face unreadable.

“You built this,” she says. “All of it.”

“Yes,” Enzo replies.

“And you stayed buried in it.”

“I did.”

She closes the envelope.

Then walks to the door without another word.

We follow her out.

The ramp groans beneath our boots. The desert wind bites colder now, gritting against my neck like sandpaper. The sky above us is bruised, the clouds rolling slow and heavy.

I glance back once.

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