Page 210 of The Sin Binder's Chains

“Probably moved them,” I mutter. “After the battle here. Kept them hidden.”

“Yes. But why haven’t they returned?” he asks, voice low and deliberate. “If it were just about safety, they would have surfaced by now. Or sent word. Something. But they’re gone, Lucien. All of them. And the only person who could have facilitated that kind of mass displacement… was Blackwell.”

“And you think he’s working with her?”

“I think,” Orin says, and now his voice is grave, “that Branwen was never working alone. And if she survived… she didn’t do it without help. Which means someone from inside knew.”

The word lodges in my throat.

Inside.

The rot was internal.

“Blackwell played neutral for too long,” I say. “Maybe neutrality was just obedience in disguise.”

Orin’s gaze sharpens. “It always is.”

We stare at the pillar in silence, the old magic humming like a heartbeat beneath the surface. It still feels like hers. Everything about this place does.

But the question now is, where the fuck is she? And what does she want with Ambrose and Caspian?

Because whatever she’s building…

She’s already started.

I hear them before I see them.

Voices carrying down the ruined corridor, loud, grating, and so fucking unnecessary this early. Silas and Elias. Bickering. Again.

“If I catch you using my razor again, I’m going to slit your arrogant throat with it,” Elias is growling, sharp and theatrical.

“Would you relax?” Silas shoots back. “Your face could use a little character. You might finally look like someone with experience instead of a snarky virgin librarian.”

“I will end you.”

“Promises, promises.”

Their steps echo in rhythm with their escalating argument, and when they appear at the edge of the courtyard, it’s like someone set fire to the edges of the morning. Silas is grinning, shirt half-buttoned, like he got dressed mid-fight, or mid-sex. Elias looks like he hasn’t slept in two days, hair a mess, eyes glowing faint from residual magic, and still radiating that exhausted sarcasm he wears like armor.

Orin barely glances over his shoulder. “Good morning.”

Silas spreads his arms like he’s walking onto a stage. “Good? You wound me. This morning is phenomenal. I was just told I snore like a tragic poet.”

“You moan in your sleep,” Elias mutters, glaring at him. “That’s what’s tragic.”

Silas winks. “You’re just jealous Luna was in my bed first.”

“First?” Elias scoffs. “You think this is a race?”

“Oh no,” Silas says, eyes flicking to me now. “If it were, Lucien would have tripped on his pride by now.”

I level him with a stare that could peel skin.

He grins wider.

But Orin, wise, patient, ever the keeper of balance, speaks before I decide to rip Silas’s tongue out.

“We’re discussing Branwen,” he says, as if that one name is enough to snap them back into reality.

---