Page 64 of The Sin Binder's Chains

I stand at the edge of the pillar, my fingers dragging over the stone as if the answer might be carved into its surface. As if time itself might offer up its secrets just to prove me wrong.

But the air does not lie.

Neither does memory.

Layla shifts behind me, waiting. She knows better than to ask what I’ve found, or what I think I have. Because I cannot speak it. Not yet. Not until I hear Lucien tell me I’m wrong.

Because I have to be wrong.

The alternative is… impossible.

I inhale slowly, steadying myself, forcing my mind into colder calculations. The facts. The logic. The things that make sense.

Caspian, taken. Ambrose, dragged, then vanished. No trace of where. No natural exit point. No remnants of transportation magic strong enough to conceal two bodies so completely.

Which means the answer is simpler than I want it to be.

It was not a normal passage.

And that scent, that godsforsaken scent, it clings to the air like rot buried beneath perfume. Something sweet, decayed. Something I have not smelled in centuries, not since…

No.

I push the thought back, swallow it whole.

She is dead. She has been dead for so long that even the world itself should have forgotten her.

Lucien will remind me of that.

Lucien, whose mind is sharper than mine when the past clouds my judgment. Lucien, who will tell me this is a trick, an echo, a deception.

Because if I am right, if she has them, then I cannot approach her.

Not if I want to survive.

Not if I want them back.

The weight of the decision settles before I let it fully unravel. I don’t have time to stand here, staring at the impossible. I need to move.

Layla watches me, her arms folded, her golden eyes gleaming in the fractured light. “Whatever it is,” she says, voice measured, “you’re going to have to say it eventually.”

She’s wrong.

I don’t have to say it.

I just have to act.

I shift toward her. “We’re leaving.”

She blinks. “What?”

“I’m taking you to the Void.” I step away from the ruins, already calculating the best path back. “Lucien, Elias, and Luna should be close enough now. We’ll regroup there.”

Layla frowns. “What about Caspian and Ambrose?”

I don’t stop walking. “They are not our priority.”

She follows, keeping pace despite the rough terrain, despite the way I know she wants to argue. “Not our priority?” she repeats, voice sharp. “Or not your priority?”

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