Page 17 of The Sin Binder's Vow

Because that’s it.

That’s the game. Not just power. Not just sex. It’s about rewritingwho we are. Taking the parts of us that defy her—and turning them into instruments of her will.

And Caspian? He’s fire wrapped in flirtation, devotion buried beneath play. If she burns that out of him, if she unravels him with her voice, her touch, her magic—

Then she’ll do it to the rest of us next.

Starting with Lucien.

Ending with me.

“Tell me a joke, Silas,” I say.

It’s not really a request. It sounds like one, maybe. But my voice cracks just slightly at the end, too thin, too strained, and he hears it for what it is.

A plea.

I need him to take my mind off this, even if only for a second. Off the image of Caspian in Branwen’s hands. Off the way Lucien looked at me like I was the noose tightening. Off the truth I haven’t said out loud—that I canfeelthe bond shifting like it’s preparing for a death it won’t warn me about.

Silas turns slowly, and the smirk he gives me is sharp-edged but soft at the corners. He knows. He always fucking knows.

“A joke?” he echoes, flipping the dagger once more before tucking it into his belt. “That’s a dangerous thing to ask for, darling. Especially from a man whose best material involves haunted underwear and morally questionable punchlines.”

“Please,” I say again. Quieter.

His grin falters just a little. Then he straightens, swiping imaginary dust from his shoulders like he's preparing for a performance.

“All right,” he says, clearing his throat theatrically. “Why did the demonic courtesan break up with her necromancer boyfriend?”

Elias groans from behind me. “Gods, no—”

Silas ignores him, eyes locked on mine. “Because every time they got into bed, he kept resurrecting hisexes.”

I blink. Just once. And then I laugh. Short. Sharp. Kind of horrible. But real.

Elias drags a hand down his face. “I hate you so much.”

“Wait, wait, I’ve got more,” Silas says, suddenly animated, pacing now like the ruins are a stage and we’re his reluctant, captive audience. “Why don’t ghosts haveorgies?”

“Please don’t—”

“Because they can’ttoucheach other, Elias. It’s very sad. Extremely tragic. Zero group intimacy in the afterlife.”

I’m laughing again, a sound that’s part cry, part something else. Something ragged and alive.

Elias sighs dramatically. “Silas, I swear to all the gods, if you don’t stop, I will personally bind your soul to a cursed cock ring and yeet it into the Hollow.”

“That’s a threatanda promise,” Silas replies, wagging his eyebrows. “Depending on who’s listening.”

I don’t say thank you. I don’t have to. Because Silas—chaotic, ridiculous, dangerous Silas—just nods once like he knows what it cost me to ask, and how close I came to breaking.

And now I’m laughing in the ruins of the academy, with ghosts in the walls and monsters in the blood, and it’s the first thing that hasn’t hurt in hours.

Elias clears his throat with exaggerated dignity, like he’s about to deliver a lecture on necromantic ethics and not, very obviously, derail whatever fragile emotional stability I’m clinging to.

“Right,” he says, lifting his chin. “Enough from the clown prince. Let the real filth begin.”

Silas gasps, wounded. “Iam the filth. You’re just the aftertaste.”

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