Page 94 of The Sin Binders Ascent

But all I can feel is that hollow.

That place in me where Luna always lived. She didn’t sit quietly inside me. She didn’t whisper. Shethrummed. She hummed like a second heartbeat. And now it’s just me in here. Cold. Empty. And I’m not the only one who feels it.

I glance up. Orin stands in the hall, arms crossed, lean body framed in the archway like a statue built by the divine. His gaze is focused, steady, deep in the way Orin always is, watching everything, missing nothing. His silence weighs more than any of our words. I don’t ask what he senses. If he knew where she was, he’d already be gone.

Instead, I speak into the stillness. “She can’t be hidden from us. Not like this. There’s no realm, no spell, no curse that can blind a bond of this kind. Not unless…”

“Sheletit,” Orin finishes, voice soft, but not uncertain. “Or it wasn’t her choice at all.”

Elias groans. “Great. We’re back to the spooky horror logic. Love that for us. Next, someone’s going to say the word ‘nightmare realm’ and I’m just going to walk into traffic.”

“You won’t,” Ambrose says, not even glancing at him. “You’re far too lazy to stand.”

Elias flashes a half-hearted grin. “I’d make the effort. For her.”

For a moment, we just… stop. No words. No movement. Just the ache that sits in all of us, shaped exactly like her.

The house doesn’t creak. Itwaits.Every surface in this place remembers her. The marble stairs still shine where she used to run barefoot. The velvet on the library chairs still smells like her shampoo. There’s a coffee mug in the sink with her lipstick smeared on the rim, and I know if I pick it up, I won’t put it back down again.

I clench my fists until my nails cut into my palms.

“I’m going to find her,” I say. It’s not a vow. It’s not a threat. It’s the only reality left that makes any sense. “And I don’t care what realm, what god, what cursed ruin I have to tear open to do it.”

Ambrose’s eyes narrow. “Good. Because we’re going to need every sin in the book to get her back.”

Orin steps forward. “Then we begin with the ones that know how to hide the untraceable.”

Elias groans again, sitting up with the drama of a man being called into battle while hungover. “Ugh, you meanthosebastards? The ones that made Silas cry?”

“He choked on a glass eyeball,” Ambrose says calmly.

“Hethoughtit was a bonbon!” Elias snaps. “It was wrapped in foil!”

“Gather your weapons,” I say, turning toward the vault doors in the floor beneath the library. “And wake Caspian. I want every door open. Every map, every forgotten ruin, every exiled god.”

Elias is already dragging himself upright. “You do realize he’s in stasis because he nearly shattered the dimension last time he tried to teleport while sleep-deprived.”

“Then let him nap on the way.”

Ambrose follows, his voice lower now, dark and threaded with amusement that doesn’t reach his eyes. “If Theo took her…”

“He didn’t.” I stop. Turn. My voice cuts through the weight of the room. “He wouldn’t. Not like this.”

“You trust him now?” Elias snorts. “Did I miss theDesire Gets a Redemption Arcmemo?”

“I don’t trust him,” I say. “Iknowhim.”

Ambrose lifts a brow. “That’s worse.”

There’s no strategy meeting. No deliberation. No long-winded arguments about where to start or who to blame. She was here, and now she’s not. The longer we stand still, the further away she gets. And I already feel the gap stretching in my chest like something hungry is building a home there.

The seven of us fan out in a loose formation, moving down the slope beyond the estate into the trees where she vanished. The last place the bond had any weight. It’s early evening, the sky smeared with that dim, bruised light that never feels like day or night. The woods behind the manor aren’t tame. They never have been. Even in modern times, with the illusion of civilization brushing against the edges of the property line, this place has stayed wild. Ancient trees, thick with moss and wet rot, loom in tight knots, their trunks wide and gnarled like twisted knuckles. The path is worn in places, overgrown in others, marked with cracked stone circles older than any of us, remnants from before Luna was ever born.

Insects buzz too low to see, but loud enough to make the undercurrent feel alive. The soil is soft, dark, like it remembers everything buried in it. Everything bled into it.

Elias walks a few steps ahead of me, dragging his boots with the kind of lazy carelessness that’s pure performance. He lights a cigarette even though he knows it won’t do anything but irritate Riven’s heightened senses. He doesn’t care. None of us is in the mood to keep each other comfortable.

“She was right here,” Caspian mutters from behind me, his voice clipped, but not from irritation. He hasn’t slept in threedays. None of us has, but it shows on him differently. Even the curve of his power has dulled. “There was a pull. Sharp. Then… nothing.”

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