The words taste like blood, like pride broken on my tongue. I never say them. Not to Raz. Not to anyone.
But for her… I will.
Raz’s grin is slow, sharp. All teeth. “Never thought I’d live long enough to hear my baby brother beg.”
I don’t flinch. Because it’s true. I am begging.
His laughter fades, leaving silence. And in that silence, something behind his eyes shifts. The buried storm rises, old and untamed.
Raz taps the bar once. A single, sharp sound. It carries like a seal. A decision.
“All right. I need a night to close things out here. Tell no one.” Raz flashes a crooked grin, but it doesn’t touch his eyes. “I will help you.”
He says it simply, but the words split something in my chest.
His hand lingers on a dusty decanter. He doesn’t turn. “After,” he adds, glancing back over his shoulder, “once you have your girl, once you’re safe… come find me.”
My chest tightens. “You’ll be gone.”
“I’ll leave a trail,” he says, softer now. “You’re the only one who’ll know how to follow it.”
“Raz…”
At last he turns, and for one fleeting moment I see him—the brother I remember. Chaos-wrapped. Heart-scarred. Steady as iron.
“I’ll move the bar again. Change the name. Maybe cut my hair.” He smirks faintly. “But I’ll wait. For you. For her.”
I nod, because words are useless against loyalty like that. Against love buried in exile and centuries. “I’ll find you,” I promise.
“I know.” He nods at the others. “Go.”
And we do—because we must.
But as the door shuts behind us with a hollow click, something inside me clenches tight.
And I wonder if it’s the last time I’ll ever hear it.
SEVENTY-SEVEN
Deimos turns to walk as we step outside, but I stop him with a hand to his chest. My palm is steady, though my insides feel anything but.
“You really think he’ll show?”
He doesn’t even hesitate. “He said he would.”
“And you believe that?” My voice comes out lower than I intend, brittle around the edges. “Just like that?”
Deimos blinks, reading the bite in me. “Yeah. I do. He’s my brother.”
I scoff, turning my face toward the street where mortal lights flicker dim in the distance. “I’ve seen what your siblings are like, Deimos. And forgive me, but not a single one of them would piss on you if you were on fire.”
Deimos frowns, voice rough. “Raz is different.”
“I thought we were different,” I murmur, too quiet for comfort, but Bastion hears. He shifts beside me, shoulders tightening like stone.
There’s a beat of silence before Deimos asks, “What’s this really about?”
I don’t answer. Because I don’t want to admit it out loud. That seeing them together—the way Raz looked at him, the wayDeimos glowed in his presence—unsettled something raw and ancient in me. A shadow of doubt I’ve never quite outrun. That I’ve never belonged, not fully. That I was always the outsider pretending to be brother.
