The whole thing dropped into my chest like a stone. "If you go back. Is it dangerous."
"Don't worry about that." Almost gentle. "Lucas and my stepmother hold the seat out in the open. But there are old names still loyal to me. Quiet ones. Waiting."
And there it was. The thing I kept letting myself forget. Vane had a place to go back to. A pack, a name, a chair with his blood on it that he fully intended to take back. He'd never said it out loud until tonight, but the plan was already built behind his eyes, brick by brick.
Which meant there was an after where he walked back through whatever gate had spat him out and reclaimed what was his, and I stayed here. A camp girl who'd happened to share his cell for a season.
Would I even see him again.
I didn't ask. Some questions you keep out
