I woke with the taste of iron in my mouth and Lucian’s voice in my ears.
*Please… don’t leave.*
For a moment, I lay very still, staring up at the crack in the ceiling I’d memorized in two different lifetimes. Light filtered weakly through the curtains, soft and gray, barely chasing away the shadows that clung to the corners of the room.
My body remembered two sets of nights at once.
The last night of my first life: the forest, the blood moon, the snap of my own bones echoing inside my skull like breaking branches. Cold earth against my cheek. My father’s voice told me I should be grateful even as I choked on blood.
And this new night: ropes under my skin, the echo of my father’s words through the door, the weight of Lucian’s hand on my arm, and the flare of magic between us. The stead
