LYRA
Zeviar’s office felt too quiet after the dungeon, like the silence from downstairs had followed us up the stairs and was now lurking in the shadows of the room, waiting. The kind of quiet that presses against your skin.
He closed the door behind us, and for a moment, neither of us moved. Then he walked over to me and pulled me close, one arm wrapping around my back, the other hand cupping the back of my head. I felt a long breath leave him, like he’d been holding it since the cell. “You’re shaking,” he said softly.
“I’m not.”
“Lyra.”
“Okay. Maybe a little.”
He pulled back just enough to meet my eyes, his thumb brushing along my jaw. There was still blood on his knuckles, not his. I reached up and wrapped my hand around his, and he let me, watching my face like he was trying to r
