Chapter 13. Rejection Reversed

The cell changed.

At first, she thought it was a trick of exhaustion. The air warmed. The runes on the walls dimmed one by one, their glow bleeding into dusk. When the last of them flickered out, she lifted her head.

He’d come back.

Caius stood inside the doorway, the guard’s key still in the lock. His cloak was gone, shirt sleeves rolled to the elbow, forearms dusted with ash. He looked like he hadn’t slept. He looked like guilt given muscle.

He didn’t speak.

Only when the silence grew unbearable did he cross to her and kneel. The chains rattled once against the floor.

“Let me see your wrists.”

“No.”

“I can take them off.”

“You put them on.”

He flinched. “I didn’t.”

“Then who did? The ghosts you call a pack?”

He didn’t answer. His hands hovered above the shackles, fingers tracing the silver like he was afraid they’d bite. “They’re draining you.”

“Good,” she said. “It makes us even.”

He exhaled throu