“Too late, I’m bored, it’s foggy, and we’re probably going to die. Let me have this.”
Eve smirked. “You’re really committed to bad ideas, aren’t you?”
“That’s what makes me so lovable,” Ashley shrugged.
“Debatable,” Nate muttered, which earned him another elbow.
“Fine,” I said, exhaling a laugh. “Truth.”
Ashley grinned like a kid watching snow for the very first time. “If you had to pickoneperson here to be stuck in a cave with, no magic, no weapons, just—”
“Stop,” I said immediately, cheeks heating. “You already know the answer.”
“Yeah,” she said, glancing towards where Malakai sat on the edge of the campfire, still and quiet with his eyes closed. “But it’s fun to make you admit it.”
“Pass,” I said quickly, tossing a small flame at her. She dodged it easily, laughing.
“Coward.”
“Oh, you want to talk about cowardice?” I asked, arching a brow at her.
“Oh, go make a sad potato, Ethalyn,” Ashley snickered, hiding her white flag from the others.
The group’s laughter rippled through the fog, warm and fragile, and I let myself breathe it in.
Even the haunted forest couldn’t kill the sound of that little reminder that we were stillus.
Maybe everything would fall apart again. But for now, in this brief and borrowed peace,it was enough.
CHAPTER
16
The fire crackled lazily, painting everyone gold in the strange light. Smoke curled through the air, and for a fleeting second, it almost smelled like home.
Most of the group had gone quiet, not the strained kind of silence, but the gentle one that comes when everyone’s too tired to fill it.
Eve sat close to the flames, her knees drawn up, the light tracing her sharp profile in amber and shadow. Lionel was beside her, quietly mending another strap on his armor, though it didn’t look like it required mending anymore. His hands just needed something to do. He was always restless when there was a lot on the line.
She noticed. Of course she did.
“You’re going to wear that piece down to dust if you keep picking at it,” she said, voice low but carrying easily in the hush.
He didn’t look up. “Just keeping busy.”
“Orhiding behind it.”
That made him pause. Slowly, he met her gaze, calm on the surface, but there was something aching underneath. “What would I be hiding from?”
Eve tilted her head. “You tell me, Lio. You’ve been quieter than usual.”
Lionel’s mouth twitched in what might’ve been a smile, or a flinch. “Guess I’m just used to quieter company.”
She laughed, soft and unexpected. “Are you callingmeloud?”
“I’m saying you fill the silence.”
“That’s a dangerously poetic way of saying I talk too much.”
