Esmerelda tilts her chin, a cold smile spreading across her lips. “I’ve been waiting for this.”
Minerva cracks her knuckles, grin sharp and wolfish. “Finally. Something fun.”
Leonard doesn’t smile. He only nods, jaw tight, eyes thin slits on his face.
I nod. “About time.”
For the first time since this nightmare began, the air no longer hums with fear but with shared resolve.
Maximillian turned this into cat-and-mouse.
But the hunt isn’t his anymore.
It’s ours.
31
ESMERELDA
The carriage rocks, a jarring sway that yanks me out of sleep for what feels like the hundredth time in the past hour. My heart slams against my ribs, wild and frantic, as if it hasn’t realized we’re still safe for the moment. The air is stuffy, smelling faintly of dust and trepidation, and my pulse thunders so loudly it drowns out the steady clatter of the train.
Marcus’s hand is already there, warm against my arm, his thumb drawing slow, unhurried lines up and down my skin. Always the same rhythm. Always steady. And every time I wake with panic clawing at my throat, he does this, like a reflex, like he knows exactly how to anchor me.
It works. The constriction in my chest eases, my heartbeat steadying into something less erratic, though not without a fight. His touch doesn’t erase the fear completely, but it presses it back, gives me something solid to cling to. Him. Always him. When did it become always him?
I almost laugh at the strangeness of it, how predictable I’ve become, how predictable he’s become in turn. But I don’t complain. I can’t. Because even if the fear is stubborn, that hand—his hand—reminds me I’m not facing it alone.
As if he can sense the words rushing through my mind, he says, “You’re safe. Everything is good. I’ve got you.”
I’m tempted to fall back to sleep in the belief that he does in fact “have me” but it’s then I realize—horror of horrors—that my head is on his shoulder.
Heat scorches my cheeks before I even dare move, but the real punch to the gut is that I’ve been drooling. Actually drooling all over him. Gods alive, just smite me now.
I jerk upright, swiping at my damp cheek like that might erase the evidence, but it’s too late. The proof is right there, a dark wet patch staining the fabric of his shirt. My stomach drops straight through the floor. Of course I would drool. Of course it would be when I was using him like a human pillow.
The humiliation crackles across my skin. I can’t even look at him. My brain scrambles for some witty comment, something to smooth over the fact that I’ve just branded his perfectly pressed shirt with my saliva, but all I can do is stare at that cursed spot and wish the train would derail just so I could tumble out and escape this moment forever.
Fucking damn it all to Hades.
“I’m so sorry, why didn’t you wake me up?”
“Because I don’t mind a bit of bodily fluid. You should know this.”
The words hit like a spark to a hay bale. His grin—mischievous, wicked, entirely self-assured—only fans the flames. My skin prickles, heat crawling up my neck and spreading across my cheeks until I’m certain I must be glowing like a beacon.
I try to roll my eyes, to play it cool, but the effort dies somewhere in my throat. My pulse is racing far too fast, thudding low in my belly where his meaning lingers, unspoken but unmistakable. Gods, he knows exactly what he’s doing.
I’m betraying myself with every flush of my skin, every shallow breath I can’t seem to steady. One grin from him, one double-edged tease, and suddenly I’m a mess of nerves and want.
I can’t tell if Marcus is just saying all this to distract me, to keep my mind from spinning itself into knots over what could go wrong next. Maybe he is. Maybe he isn’t. But whatever game he’s playing, whatever words he chooses, I cling to them like a lifeline. Gods, I’m grateful for him—grateful for the steady way he makes the world feel a fraction less terrifying.
This stretch of the journey gnaws at me the most, because the longer we go without a hitch, the louder the voice in my head insists that our luck is running out. Each mile we cover feels like a countdown. My chest tightens with the certainty that this is the part where fate catches up with us. This is where we get caught. I’d lost the luxury of safety a few weeks ago. Now, anything could break without warning—the ground beneath us, the plans we so carefully laid, the people we thought we knew. Faith in outcomes, in order, in tomorrow… it all felt like it would, could, disintegrate at any moment.
The choice to return home wasn’t one any of us made easily. My gut twisted the second the words were spoken aloud, because once we decided there was no going back, home called to us. Familiar ground. Familiar allies. The devil we knew versus the devil lurking in the dark. It felt wrong, dangerous even, to risk drawing Maximillian’s gaze straight to our doorstep, but at the same time… it felt like the only chance we had. Out here, in unfamiliar spaces, we were prey. Back home, at least, we could fight on our soil.
And maybe that’s what it came down to in the end—fear outweighed by the need for the familiar. A desperate hope that we’d find strength in the place where it all began.
Which meant every step of our journey had to be layered in secrecy, misdirection, and control. Marcus had been up all night, making the travel arrangements. He had to be exhausted, and yet every time I woke, he was wide awake, bashing away on his laptop or writing in a notebook. Never mind reassuring me as well.
