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“But nothing.” He nods ahead. “You asked where we were going.”

I look through the glass and recognize the building immediately. “You’re taking me back to the museum?”

“Not exactly.”

We land on the roof a few minutes later. Instead of taking me inside, Ash leads me down the front steps and along a gravel path, clipped hedges giving way to older trees until we reach a stone wall with an iron gate set into it.

He stops with one hand on the latch and glances back at me, a crooked smile pulling at his mouth. “I know I promised to show you the museum properly, and I will. But there’s someone I’d like you to meet first.”

I follow him through, taking in the grass beneath old trees and the stone paths winding between weathered markers. Some are simple; others are pale marble with fresh flowers laid across them.

It takes me a few seconds.

A cemetery.

Ash keeps walking, taking every turn without hesitation until he stops at a grave that looks as though someone still tends it each week. White marble, polished clean, with fresh winter lilies arranged at its foot.

There’s nobody else in here. Just the trees, the markers and the sound of our own boots on the gravel.

I look at the stone.

ELENA CLEMENT

“This is my mom.” Ash crouches, brushing a few leaves from the base, his fingers moving over the carved letters as I lower myself beside him. “She died giving birth to me. There were complications, and by the time anyone had to make a choice, there wasn’t really one left.”

One of the lilies has fallen against the others. I straighten it.

“Dad’s hated me for it ever since.”

My hand stills, fingers resting against the edge of the stone.

“For surviving,” he says before I can speak. His attention stays on the stone. “She went to have a baby, and only one of us went home. I did it to her. And he has never once told me otherwise.”

“He made sure you knew.”

A humorless laugh leaves him. “Yeah. His fists were pretty clear.”

Yesterday morning he let me touch the scars and said nothing. Now he’s telling me himself, without me asking. “I’m so s⁠—”

“Don’t.” He looks at me then. “That’s not why I brought you here, puppy.”

“Then why did you?”

His thumb traces the carved dates. “Because Dad’s going to use this against us. He’s holding Ryven’s wedding on the ninth, the day she died.” His jaw tightens. “It’s going to hurt like fuck, and I wanted you to know before he finds a way to use it against you, too.”

I look down at the date again. “The ninth. That’s your birthday.”

Ash’s hand stills against the stone as he looks down at the carved date. “Yeah.”

“So he wants Ryven married on your birthday.”

The same day she died. The same day he was born.

“Yeah, well. He wants me to remember where I came from while he sends my best friend, his own blood, away.”

I look at the white winter lilies, still wet from wherever they’d been kept. They’re the same ones as in Onyx’s hospital room. “Does he come here?”

“Never. But I do.” Reaching out, he straightens them one by one without looking at what he’s doing. “Every week. I bring these.”