Kion's POV

  Arachne's Corridor, Sealed Area, Tenzurah Buried Library

  She held him like a lifeline.

  Not gently.

  Her arm was locked around his ribs, fingers knotted hard in the folds of his shirt. His wings, normally free, normally unburdened, were crumpled flat between them, the joints bent at angles they weren’t meant to bear.

  It hurt.

  Not irreparably.

  Not dangerously.

  But it hurt him

  Still, he didn’t move.

  Didn’t breathe.

  Not because he couldn’t.

  But because she thought he was unconscious.

  And that was better. Safer. For both of them.

  The corridor around them was quiet, always was.

  No footsteps. No shouts. No sounds of pursuit.

  Just the flicker of fading illusions, folding into themselves like dust swept by unseen wind.

  The illusion spell woven around her book shimmered faintly beneath his palm. A magic anchored deep, twisted tight.

  It covered just over half the pages. A mirage threaded through text and ink and meaning. Names rewritten. Charts distorted. Translation marks subtly blurred.

  The rest remained exposed.

  He hadn’t had time to finish it. She’d grabbed him too quickly, too tightly, dragging him to her chest before he could lock the final sequence in place.

  So he stayed slack, unmoving.

  Expression blank.

  Wings crushed.

  Let her believe he’d been caught.

  That he’d blacked out.

  Let her clutch him with that same, breathless desperation that had surged through the tether the moment the illusion of the Accord agents took shape.

  That illusion hadn’t come from the corridor.

  That one had been his.

  His magic. His lies.

  He’d built the silence first. The pressure. The veil. Spun it soft and slow into her thoughts like shadow-soaked silk. Enough to separate her senses, enough to nudge her into believing she’d lost everything.

  Then the bag, his telekinesis had tugged the strap at the perfect moment. Yanked it free. Scattered it behind her. She’d never seen it happen. The darkness covered it well.

  Then the voices. He'd crafted them in the exact tone they'd used when they exiled her in Echoing Hollow.

  It pained him. So much.

  To feel her panic through the tether, raw and sharpened when she thought the Accord had come to drag her back.

  He hadn’t wanted to.

  Not that illusion.

  But it was the one thing he knew would tear her loose.

  The corridor’s magic was too subtle.

  Left alone, she might’ve wandered in circles without letting down her guard.

  And nothing would made her run like the Accord.

  He hated how fast he’d conjured their voices. Their footsteps.

  The cold, clipped orders of agents sent to retrieve or erase.

  She’d only been out of her cell for a month. He’d made her relive it, forced her into that same corner all over again.

  The tether still hadn’t forgiven him.

  And it pierced him even deeper when her horror shifted, not for herself, but for him.

  When he vanished from her view.

  When he severed his voice mid-call, deliberately.

  When the tether flinched with that one broken note.

  She thought he mattered.

  That was the part he hadn’t prepared for.

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  That pain hit harder than her grip. It buried itself deeper than any spell.

  Even now, as he kept his body slack in her arms, he could feel the strain of her focus. She was pushing, through confusion, through fear, through whatever the corridor’s trap was doing to her.

  The illusion cast by the ruin wasn’t his. That belonged to the Arachne.

  A spatial bind. A hall that looped thought instead of space.

  It should’ve caught her.

  Made her walk the same stretch again and again, convinced she was moving forward.

  But somehow, she’d pushed through it. Cracked it from the inside.

  But he saw it, felt it, in the flickers of her mind that pulsed across the tether.

  A kind of clarity. A will that refused to bow, even to magic meant to disorient.

  She’d looked for him, even inside a space where she shouldn’t have been able to feel him.

  And she'd found him.

  That... startled him.

  Startled him enough that the veil in her vision, the blackout he'd draped across her senses to keep himself hidden, wavered.

  Just briefly. A pulse of motion, a shimmer of presence.

  She shouldn’t have been able to find him.

  He was cloaked. Silenced.

  Masked from every form of detection.

  But her voice had reached anyway.

  “Kion...?”

  Just a whisper.

  But it hit like a scream.

  His magic jolted.

  Not from the name itself, but from the fact that she remembered.

  He’d only said it once. A month ago.

  In a ruined trap he’d rigged so he could stage an introduction.

  She hadn’t responded.

  Hadn’t even acknowledged it.

  He’d assumed she forgot. Or ignored it. Or didn’t care.

  And he never said it again. Not once in all ten days.

  But now...

  In this void, stripped of sight and sense and solid thought...

  She’d called for him.

  Not just 'hey.' Not 'you.'

  She whispered his name. Not a command. A call.

  And it shattered something in him.

  The tether surged with it. Raw. Real.

  Not pain.

  Longing.

  He almost dropped everything.

  The veil, the cloaking, the mirage.

  All of it.

  For the first time, he wasn’t sure hiding was the right thing at all.

  The tether wrenched. Not with pain.

  With need.

  She wanted him back.

  She wasn’t trying to save herself.

  She was trying to save them both.

  He almost ruined it then. Almost lost focus.

  But he held.

  And when her hand wrapped around him, when she dragged his body into her grip and pulled him forward through that dark, web-strewn corridor, his magic held, too.

  He kept the veil blanketing her vision intact, just a little longer.

  Not because she still needed it.

  But because he did.

  The feelings roaring through the tether, her fear, her determination, the way she clutched him like he mattered, had shaken his focus.

  His face wouldn’t hold.

  Not yet.

  He needed time to press it all down, to erase the smile tugging at his mouth, to tame the traitorous twitch in his brow.

  She had to believe he was unconscious.

  If she knew he wasn’t, if she even guessed, everything would unravel.

  He hated himself for keeping her blind even a second longer.

  But he couldn’t risk it.

  Not now.

  The notebook, now strapped to her belt, was only half rewritten.

  He didn’t dare finish the spell.

  She’d accuse him.

  She’d see the shimmer.

  And for now, she shouldn’t see. Not until they were safe.

  So he remained limp in her arms.

  Let her move. Let her desperation carry them both through the dark.

  Her breath hitched every time her hand struck web.

  Her fingers trembled against the weight of him. But she didn’t stop. Not once.

  Not even when her strength began to fray, when her body threatened to fold.

  She didn’t just crawl, she climbed.

  One leg after another. Elbow. Knee. Palm.

  Her left hand gripped at the web-strewn floor like a climber gripping a vertical face, yanking her weight forward inch by inch, using the sticky strands as handholds.

  Her notebook locked tight, secure, spine wedged flat against her hip. And every few paces, she tapped it with her fingers. Checking. Rechecking.

  Her right arm never moved from him.

  Cradled tight to her chest, she kept him pinned close, palm wide against his ribs like she could absorb warmth through skin alone.

  Every shuffle forward, she paused to make sure he didn’t slip. That he was still there. Still held.

  She crawled with three limbs. Pulled with one.

  And still, she moved.

  And he felt everything.

  Through the tether, he could feel it all.

  The raw strain in her muscles.

  The clutch of fear in her gut.

  The way her thoughts spun tighter around two points, notebook, and him.

  As if those were the only things that mattered.

  The only things worth saving.

  She’d reached the threshold minutes ago.

  He’d felt the brush of wards. The shift in air.

  She was so close.

  So close to clawing them both out of the dark.

  And then he let the veil break.

  Her breath caught sharp.

  Her vision cleared.

  The corridor door appeared, real, solid, marked with Bronze’s seal.

  Her hand hit the handle.

  The door opened.

  She pushed them both through. Slammed it shut.

  The sound rang final, sealed, like a line drawn in blood.

  And then...

  Relief.

  A flood.

  Unfiltered, unchecked.

  It poured from her like warmth from a cracked shell.

  A tremble. A soundless sob buried in the tether that made his throat tighten despite himself.

  He kept his face still. Perfectly slack.

  Even when his arms wanted to move.

  To breathe, to flinch, to reach back.

  It took everything in him to stay frozen in place.

  She clutched him tighter, like she thought the dark would seep through the door if she let go.

  He felt it again, that dangerous flicker in his chest.

  So he pressed it down. Swallowed it whole.

  He’d made this choice.

  Let her believe he was unconscious.

  Let her hold him like this.

  Let her believe he hadn’t betrayed her trust while she was trying to save him.

  He didn’t deserve the look she’d give him if she ever knew.

  So he kept his face slack. Because his life depended on it. Because if she saw through him, if she knew...

  That would be it.

  The end of whatever fragile, mended trust had formed in the dark between them.

  So he stayed unmoving.

  Quiet.

  A ghost in her arms.

  Even though every thread of him trembled with the urge to reach back.