Page 118 of May: Bloom & Bane

His eyes lock on Sage. “—why didn’t the bond seal?”

The dust from the shattered door swirls in the moonlight.

Sage leaps in front of me. He throws his arm out and shoves me behind his back.

War takes a step onto the porch, and Sage’s wings snap open with a sickening sound.

The walls wail in warning.

“What—” War starts.

The porch boards spike upward between War and Sage in a splintered barrier. Nook hisses as Kaeran’s hands slam against them.

“Stand down, Reaper,” he growls. “We are not here to⁠—”

“You should not be here at all,” Sage cuts him off, flickering between flesh and bone.

“We did not come to destroy your domestic bliss. We came because the tether did not snap. You claimed her. We all felt it, yet the bond is not sealed. Why?”

“What I did, or did not claim, is none of your concern.”

“It is my concern when it directly affects us finding our own mates. We need⁠—”

“Need?” Ashán snarls, the left side of his face bleeding from green to vorí. “The only thing you need is to leave. Now.”

“We cannot.” War takes another step forward. Nook screams, and the barrier between him and Sage thickens with new layers of rough timber erupting from the ground. “Not until you tell us why⁠—”

“I don’t know why,” Ashán snarls. “I have no other answers for you.”

Famine steps forward, and Nook allows him to pass. “Eden, do you know why?”

I want to give him an answer, but the truth is I’m new to all of this. Sage has referred to me as his mate since I woke up, and if I’m honest, that was enough for me. I’ve felt like his since the moment I heard his voice while I was under the glass. I don’t need a special bond to tell me that we belong together.

“She doesn’t know either,” Ashán cuts in, pushing me further behind their back. “And if she did, attempting to break into our home is not the way to get an answer.”

“Silence.”

The single word cuts through the chaos. Everyone turns to look at the headless Horseman furthest from the porch.

“The reaper does not know. The girl does not know.” His blade appears from thin air like it did the night they lured me out into the meadow. “But someone does.”

Ashán’s wings flare wide. “If you’re implying⁠—”

“Therael.”

“Therael would not⁠—”

“Wouldn’t he?” Death’s shoulder tips as if tilting his head—if he had one. “He is the God of Tradition. Bonds are his domain. If yours is… incomplete. I’m sure he knows why.”

Ashán stands silently, studying him.

“We’ll pay him a visit.”

“No!” I shout. “He’s helping us. He wouldn’t hide something unless⁠—”

“Unless it served him,” he finishes. “Gods may not lie, mortal. But they are very, very good at telling partial truths. Trust me.”

Sage’s vines slowly wrap around my ankle.