Page 89 of Vows of Ruin

She searches my eyes for a second, then nods. “Okay.” She leans up, kisses me once, slow and certain, before turning to Max. “Looks like it’s me and you then, my shadow.”

Max grins, that easy one that always gets her to roll her eyes. “Wouldn’t have it any other way, Sparrow.”

I watch them head down the path toward the gates, his hand on her lower back. For a moment, everything feels almost normal. Then the wind shifts, cold and sharp, carrying that familiar whisper of something closing in. I shove my hands in my pockets, jaw tight. Normal never lasts. Not for us.

Chapter Thirty-Five

Wrenley

The drive into the city is calm and comfortable. Morning light rolls across the dashboard, painting Max’s profile in gold. The mansion shrinks in the rearview, and for a blessed few miles, it’s just the hum of the engine and the faint buzz of some old rock station he refuses to change. The air smells like him, cedar, leather, and whiskey, but there’s peace in it. A rare thing.

I should still be shaken from last night, but I’m not. The bruise on my cheek aches when I smile, proof I made it out whole. Liam’s hands trembling after the nightmare, the look in his eyes when he realized what he’d done, I’ve replayed it more than once, but it doesn’t sit like fear. It sits like love that got lost in the dark for a moment.

“You’re quiet,” Max says, glancing my way.

“Just thinking,” I tell him. “About you and Liam this morning. What was that about?”

He drums his fingers on the steering wheel. “Nothing you need to worry about.”

“Max,” I drag out his name, half warning, half plea. “We said this doesn’t work with secrets.”

He exhales through his nose, a faint grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. “You know how he gets—can’t stop running scenarios in his head. I was just… talking him down.”

“That’s a lie dressed as concern,” I say.

“Maybe,” he admits with a full shit-eating grin now. “But it’s a good-looking lie.”

I roll my eyes. “You and Liam really need to learn how to protect me a little less.”

He glances over, voice dripping with sarcasm now, “Yeah, well, forgive us for trying.”

The quiet stretches again, easy for a moment. The city starts to rise ahead of us, Northwyck's skyline built from steel, glass, and bad decisions. I trace the edge of the window with my fingertip, watching sunlight fracture across the buildings. Something in me hums. It’s not nerves. It’s instinct.

“So,” Max says, deliberately changing the subject. “What are we doing in town, exactly? You said you needed supplies.”

I grin, finally letting him off the hook. “Oh, you know. This and that.”

“This and that?”

“Coffee beans that don’t taste like ash, new boots, maybe some ammo if the shop still has the good kind.” I pause, pretending to think. “And maybe something reckless for you and Liam just to see you sweat.”

He laughs, shaking his head. “You’re impossible.”

“Admit it,” I say. “You’d be bored without me.”

He doesn’t answer, but his smile lingers. The city swallows us then, traffic noise, people moving too fast, life pretending it’s ordinary. We park near the strip of shops that survived last year’s fire. Max kills the engine, scanning the street automatically. Old habits die hard.

“Stay sharp,” he mutters. “Northwyck’s been quiet too long.”

I push open my door, the warmth of the day wrapping around me. “You’re starting to sound more and more like Liam.”

“Yeah,” he says. “I wish that didn’t feel like a compliment.”

As we cross the street, a delivery truck rumbles past. The side panel flashes a company logo I’ve never seen, Crown Logistics. The font catches me for half a second. Simple. Elegant. But the emblem beneath it, a small, stylized serpent biting its tail, snags my breath. A mark I’ve seen before, painted on the wall of the House of Silk.

I blink, and the truck’s gone.

“Sparrow?” Max’s voice cuts in. “You okay?”