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Neither of us seemed particularly eager to move away.

Slowly, he leaned forward again, and my eyes drifted shut in anticipation. But then voices echoed from somewhere beyond the door, and Atlas froze.

The sound was followed by approaching footsteps, and a colorful string of muttered curses escaped him, decidedly unfit for a king.

“For fuck’s sake!”

Despite myself, I laughed.

Reluctantly, I shifted away from him, but his forehead remained pressed against mine for one last second before I created the space between us. When he finally stepped back, it wasn’t very far, and the look he gave me promised this conversation was far from over. A heartbeat later, the door handle turned.

And Lazaros walked inside. He wasn’t alone.

Aster stepped into the room beside him, back in his human form. Gone were the horns and towering bulk of the Minotaur I had come accustomed to on our journey to save Lazaros. The danger making him take that form the majority of the time. Now, though, stood the broad-shouldered figure I knew instead. He looked exhausted despite the casual posture he immediately adopted. His dark hair was still slightly disheveled, and traces of the battle still lingered around his eyes.

“Lazaros,” Atlas breathed, relief washing across his features at the sight of his brother standing on his own two feet. Not only healed but looking like himself again.

Lazaros paused in the doorway and offered a tired smile, though exhaustion now clung to him, settling heavily across his shoulders. When his gaze shifted towards me, the smile softened slightly.

“I suppose it’s time I thanked you for saving my life.”

Heat rushed to my cheeks. My gaze immediately dropped to his neck, finding a neat line of stitches. It already looked partially healed, the flesh knitted cleanly beneath them.

“Well, I...” I laughed awkwardly, more out of discomfort than amusement. “I suppose I could have been quicker.”

The smile never left his face, though something sad lingered behind it.

“You understood what I was trying to tell you. That was enough.”

My brow furrowed.

“What do you mean?”

“You know,” Lazaros said quietly, his attention dropping briefly towards where Atlas still held my hand. “Through Riley.”

The name struck me harder than I expected. My heart immediately began hammering against my ribs, and despite myself, I glanced towards Atlas. He was doing an admirable job of appearing unaffected, but I knew him too well not to notice the tension settling across his jaw. Or the way his fingers tightened ever so slightly around mine.

Riley’s name still carried wounds that hadn’t fully healed, and judging by the look in Atlas’s eyes, this conversation was already heading somewhere he wasn’t entirely comfortable following.

But before he could interrupt or before he could redirect the conversation somewhere safer, the question escaped me,

“Wait… you know Riley?”

Lazaros nodded as he moved further into the room. Aster followed him, closing the door behind them before making his way towards the wall, where he leaned back with the kind of ease that suggested he was already anticipating this to go terribly wrong.

“We were both in the same prison,” Lazaros said, though his mouth tightened slightly, as if even those words failed to explain the horror of it properly. “Well, our minds were. I don’t really know what else to call it.”

“Wha...” Atlas started, but Lazaros continued before he could finish.

“He’s a tough one, your Riley. A true soldier.” He gave a slow nod, almost as though confirming the thought to himself. “If he belonged to this realm, I would have made him my right-hand man.”

The effect those words had on Atlas was immediate.

His entire body seemed to still.

Lazaros noticed it too and glanced towards him before adding dryly, “He certainly would have made a better one than Demetrios.”

“Wait,” Atlas finally threw both hands into the air. “Demetrios… so it was him…” he shook his head, “And Riley… A prison inside your minds. What is going on?”