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I couldn’t tell which one I’d seen.

Maybe I didn’t care anymore.

Warmth licked my hand as the fire took hold. I rose and moved to the leather sofa in the middle of the room and sat. One arm across the headrest, the other around the glass.

House of Ash.

Saint-Clair.

Facility Nine.

Nyssa.

The scotch burned down my throat.

Not enough.

Never enough.

Rain battered the windows hard enough to make the old glass tremble. Thunder rolled overhead, deep and violent, dragging a groan from the walls.

She was in her wing.

Alone.

Safe.

That word meant nothing tonight.

I lifted the glass.

Don’t go to her.

Don’t touch her.

Don’t let her look at you like she thinks there’s something worth saving.

I lifted the glass again.

Because I knew there wasn’t.

The fire cracked sharply.

Then—a floorboard whispered beyond the door.

I froze.

Every part of me narrowed in on that sound.

One step.

Pause.

A faint shift of weight.

The almost-silent drag I knew intimately now.

Nyssa.