Page 88 of Lost in Fire

“I watched over Lila Rossewyn for twenty years,” I offer. The safest of my truths.

“The witch,” she says, turning her head slightly to look up into my face. Her eyes catch the harsh overhead light, turning them to pale fire. “I knew about that. I had a file on both of you.”

Something cold settles in my gut. “You were monitoring me?”

“Not me personally. But yes, the Syndicate kept tabs.” She traces a pattern across my ribs, her touch feather-light. “It was the only way I could see your face. Those surveillance photos. I stole one once.”

The idea of Vanya—the feared Shadowhand—secretly stealing a photograph of me like a lovesick teenager should be absurd. Instead, it breaks something open inside me.

“She reminded me of you,” I say, needing to offer something in return. “Lila. That same stubborn resilience when the world tried to break her.”

Vanya’s fingers go still over my heart. “You helped her escape.”

Not a question. She already knows the answer.

“I did.” I stare at the water stain blooming across the ceiling, shaped vaguely like a dragon in flight. “Each year, I saw more clearly what the Syndicate was becoming. What they were willing to do. Orders that made my stomach turn.”

Her hand presses flat against my chest, as if seeking my heartbeat. “You only know the half of it. I’ve signed some of those orders.”

I tilt her chin up, meeting her eyes. “You did what you had to do.”

“Did I?” She pulls away, sitting up with her back against the wall, knees drawn to her chest. The prison uniform hangs loose on her frame, revealing the sharp angles of collarbones that weren’t so prominent in my memories. The intimacy breaks, replaced by something rawer. “There’s so much you don’t know, Hargen. So much I’ve done—”

“Then tell me.” I reach for her hand, finding it cold despite our shared warmth moments ago. “All of it.”

The silence stretches between us, filled only by the distant sounds of the facility—the mechanical hum of ventilation, the occasional metallic clang of doors, the reminder that we are caged. Her eyes drift to the door, then to the surveillance camera in the corner, whose red light has been dark since Vex left us.

Did he give us this privacy to make the pain of tearing us apart that much harder?

Probably.

“I never wanted you to think I was dead,” she finally says.

There’s weight behind the words, like she’s carrying more than guilt. Like she’s practiced this confession a thousand times in her mind.

“What really happened that day?” I ask, though part of me fears the answer.

Her grip tightens until her knuckles go white. “They gave me an ultimatum. Reveal my lover’s identity or face execution.”

She’s hinted at this before, but hearing it stated so plainly still leaves me reeling.

“They knew about us,” I say, because I know that much. But the rest… that’s a story she never shared with me.

“After my clan elders learned of us…” Her voice goes flat, distant, the way survivors sound when recounting trauma. “They demanded I name you. Said they’d be ‘merciful’ if I cooperated.” A bitter laugh escapes her. “I knew it was a lie. They were going to kill you, regardless. I couldn’t even contemplate that.”

“You chose the flames rather than expose me.” My voice sounds strange in my own ears, choked with a mixture of awe and horror.

She meets my stare unflinchingly. “There was no choice to make.”

Jesus Christ.All these years, I thought her death was punishment for our forbidden love. Never imagined she died protecting me from her own people. The weight of that sacrifice settles over me.

“Cassia approached me the night before.” Vanya’s words pull me back from the edge of that abyss. “She found me in my cell. Had others with her. Dragons who saw what the Syndicate was becoming.”

“Others?” I sit up straighter, the concrete cold against my bare back.

“A small network. They’d been watching the leadership for years, documenting the shift toward extremism.” She traces the edge of a concrete block with her finger, nail catching on the rough surface. “Cassia proposed something impossible. Chemical flames that mimicked dragon fire. Projection magic to hide my escape.”

The pieces snap together in my mind, revealing the deception in stark clarity.

---