Sylvie’s legs felt like sea-glass.

Cracked. Polished. Still somehow standing.

The silence left behind by the demon wasn’t empty. It was echoing. The kind of hush that settles after a scream that took everything out of you. Gold still shimmered faintly around her fingertips, reluctant to leave.

She stared at the pile of scorched bone and ash where the thing had been and exhaled slowly, like her lungs were just now remembering how to work.

Then she turned toward Sable, one brow raised, voice still breathless:

“Worse than your ex? That thing had better skin and at least some sense of commitment.”

Sable barked a soft laugh, hand braced on her knee as she caught her breath. “Touché.”

Selene didn’t laugh. But she didn’t need to. Her eyes, rimmed in exhaustion and blood, were warm. Proud. There.

Sylvie’s gaze swept the warehouse—the cracked ice, the scorched beams, the faint ripple of magic still lingering in the air like the ghost of a storm. Her light was fading now. Just a soft glow in her veins. Not gone. Just… quiet. Spent.

She rolled her shoulders and shook out her hands.

“Okay,” she said, voice lighter than she felt, “so that was horrifying.”

She looked to Selene, then to Sable. Both nodded. Both steady, if only barely. Three points of a triangle. Bruised, yes—but intact.

Sylvie let out one last breath. Then jerked her thumb toward the busted warehouse door.

“C’mon. Let’s get out of here before another one of your exes shows up.”

Sable groaned. “Please don’t manifest that.”

But they were already walking—limping, leaning, breathing.

Together.

And behind them, the warehouse creaked one final time before the silence took it back.