Desperate.
“Atlas…”
And I hoped — against reason, against terror, against the way this world chewed through good men — that he was still out there.That the world hadn’t stolen him from me.
52
Marcello
“Neve…”
Atlas had a second wound.The one no amount of stitches could touch.
He was carrying two losses in his body, not one.Alessio, cold and gone.Neve, missing and unreachable.Death on one side.Fear on the other.His mind bounced between them like a bullet ricocheting inside a skull.
No wonder he couldn’t rest.No wonder he couldn’t heal.
He collapsed back onto the pillow, shaking with fury and guilt—and something I’d never seen inside Atlas.
Love.
It looked like pain on him.
It looked like a wound no surgeon could stitch shut…
53
Atlas
Zelda’s tent sat crooked at the far edge of the market, its faded red fabric flapping in the wind like a wounded flag.The whole place smelled like dust and incense.I hadn’t seen her since the night she came to visit Neve.
Zelda’s house was where I had sent Neve the night everything went to hell.Part of me had thought I’d never see her again.Part of me had hoped I wouldn’t—because seeing her meant facing the answer to a question I’d been bleeding over for days: where was Neve?
The flap opened with a slow creak when I stepped inside.
Zelda sat at her table, her bracelets stacked to her elbows, her silver hair pulled back tight.She looked older than she did weeks ago—tired in a way that was carved into bone.And when she lifted her eyes to mine, grief flickered across her face like a shadow trying to hide but failing.
Her breath caught.“Atlas.I wasn’t sure you survived.”
“I did.But to the world, I was dead.”
Silence stretched, thick and mournful.She nodded toward the chair across from her.
“Sit.”
I didn’t move.
“I need to find Neve.”
Her eyes closed for a heartbeat—a tiny collapse.And when she opened them again, that grief sat heavier, more pronounced, like the truth hurt.
My jaw tightened.My blood rushed hot.
“Tell me how to find her,” I demanded.
It took her a long moment before she spoke.And when she did, her voice was so soft, I almost didn’t hear it.
“Paolo didn’t make it, you know.”