More riddles.My blood turned to ice.
“Where is she?”
Zelda’s eyes softened—pity and wisdom, layered with a grief I didn’t understand yet.
“I don’t know where she is now.But I know where she would go.”
She pressed a hand to her heart.
“To the place where broken children return when the world breaks them again.”
My chest constricted.
“The convent.”
She nodded.“You took her there when she was small.You returned to see her again when she grew.That place is home to her in ways you will never understand.”
The words hit me with brutal clarity.Of course.Of course she went back to the convent.It was the only home she knew before me.And the only place she would believe she’d be safe from men like me.
“It’s too far,” I shook my head, the words scraping out of me.“She couldn’t have made it that far.”
Not on her own.Not with the world tearing at her from every side.
Zelda studied me with eyes that had seen too much pain to flinch from it.
“It is,” she agreed softly.“Too far for most souls.Too far for a body that has been broken and a heart that has been bruised raw.”
She paused, as if choosing which truth would cut the least.
“But Neve…” Zelda’s voice gentled.“Neve is stubborn in a way only the wounded are.When the world tries to erase them, they cling harder.They crawl.They bleed.They survive.”
Her gaze drifted, distant, like she was watching something only she could see.
I was already on my feet.
Every instinct in me was screaming now—move, hunt, find her, don’t waste another second while she was out there believing she was alone.
Zelda rose too, her fingers closing around my sleeve before I could tear past her.
“Atlas—”
I stopped, but only because her grip trembled.
Her hand was small against my arm.Fragile.Afraid.
“Be gentle,” she whispered.Her voice cracked, just barely.“When you find her… be gentle.”
My jaw tightened.
“She has suffered,” Zelda went on, her eyes shining with unshed grief.“More than you realize.More than she will ever tell you.Some wounds don’t bleed.They leave scars no-one knows how to touch.”
I swallowed hard.
Zelda looked up at me like she was entrusting me with something sacred and breakable.
“She will come back to you.But she will not be the same girl who left.Love her anyway.”
I nodded once.