It took her forty minutes to work up to it.

Forty minutes of sitting across from Fin while he worked through reports and she pretended to read a briefing Tiberon had given her. Forty minutes of rehearsing in her head, rearranging words, discarding entire approaches, and generally behaving like a woman about to defuse an explosive device with a set of instructions written in a language she was blood-bound not to translate.

Because that was functionally what this was.

Tiberon had pulled her aside that morning, and handed her an impossible task.

She was going to figure it out. She just needed another forty minutes. Maybe fifty.

The blood oath sat in her chest like a closed fist. She could feel it, the way you feel a muscle you’ve pulled but can’t stretch. Every time she got close to the words, her throat tightened and her pulse kicked, the magic reminding her that it was there and it was watching and it would stop her heart if she crossed the line.

She put the briefing down.

"Fin."

He looked up. Something in her tone must have registered, because his pen stopped moving and his full attention shifted to her with the speed of a man who had been half-listening to her heartbeat the entire time and had just noticed it change.

"I need to ask you something."

"Go ahead."

She opened her mouth. Closed it. The blood oath squeezed, a preemptive warning, and heat crept into her cheeks.

"There is something I’m part of," she began carefully, each word measured, tested against the boundary before she committed to it. "In Drakenfell. I can’t tell you what it is."

Fin set his pen down.

"I can’t tell you when it started, or who else is involved, or what it requires." She swallowed. "I can’t explain the nature of it, the history of it, or the reason it exists."

Fin leaned back in his chair. His expression was unreadable.

"I also can’t tell you why I can’t tell you any of those things." Her face was fully red now, the flush climbing from her neck to her jaw to her cheekbones. "Because the reason I can’t tell you is also something I can’t discuss."

The silence that followed was excruciating.

"There is an event. Tomorrow at dawn. In a location. I am unable to elaborate on the event, the location, or why I’m unable to elaborate."

"I’ve received ransom notes with more information." Fin studied her. His arms crossed slowly over his chest. The posture of a man settling in. "So to summarize. You’re part of something you can’t name, for reasons you can’t explain, involving people you can’t identify, and you’re telling me this because..."

"Because I need you and Aeron to come with me at dawn."

"To the thing you can’t discuss."

"Yes."

"In the place you can’t describe."

"Correct."

"And if I ask what’s going to happen when we get there?"

"I can’t tell you that either."

Fin stared at her for a very long time. Long enough that she considered the possibility that she had finally, after everything, found the one thing that made Finnick Shadowclaw speechless.

She had not.

"That," he said, one side of his mouth pulling up, "is the worst pitch I’ve ever heard. And I’ve sat through trade negotiations with Bloodmoon."

Her face burned hotter. "I’m aware it’s not ideal."

"Not ideal is an interesting way to describe asking me to follow you into an undisclosed location for an undisclosed purpose with undisclosed participants based on zero information."

"You would be agreeing on trust."

"I’d be agreeing on you," he corrected. The distinction landed heavier than she expected.

Through their matebond, she felt his amusement. Warm, steady, tinged with something sharper underneath. Curiosity, but not the idle kind. The kind that came from a man who had already pieced together more than she realized.

Because Fin could feel the blood oath. He also knew she didn’t know he knew. And he found that, privately, very entertaining. 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

Xeon: She thinks we don’t know.

Fin: I’m aware.

Xeon: Her face is very red. This is enjoyable.

Fin: Behave.

Xeon: I am behaving. I am simply observing that our mate is trying to invite us to a secret blood ritual and is doing it with the subtlety of a woman returning a stolen horse.

"I’ll talk to Aeron," Fin said. "He’ll agree."

Relief crashed through her so fast he felt it through the matebond before it hit her face.

"Thank you," she said, exhaling. "I know this is, a lot to take on faith."

"Serena, you once kicked a severed head into the arms of an Orosian general and then negotiated a ceasefire. Your definition of a lot is permanently broken. This is nothing."

She pressed her lips together, fighting something between a laugh and mortification.

What she didn’t know was that on the other side of Fin’s study door, Aeron Lancaster had been standing in the corridor for the last four minutes.

He hadn’t been eavesdropping. He’d been arriving and then continuing to arrive very slowly when he heard Serena’s voice pitch into the specific register she used when she was lying by omission.

His arms were folded. His back was against the wall. And the expression on his face was the restrained euphoria of a man who had been waiting for this exact invitation since the day Hyran told him nothing, which told him everything.

He’d been warning Fin for weeks. Drakenfell had something old. Something blood-sealed. Something Hyran couldn’t discuss even in Sylvarae, which meant it predated modern oaths. Aeron had three theories, all of them exciting. The fact that Serena was the one delivering the ask instead of a mage confirmed his fourth theory, which was the most exciting of all.

He was going to say yes before she finished the sentence. He was going to say yes before Fin finished relaying the question. He was going to say yes if the question had been do you want to walk into a dark chamber and let strangers cut your hand open, because the answer to every question involving ancient magic was always yes.

The scholarly restraint was costing him physically. His fingers were tapping against his own arm. His jaw was tight, not from tension but from the effort of not walking in and asking if he could bring a notebook.

Xeon: The mage is outside the door.

Fin: I know.

Xeon: He has been there for four minutes. He is vibrating.

Fin: I said I know.

"One condition," Fin said.

Serena’s brows drew together. "What condition?"

"After dawn, you agree to something. I can’t tell you what it is yet."

She stared at him. "You can’t tell me."

"No."

"You’re asking me to agree to an unknown."

"I’m asking you to trust me." He tilted his head, the ghost of a smile still there.

She held his gaze. Her jaw worked, processing, weighing, running through every possible scenario and finding none of them because he’d given her nothing to work with. The same nothing she’d given him.

The irony was not lost on her.

"Is it dangerous?" she asked.

"No."

"Is it something I’d object to?"

"You might. Initially."

"That’s reassuring."

"Wasn’t meant to be."

She exhaled through her nose. Looked at the ceiling. Looked back at him.

"Okay."

"Okay?"

"I said okay. Don’t make me regret it by grinning."

He grinned.

She looked away, shaking her head, but the corner of her mouth was pulling against her will.

Through their matebond, he felt her nerves, her curiosity, and underneath both, the quiet warmth she always carried when she was with him and stopped fighting it. It settled into his chest like a coal finding a hearth.

He would tell her when the time was right. After the Brotherhood. After she’d seen him swear a blood oath for her. After the chamber and the fire and whatever ancient magic decided to throw at them next.

Then he’d ask her to swear into Shadowclaw. His pack. His home. Not as a guest. Not as a visitor splitting herself between two kingdoms. As a member.

She didn’t know that yet. And he wasn’t going to ruin the surprise by being premature about it. Finnick Shadowclaw was the king on timing.

Outside the door, Aeron was composing a mental list of everything he’d need to bring at dawn, already ranking the three theories by probability and wondering if he could get away with smuggling in a charcoal pencil for rubbings.

He was going to have to pretend to be surprised when Fin asked him.

He was already practicing his surprised face. It was not convincing.