Then she turned her steps toward the river, dodging workers and tourists and shoppers all enjoying the end of the day. If she was aware that he followed, she didn’t seem to care. Didn’t even look up once as she aimed for a wooden bench along the river walkway.

The setting sun gilded the mists veiling the Bone Quarter. A few feet down the paved walkway, the dark arches of the Black Dock loomed. No mourning families stood beneath them today, waiting for the onyx boat to take their coffin.

Bryce sat on the bench overlooking the river and the Sleeping City, the white bakery box beside her, and checked her phone again.

Sick of waiting until she deigned to talk to him about whatever was eating her up, Hunt landed quietly before sliding onto the bench’s wooden planks, the box between them. “What’s up?”

Bryce stared out at the river. She looked drained. Like that first night he’d seen her, in the legion’s holding center.

She still wasn’t looking at him when she said, “Danika would have been twenty-five today.”

Hunt went still. “It’s … Today’s Danika’s birthday.”

She glanced to her phone, discarded at her side. “No one remembered. Not Juniper or Fury—not even my mom. Last year, they remembered, but … I guess it was a onetime thing.”

“You could have asked them.”

“I know they’re busy. And …” She ran a hand through her hair. “Honestly, I thought they’d remember. I wanted them to remember. Even just a message saying something bullshitty, like I miss her or whatever.”

“What’s in the box?”

“Chocolate croissants,” she said hoarsely. “Danika always wanted them on her birthday. They were her favorite.”

Hunt looked from the box to her, then to the looming Bone Quarter across the river. How many croissants had he seen her eating these weeks? Perhaps in part because they connected her to Danika the same way that scar on her thigh did. When he looked back at her, her mouth was a tight, trembling line.

“It sucks,” she said, her voice thick. “It sucks that everyone just … moves on, and forgets. They expect me to forget. But I can’t.” She rubbed at her chest. “I can’t forget. And maybe it’s fucking weird that I bought my dead friend a bunch of birthday croissants. But the world moved on. Like she never existed.”