Chapter 23
Kaia
We walk in silence.
The forest presses in around us, twisted trees reaching overhead like claws. The corruption hums against my skin, stronger now, but I barely notice it anymore. It’s just… there. Part of the landscape. Part of Absentia.
Ahead, Torric and Malrik carry Callum between them. He’s still unconscious, his head lolling with every step, and I can see the tension in Torric’s shoulders every time Callum’s body shifts. He keeps flicking glances back at me — protective, pissed and worried all at the same time.
Kieran walks beside them, his eyes fixed on Callum’s slack face like he’s afraid to look away. Like looking away might mean losing him again.
Bob is on high alert at my shoulder. The small shadows that have been following us since the village drift through the trees, keeping pace. More of them now than before. I don’t know where they’re coming from.
I hang back from the formation.
I need space. The guys let me have it.
Darian is walking too far from the group.
I notice because I’ve been watching him since we started moving again. His shadow magic flickers around his fingers — dark, uneasy — like something inside him is unsettled and he can’t make it stop.
He sees me looking and straightens. Tries to smooth his expression into something neutral.
He’s not fooling anyone.
I slow my pace until I’m walking beside him. He tenses but doesn’t move away.
“Are you okay?”
He laughs — short, hollow. “Fine.”
“Darian.”
He’s quiet for a long moment. The magic flickers again, and he stares at his hands like they belong to someone else.
“I’ve never seen it,” he says finally. His voice is rough. “Seen someone be what I could’ve been. I didn’t know what it looked like from the outside.”
My chest tightens.
“I never thought I’d see what it looks like. What Thorne did, forcing magic, wrong magic, on someone else.” He swallows hard. “Why didn’t that happen to me?”
The question hangs in the air between us.
I don’t have an answer. I wish I did.
“I don’t know, Darian.” I keep my voice soft. Honest. “But I’m glad it didn’t.”
He doesn’t cry. But something in his expression cracks — just a little — and he nods without looking at me.
We walk in silence after that. But it’s not the heavy, suffocating silence from before.
It’s just… quiet.
The forest thickens as we move deeper into the trees.
The shadows drift closer, curious rather than crowding. The small ones that have been following us since the village edge nearer, tentative and watchful.
I notice Finn watching them.
He’s walking a few paces behind the main group, hands stuffed in his pockets, shoulders hunched. He looks tired. Worn. Like the weight of everything is pressing down on him and he doesn’t know how to carry it anymore.
There’s something hollow in his expression, something frayed, and I hate that I don’t know how to reach him.
But his eyes are tracking the shadows with something like fascination. Like his brain is clinging to the one thing he can understand right now.
One of the new shadows hovers near his boot, flickering uncertainly.
Finn crouches a little, squinting at it.
“…You’re definitely an Ed.”
I freeze mid-step. “What?”
He gestures at the shadow like it’s obvious. “That one? Ed. Very clear Ed energy.”
The shadow flicks its shape — a shy, uncertain movement that almost looks like a shrug.
Finn taps his boot lightly near it. “Come on, Ed. Don’t be shy.”
The shadow warbles — a soft, pleased little sound — and drifts closer.
Finn surveys the others drifting around me, his expression deadly serious.
“Actually… all of you. Eds. Every last one of you.”
“You are not naming my shadows Ed.”
“Why not?” He looks genuinely confused. “They look like Eds.”
“None of them look like Ed!”
“Have you ever met an Ed?”
“No!”
Finn spreads his hands. “Then you can’t prove me wrong.”
The shadow at his foot warbles again.
Finn looks down at it, then back at me.
“See? Ed approves.”
I stare at him. At the shadow. At the absolute absurdity of this moment.
“There are multiple Eds now, actually. I’ve been counting.”
Survival Tip #23: Never let Finn name anything. Ever again.
I press my hand over my mouth, shoulders shaking.
And then I laugh.
Really laugh — for the first time since before the village. It bubbles up from somewhere deep and broken, cracking through the heaviness in my chest like sunlight through storm clouds.
Finn’s composure cracks too — his mouth betrays him first, then his eyes. It’s the closest he’s come to smiling since the village.
“You’re ridiculous,” I manage between laughs.
“Ed doesn’t think so.”
“There is no Ed!”
“There are multiple Eds. I just told you. Keep up.”
Darian glances back at the sound — startled, relieved, and something like grateful.
The shadows drift around us, and I swear some of them are preening.
Bob looks deeply offended.
Patricia’s notebook flickers, definitely amused, probably documenting this travesty for the permanent record.
Finnick does a delighted flip, clearly thrilled by the chaos.
After a while, the laughter fades.
Finn’s smile softens, then dims. He glances at me — just for a second — with something uncertain in his eyes. Like he’s not sure he deserves this moment after everything that happened.
I see it. I don’t push.
But that moment of laughter cracked something open in both of us. Something that needed air.
We keep walking.
The shadows drift around us like fireflies.
I take a breath that isn’t all pain for the first time in hours.
The group ahead keeps moving toward Sorrow’s Keep. Torric’s heat. Aspen’s frost. Malrik’s steady presence. Kieran’s grief. Darian’s quiet struggle.
And Finn, walking beside me now, not quite smiling but not quite drowning either.
Up ahead, Kieran doesn’t turn, but his shoulders ease the smallest amount at the sound of my laugh.
Maybe it won’t last. Maybe nothing does.
But right now, Finn is here. The shadows are harmless. And the world isn’t falling apart.
Not yet. But the trees feel too quiet. Like they’re waiting.