The new sun—so clean, so impossibly bright—cast the Faction headquarters in a perpetual state of luminous warmth. The air was filled with the sounds of restoration: hammers knocking, voices laughing, and the soft, unfamiliar noise of children playing freely in the courtyard, their shadows sharp and defined on the newly cleaned pavement.
The three separate, intense reunions across the hall had concluded, leaving behind a shared atmosphere of blissful exhaustion and profound relief.
In Tide's spartan room, the single bunk had suffered a serious assault, bedding tangled and pushed half off the mattress. Mira lay draped over Tide's solid chest, her fingers tracing the faded scars that ran over his shoulder, remnants of a life he had been forced to live before Axton rescued him.
"You really are the best warden," Mira murmured, resting her cheek on his collarbone, listening to the steady rhythm of his heart.
