We didn't walk together after that.
Not really.
Santiago stayed a step ahead of me, always angled slightly away, like proximity itself was a risk he refused to take.
He watched rooftops, reflections in broken windows, the thin places where the Veil pressed close—but never me. Not directly.
It hurt more than his absence had.
"You're doing it on purpose," I said finally.
He stopped.
Not turning. Just… stilling.
"Doing what?"
"Putting space between us."
A pause. Then, quietly: "Yes."
I folded my arms, more to keep myself together than for warmth. "You don't get to disappear into the Veil, come back marked, and then pretend I don't exist."
That made him turn.
His expression wasn't cold. That was the worst part. It was careful. Measured. Like every reaction had been filtered through restraint.
"I'm pretending nothing," he said. "I'm choosing control."
"Over me?"
"Because of you."
The words landed wrong. Sharp.
I stepped closer. "You think I don't feel it? The way the Veil shifts when you're near me now? The way it—listens?"
His jaw tightened.
"That's exactly why."
The streetlamp above us flickered, responding to something neither of us touched. I felt it then—a low hum beneath my skin, like a second pulse that wasn't entirely mine.
"I didn't ask for this," I said.
"I know."
"And I didn't ask you to protect me by shutting me out."
His hands curled slowly at his sides. "You asked me not to leave."
My throat tightened. "That's not the same."
"No," he said softly. "It's worse."
He took a step back.
The distance snapped into place again, deliberate and controlled, like a line he'd drawn and dared himself not to cross.
"When I was inside the Veil," he continued, voice low, "they showed me outcomes. Not futures—consequences. Threads that tighten the more you pull on them."
My chest ached. "And I'm one of them."
"You're the center of them."
That silenced me.
"The closer I stay," he said, "the more it responds. To you. To me. To what we might become."
I laughed weakly. "So what—this is you being noble?"
"No," he said immediately. "This is me being afraid."
That stopped me cold.
Santiago looked away, eyes scanning the darkness again, but his voice didn't waver. "If I lose control near you, the Veil will notice. And if it notices… it won't separate us again."
It will fuse us.
He didn't say it.
He didn't have to.
I swallowed. "You think I'm dangerous."
"I think you're powerful," he corrected. "And power doesn't care about intention."
Silence settled between us, thick and strained.
Finally, I asked, "So what happens now?"
He hesitated.
"We move," he said. "We stay alive. And we don't give the Veil what it wants."
"And what does it want?"
His gaze flicked to me then—quick, unguarded, intense enough to steal the breath from my lungs.
"Connection," he said. "Strong enough to tear worlds."
My pulse skipped.
He turned away before I could say anything else.
"Stay close," he added. Then, after a beat: "Just… not too close."
As we walked on, the space between us stayed constant—measured in steps, in restraint, in everything neither of us dared to reach for.
Behind us, the Veil pulsed once.
Patient.