Lorenzo wasn't gone. He was sitting five feet away, leaning casually against a moss-covered stone piling. He had cleaned himself up as best as he could, though his clothes were still a ruined mess of soot and dried mud. In his lap sat a small pile of tart, wild apples, their skins a bruised, dusty red.

He didn't look at her. His focus was entirely on the task at hand: using a jagged, sharpened piece of scrap metal to meticulously peel an apple. He moved with a slow, practiced precision, the thin ribbon of skin curling away in one perfect, unbroken spiral.

"You're awake," he remarked, his voice smooth and devoid of the previous night’s exhaustion. "I was beginning to think you’d decided to sleep for another century."

Freya stared at the apple wedge resting on her lap, her stomach cramping with a hunger that felt like a betrayal. She looked at the fruit, then at the man sitting across from her with his jagged piece of scrap metal and his easy, predator’s slouch.

"I don't recall asking for breakfast, Lorenzo," she said, her voice raspy, still thick with the residue of the Old Norse she’d been muttering in her sleep.

"You didn't. But you're a miserable hiking companion when you're delusional," he countered, not looking up as he started on a second apple. "Eat. Unless you're planning on fainting again the moment we hit a incline. I’m not fond of dead weight."

Freya picked up the slice with two fingers, inspecting it as if it might be laced with hemlock. She caught his gaze—those sharp, dark eyes that seemed to be trying to read the margins of her soul.

"You truly have no idea who I am, do you?" she asked, the realization hitting her again. It was jarring. For a thousand years, her family name had been a death sentence or a prayer. To find someone who looked at her and saw only a "grumpy witch" was almost more disorienting than the 21st century itself.

"Should I?" Lorenzo asked, a dry smirk playing on his lips. "Are you a displaced queen? A silent film star? You certainly talk like you’ve been tucked away in a tomb for a few decades."

He paused, his knife hovering over the core of the fruit. He leaned forward slightly, his eyes narrowing as he took in the way she held herself—the ancient, weary stiffness in her spine that didn't match her youthful face. "Actually, I’m starting to think 'decades' is being generous. You speak dead tongues like they're your mother's milk, and you handle that ledger like it’s the Holy Grail. You’re old, aren't you? Far older than you look."

Freya finally took a bite of the apple. The tart juice hit her tongue, and her body practically hummed with relief, but she kept her expression cold. "Age is a relative concept when you've spent most of it in a cage of your own making."

"Vague and poetic. How very 'Original' of you," he mocked, though the word was just a jab, devoid of the weight it usually carried. He gestured with the scrap metal toward the satchel. "But it doesn't answer the question. Why the book? You have enough power to level that farmhouse, yet you’re risking a lobotomy from Augustine scouts for a bunch of scientists' scribbles. What’s in there that’s worth more than your life?"

Freya swallowed the fruit, her hand tightening instinctively on the leather strap of the bag. "It isn't just 'scribbles,' Lorenzo. It’s a map. One that leads away from the shadow that’s been chasing me since before your 'East End' was even a collection of hovels."

Lorenzo let out a short, harsh laugh. "A map? To what? A cure for your bad attitude?"

"To my agency," she snapped, the side-eye she gave him enough to make the air between them turn brittle. "Something you should understand, considering you spent seventy years as a laboratory animal. You're remarkably domestic for a man who spent seventy years as 'Subject 12144,'"

The metal scrap in Enzo's hand stopped moving. The silence that followed was heavy, broken only by the rush of the river. He finally looked up, his eyes dark and dangerously still. "What did you just say?"

"I read the logs before I blew the door, Lorenzo," Freya said, regaining her composure as the food hit her system. "I saw the intake files. The blood extractions. The 'St. John' research. I didn't need a locator spell to realize the man standing in front of me was the one the doctors were so fond of cutting open."

Enzo surged to his feet, the apples tumbling into the dirt. The "charming" mask was gone, replaced by a raw, jagged anger. "You think because you read a ledger that you know me? You think you can just throw my history in my face like it's a casual bit of trivia?"

"I’m not throwing it," Freya snapped, standing up to meet his gaze. "I’m stating a fact. You hate that book because it’s a record of your humiliation. I need it because it’s a record of my survival. We are both in those pages, whether you like it or not."

"I am nothing like you," Enzo hissed, stepping into her space. "I was a prisoner of men. You're a prisoner of your own delusions. You were talking to ghosts in the woods, Freya. You're losing your mind, and you think a dusty book is going to save you."

"It's not a ghost, it's a debt!" she shrieked back. "And if you want to play the martyr, do it on your own time. I need to know where they moved the rest of the Augustine archives, and you’re the only one who knows the layout of their 'modern' facilities. So either help me find the next lead, or get out of my way."

Enzo stared at her, his jaw tight. He looked at the satchel, then back at her defiant, soot-streaked face. The hatred was still there, but so was the realization that they were both tethered to the same pile of secrets.

Enzo let out a sharp, jagged breath, his fingers curling into white-knuckled fists. "¡Maldita sea!" he barked, the Spanish exploding from him in a rare moment where his composure completely snapped. He kicked a loose stone into the river, the sound lost in the rush of the water. "You think you’re so bloody clever, don’t you? Tapping into a history you have no right to touch."

He paced the small, damp space under the bridge like a caged animal, the "12144" comment clearly still stinging. He looked at the horizon, then back at Freya, his eyes dark with a reluctant, simmering acceptance.

"Fine," he muttered, stepping back toward her, though his posture remained rigid. "You want the archives? You want the men who wrote that book? I know where they are. The main facility—the heart of the spiderweb—isn't some makeshift basement in the woods. It’s a legacy. The Whitmore estate."

Freya’s eyes sharpened. She shifted the satchel, her fingers grazing the leather. "Whitmore. How far?"

Enzo held up a hand, stopping her before she could move. He didn't look like he was in a helping mood; he looked like a man making a transaction.

"Not so fast, darling," he said, his voice dropping into a low, dangerous hum. "I’m not a tour guide, and I’m certainly not your servant. I’ll give you the coordinates. I’ll even get you through the front door—God knows you’ll probably walk into a tripwire without me. But I’m not moving another inch until you tell me what you’re really doing."

He gestured vaguely at her, his gaze lingering on the way she still shivered despite the morning sun. "You’re not just a witch looking for a library. You’re running from something that scares you more than a cage. Tell me one thing that isn't a riddle. Who is 'she'? The woman you were talking to in the dark."

Freya stiffened, the name Dahlia threatening to catch in her throat. She looked at Lorenzo, seeing the genuine, burning curiosity behind his spite. He was offering her the location she needed, but he was demanding a piece of her in return.

"I told you," she whispered, her voice hardening. "It's a debt."