Cassian notices the shift immediately.
"You heard from him," he says the next morning.
I don't ask how he knows.
"Yes."
"What did he want?"
I meet Cassian's gaze. "To be remembered."
Silence stretches.
Cassian nods once. "And are you going to give him that?"
"I don't know," I admit. "But I'm not chasing him."
That's when Cassian finally lets himself say the thing he's been holding back.
"I don't want to be the man you choose because the other one walked away."
The honesty stings.
"You're not," I say. "But if you need guarantees, I can't give you those either."
He exhales sharply. "You really don't bend, do you?"
I smile faintly. "That's why you wanted me."
He looks at me for a long moment.
"Yes," he says quietly. "And that's why this scares me."
Because now, the power has shifted.
Jude is no longer the wounded one.
Cassian is no longer the confident one.
And I'm standing in the middle, not because I can't choose — but because choosing myself has consequences neither of them prepared for.