After Thira left with the bald man, Riven remained seated on the couch, straining his ears to catch the sound of their footsteps fading away outside the door. Even when silence settled in, he stayed put for an extra two minutes, reassuring himself they were completely gone.

“There’s no way I can sit here all alone,” he muttered under his breath.

But the words were only half true. It wasn’t solitude that gnawed at him—it was the way Thira had left, smiling in the arms of that ...