That's a small mercy at least. A humorless laugh escapes him when Ronan tries to insist that he's on vacation. For as long as Ronan has been alive, there has been no such thing.

"I apparently have nanites in me and a tattoo that glows. I am not on vacation."

And Ronan is here and known and no, there apparently hasn't been a world ending disaster, but that doesn't mean that Ronan is safe. Even after dragging Ronan across the finish line of his eighteenth birthday hadn't felt like real freedom. It just meant that Ronan had access to his trust and Declan didn't have to hover over him.

All De Chima is is yet another place to live a life that isn't entirely his own.