The screaming had long since become atmosphere.
Lord Fenton moved through his basement with the unhurried ease of a man in his most sacred private domain. The cries of the children—some fresh and raw with terror, others dull and forlorn—blended into the stone walls like the distant drip of water or the crackle of expensive candles. He had learned years ago that cheap tallow produced uneven light, and uneven light flattered nothing. These candles, imported from the southern isles, cast a warm, steady glow across his flabby, naked flesh, highlighting every roll and smear of blood.
Bird cages of his own design hung from iron chains, swaying gently. Inside them, small forms huddled or pressed against the bars. Newer arrivals still fought. Older ones had learned the futility. He preferred the contrast.
The kitchen knife felt satisfyingly ordinary in his hand—mundane steel, the kind any cook might use. That was the point. He brought it down again on the chopping board with a wet, methodical thunk. The severed head of the blond girl stared up at him with glassy eyes. He lifted it by the hair, dipped his crystal cup into the pooled blood, and sipped. The taste was coppery, still warm. Perfect.
A loud knock shattered the ambient harmony.
Irritation flickered across his blood-splashed face. "I told you I wished to be alone in moments like this," he called, voice deceptively mild. "I hope you have an excellent reason for defying me."
The door opened. Grubb entered—bald, strict-faced, utterly unperturbed by the carnage or his master's nudity. The man's composure was not armor; it was architecture. He carried a white envelope, pristine against the horror.
"It concerns the Draveth girl's assassination, milord."
Fenton's anticipation sharpened. He set the head aside almost tenderly. "Just bring me the corpse. Spare the details. I've been salivating for a taste of the Undying."
Grubb did not move. "The attempt failed, milord. The assassins were found dead by their own organization."
The crystal cup slipped from Fenton's fingers. It shattered across the stone, red liquid spraying across Grubb's boots, the chopping board, and the small dismembered form. The sound was sharp, final—like the snap of a bone.
"What?" The word left him quiet. Deadly quiet.
Grubb extended the envelope. Fenton snatched it, tore it open with bloody fingers, and read. His ugly face—already twisted by indulgence and cruelty—contorted further into something feral.
"She escaped?" Rage vibrated through his fat frame. "That little bitch? How dare she?"
"She was aided by a mercenary, milord. Unknown. The new Guild revolver—pre-market. It caught them unprepared."
Fenton tore the letter to shreds. The pieces fluttered down into the blood and glass. He had pictured it all morning: her red eyes wide with terror as he opened her, piece by careful piece, exploring the secret of her resurrection. The fantasy had kept him hard with delight.
Now it was ash.
"She will come back to me," he whispered to the cages, to the dying screams, to himself. "Everything returns eventually."
Grubb waited.
"Find everything on this mercenary," Fenton ordered. "Double the bounty on the girl. Triple it if she's brought breathing."
"Yes, milord."
Grubb departed. Fenton stood amid the ruin of his evening, naked and smeared, staring at nothing. He did not imagine the red eyes hunting him. Such thoughts had never once entered his mind. Hunters did not become prey. Not in his world.
Far to the south, in the shifting halls of the Black Butterfly—an ancient, royal-blooded secret order that had ruled from the shadows for over three centuries—the moon painted silver across a chamber above the river in Varenhal's merchant district.
Nyx had been kneeling for thirty minutes on cold stone. She did not rise. She had not been given permission.
The woman seated before the tall window wore black as though the color had been invented for her. The gown was exquisite, the veil over her upper face fine enough for moonlight to filter through. What showed beneath was crimson. That rare, living red Zolani Draveth possessed. The same unsettling depth.
A black butterfly tattoo rested on the woman's wrist, wings spread beneath a delicate crown. The mark of the Sovereign.
Nyx kept her gaze lowered. Meeting those eyes directly was said to unmake minds.
The Sovereign—known only as Lady Thorne, the Veiled Crown—tilted her head. The motion was slow, deliberate.
"You failed."
Not a question. Nyx nodded, sweat beading despite the chill. Power rolled off the woman in waves. Ancient. Patient. Overwhelming.
"Why?"
"I have no excuses, Sovereign."
Lady Throne rose. Heels clicked like judgment across the stone. She stopped before Nyx and lifted the younger woman's chin with one finger. The digit was wet. The metallic scent confirmed it: blood.
"Tell me what happened."
"He escaped," Nyx said carefully. "The target—Revé Falke, the Child of the Hollow Veil. He wielded a new Guild revolver, pre-market. It cost us lives before we adapted. The Draveth girl… the Undying… intervened. We found out an assassination ordered by the Fenton's overlapped with ours. In the chaos, she aided him."
Lady Throne's crimson gaze remained fixed on the moon for a long moment.
"The Undying," she mused, voice posh and velvety, each word a precision instrument. "The girl who woke at her own funeral. The one birthing cults across provinces. I had marked her as peripheral. A curiosity." She paused. "If the Child of the Hollow Veil and the Undying converged on the same road, at the same hour, without orchestration… then someone is moving pieces behind the curtain. Especially with the Bleed drawing near."
Nyx's pulse hammered. Gods? Was something higher at play?
The finger under her chin tightened. "Set aside your current mission, Agent Thirty-Four. Enroll at Valdris Academy. Infiltrate their circle. Report every habit, every ability, every secret they carry. I want to know if they are being guided—and by whom. Results this time. Not complications."
"Understood."
Lady Throne released her and turned away. She lifted the lower edge of her veil just enough to light a cigarette. For one forbidden second, Nyx saw it: black inscriptions swirling across the revealed skin—alive, rewriting themselves in fluid, cursed patterns. The lines shifted, erased, reformed. Knowledge poured into Nyx's mind unbidden, wrong and vast, like staring into an evolving abyss.
Her soul frayed at the edges. She looked away, pressing palms to the floor. Stone. Real. Cold.
Warmth trickled from her ear. Blood.
"You may leave, Agent Thirty-Four. Ask Vulda for CSCTY-47. It will serve the mission."
Nyx rose on unsteady legs and staggered out, trying to preserve dignity. In the mirrored hallway, her reflection mocked her: messy dual pigtails, crooked bangs, dark circles, freckles, leaner muscles, baggy male shirt and boots. She looked like someone who had been hollowed out and refilled with purpose.
Blue hair and grey eyes flashed in her memory. The accidental grip on her breast during the fight. The punch she'd landed. Heat crawled up her ears and settled low in her belly. Bastard. When this is over, I'll put a bullet in that skull for the audacity.
She descended the spiraling staircase, stomach rumbling. Halfway down, her boot caught an outstretched leg.
She stumbled but caught herself.
Wystan sat against the wall, eyes closed as always. Long red hair cascaded over one shoulder. Twin scars cut through his lashes—old, elegant in their violence. He was tall, even seated, and the enclosed space made his presence feel intimate, inevitable.
"Nyx," he said, voice low and resonant.
"How do you always know?" The question escaped before she could stop it.
He unfolded gracefully and bent toward her, towering yet folding down until his face hovered near hers. His breath brushed her neck. "Your scent."
A shiver raced down her spine. She froze, hyper-aware of the heat between them, the dark stairwell, the way his scars caught faint light. His proximity stirred old, filthy thoughts she had sworn to bury.
What do I smell like? Her thoughts spiralled.
"What did you discuss with the Sovereign?" he asked.
"None of your business, Wystan."
Her voice came out breathy, traitorous. She stepped back, but the stairs offered little room. His calm contrasted her racing pulse. He always did this—unraveled her without effort.
"You always run, Nyx." A quiet patronizing chuckle followed her as she fled down the remaining steps. It infuriated her. The way he saw her nothing more than a child. Well he didn't quite see but still.
She covered her burning face, heart pounding. Her mission was first. Going to the academy. She needed results more than ever she couldn't disappoint the Sovereign. Yet the memory of his nearness lingered like smoke—dangerous, tempting, unresolved.
She needed food. Sleep. And distance from whoever made her feel too much.
Above, in the moonlit chamber, Lady Thorne exhaled smoke and smiled beneath her veil. The inscriptions on her skin continued their eternal rewriting.
The pieces had begun moving.
It was only a matter of time before everything would fall into place.