He steps closer, close enough I can smell the iron under the perfume. “You’ll make quite the noble,” he murmurs. “All you need is a mask and a little less murder in your eyes.”
I look up at him. “If I do this, and I get caught?—”
“You won’t.”
“If I do.”
He shrugs. “Then I’ll mourn you for at least five minutes. Maybe six.”
“I’m serious, Cervantes.”
“So am I.”
There’s a glint behind his eyes now. A stillness. He drops the act just long enough to let me see what lives underneath the silk and smirk.
“You know I’m playing both sides,” he says. Not a question.
“I’d be stupid to think otherwise.”
“And yet, here you are.”
I fold the invitation and tuck it inside my coat. “Because I don’t need loyalty. I just need you to playminea little better.”
That grin spreads again, lazy and sharp. “Gods, I do love you rebels. Always so dramatic.”
“Just keep your end of the deal.”
He leans in, breath cool as grave-dirt against my cheek. “I always do.”
I step back before he can linger, before he can tempt me into forgetting why I hate him less than I should.
Because he’s useful. Because he wants to live. Because chaos is his religion, and today, we pray at the same altar.
I turn to leave.
“Tell me,” he calls after me. “Does the beast know how you look when you want to be touched?”
I stop.
Don’t turn.
Don’t flinch.
“Because I’dpayto watch him lose control,” he adds. “You’re fire under all that frost, River. One kiss away from burning down every wall you built.”
I walk away.
He laughs. Not cruel—just entertained.
It’s only once I’m out of the courtyard and back in the filth of Lowtown that I let myself breathe.
Because damn him—he’s not wrong.
All morning, Kragna’s been in the corners of my thoughts. Not his words. His hands. His heat. The ache in my chest when I pulled away. The promise I didn’t let bloom. Not yet. Not here.
Not when ghosts still cling to the walls of every place we sleep.
My fingers brush the invitation again.
