The movement is smooth and unguarded, not the slow, careful effort of someone testing fragile strength. He plants his feet and straightens fully, rolling his shoulders as though shaking off a stiffness that has already vanished.
I stare at him, unable to mask the disbelief tightening my chest.
“Careful,” I say, though the word feels hollow.
He takes a step, then another, each movement steady and controlled.
“Gods,” he breathes, looking down at his hands. “Sable, I feel—” He stops, shaking his head slightly. “I don’t even know how to explain it.”
I do not answer because I am watching too closely, tracking every shift in his balance, every breath, every movement of muscle beneath skin. Something beneath it all hums faintly, just beyond the reach of clear perception, like a vibration felt rather than heard.
“Wait,” he says suddenly, turning toward the corner of the room. “Watch this.”
Before I can stop him, he crosses the room and grips the handle of the water bucket. The wood creaks faintly as he lifts it, raising the full weight one-handed with a casual ease that makes my stomach drop.
“Corin, put that down.”
“I couldn’t even budge this yesterday,” he says, his voice bright with disbelief.
“Put it down,” I repeat, sharper this time.
Something in my tone reaches him, and he lowers it carefully, setting it back against the floorboards. Water spills over the rim, darkening the wood between us.
“You’re not happy,” he says quietly.
“I’m thinking.”
“That’s worse.”
I step forward again and take his wrist, repeating the checks despite already knowing the result. His pulse remains steady beneath my fingers, unyielding and strong.
“What did you do?” he asks.
“I fixed it.”
His gaze sharpens. “How?”
The answer lodges in my throat, heavy with everything I do not yet understand.
“I made a deal,” I say.
“With who?”
The air shifts before I can answer.
The change is subtle, but unmistakable. The temperature drops just enough to raise the hairs along my arms, and the faint hum beneath my skin sharpens into something immediate. I turn toward the doorway instinctively.
He stands there as though he has always occupied that space.
He does not arrive with spectacle this time, and the absence of visible transition is more unsettling than any burst of flame could have been. One moment the doorway is empty, and the next he fills it, tall and still, his presence pressing against the room with quiet authority.
My body reacts before my mind catches up, tension snapping through my limbs as I shift slightly in front of Corin.
“What is that?” Corin asks behind me.
“That,” I say, keeping my eyes fixed on the figure in the doorway, “is the problem.”
The demon’s gaze settles on me first, then moves to Corin with a measured, deliberate focus that makes something tighten low in my chest.
