Gerri’s eyebrows rose. A fraction. Controlled. “Is he?—”
“No.” Revka cut the question in half before it finished forming. “He’s not. He’s just...” She searched for the word. Found it. Delivered it like a diagnosis. “A lot.”
Gerri bit down on the inside of her cheek. A lot. The understatement of a mother who loved her son enough to see him clearly and despaired of anyone else doing the same.
“Zeir inherited the alpha mantle young,” Revka continued. She moved to the window alcove, and Gerri followed. The park had gone dark, the skyline a jagged constellation against deep blue. “The pack elders—Brenn, specifically—ground the art out of him. Convinced him that creating made him weak. That analpha’s role was martial, strategic, protective. Not creative.” Her gaze drifted toward the Rembrandt print on the dining room wall. “His father went through the same thing. Soren was an architect before he was an alpha. The elders told him beauty was frivolous. He gave it up. I watched it happen.”
The chandelier light played across her features. For a moment, the composed professor disappeared, and Gerri saw the woman underneath—the one who’d watched her husband surrender his passion and would burn the world before she let her son do the same.
“Zeir channels everything into the business now. Axan Dark Publishing. He builds worlds for villains to live in and can’t build a life for himself.” Revka’s voice dropped. “He creates in secret, Gerri. Late at night, when the office is empty. He has a locked drawer in his desk. Sketches. Beautiful, vulnerable work. And he hides it like it’s something to be ashamed of.”
Gerri let the silence breathe. Somewhere behind them, Zy was spinning Ellie on the makeshift dance floor, her laughter bright enough to cut glass. A tiger shifter who’d needed a push and a woman who’d needed to stop running. That match had taken six months. Gerri had a feeling this one would take longer.
“Does Zeir still keep that locked drawer in his desk?”
Revka’s chin lifted. The same crack that had split Ozara’s composure—brief, hairline, devastating in its honesty.
“Every night.”
“Every night.” Gerri repeated it softly. Not a question. A confirmation. She turned to the window and studied the dark sweep of Central Park below. Two people. A woman who poured every ounce of tenderness into villains that made strangers weep, and a man who built villains with intellectual depth so precise it made readers root for the monster. A woman with a private sketchbook full of tenderness she’d never show, and a man with a locked drawer full of softness he’d never admit.
Two sides of the same dark coin.
Gerri steeredthem toward the orchid arrangements.
Ozara and Revka studied each other the way two chess players studied an opponent across the board—with respect, wariness, and the mutual recognition that they were both far too intelligent for small talk.
“Revka Axan,” Gerri said, as though the introduction were casual and unrehearsed. “Former art history professor. Current patron of everything beautiful and dangerous. Her son runs Axan Dark Publishing.” She turned. “Ozara Stone. Art consultant to collectors who can afford to be obsessed. Her daughter is the artist behind Nightbloom.”
She watched them shake hands. Watched the mutual assessment—Ozara’s warm directness meeting Revka’s cool precision. Two mothers of emotionally stubborn creative geniuses. Two women who understood art and artists and the particular ache of watching your child choose isolation over risk.
“Nightbloom,” Revka said. The word landed with weight—she’d read it. Of course, she’d read it. “The Sable character. The villain ideology is sophisticated. Unusually so for independent work.”
Ozara’s eyes sharpened. She knew praise from someone who understood what they were praising. “Lumi built that world alone. Every panel. Every line of dialogue.”
“That’s precisely the problem, isn’t it?” Revka sipped her champagne.
Gerri distributed cookies and let the silence do her work. Two mothers, separated by temperament and united by the same terrible fear: that their brilliant children would spend their livescreating extraordinary art about love and never experience it for themselves.
“You know,” Gerri said, turning a cookie in her fingers the way another woman might turn a card. “I’ve heard that Kael Axan is thinking about a new project. But he needs a collaborator to help design something fresh.”
Revka’s expression didn’t change. Not by a millimeter. But her stillness was the kind of stillness Gerri recognized—the stillness of a woman who’d been handed exactly the piece she needed.
“Perhaps Ozara might mention Lumi’s name to someone,” Gerri continued, her tone as innocent as a fox in a henhouse. “Who might mention it to someone else. Who might, eventually, mention it to Kael.”
Ozara looked at Gerri. Looked at Revka. Back at Gerri.
“You’ve already mentioned it to Kael, haven’t you.”
Gerri’s smile was a masterpiece of non-denial. She bit into her cookie. “The lemon zest really is the secret.”
Ozara turned to Revka. “She’s terrifying.”
“Yes.” Revka’s mouth twitched—the closest thing to a grin Gerri had ever seen from her. “But she’s effective.”
Gerri watched them lean closer. Ozara’s warmth meeting Revka’s precision, the two women finding each other’s rhythm with the speed of people who recognized a co-conspirator. Within minutes, they were sharing phone photos of their children’s work—Ozara pulling up Lumi’s Instagram, Revka showing a rare photo of Zeir’s published villain spreads. Their heads bent close. Their voices dropped. Gerri heard fragments: distribution problems... the elders are impossible... she hasn’t let anyone close since... he creates at night when no one can see...
The party woundtoward its natural end. Zy and Ellie slipped away first, his hand on the small of her back, her laugh trailing behind them like a promise. The mothers lingered. They always lingered at Gerri’s events—there was always one more glass of champagne, one more secret to share, one more child to worry about.
