Page 87 of Property of Scar

The threads surge one last time.

Everything pulls tight around that single point…

And then it gives.

The resistance breaks cleanly, whatever was buried inside the Court unraveling under her grip, the threads snapping inward as the pressure releases all at once.

The light collapses back into her.

The air clears.

And Roxy finally loses the fight with her own body, the strength leaving her all at once as she folds forward, the connection gone, the work done.

Raze catches her before she’s fully fallen. The motion is instantaneous and total, his arms wrapping around her with a certainty that has no performance in it whatsoever, just the single-minded commitment, focused on one person, worth burning the world down for, and quietly proving it every time.

Everyone holds their breath.

Titania watches in complete awe. “You would burn this Court to ash for her,” she says. Not a question. The queen of the Seelie doesn’t deal in questions unless she already has the answers.

Raze looks at her over Roxy’s head. “I already did.”

Chapter Twenty-One

SCAR

Something moves across Titania’s face, old, unreadable, the expression of something that has lived long enough to recognize power in forms that don’t bow to it.

She gives a small nod.

It is barely anything. A tiny movement carrying far more weight than it has any right to. The kind of thing people spend entire conversations saying badly.

Something passes between them in that moment, old business finally getting squared away without either of them needing to say a word. Whatever the prince cost them, whatever his defeat put on the books, gets marked paid right there in the stillness.

Not forgotten.

Just settled.

Titania lets the quiet drift after Roxy falls, and it isn’t an absence of sound so much as a deliberate pause, the kind that reminds everyone in the room exactly whose Court this is and how quickly it can return to order once she decides it will.

When her attention returns to us, there’s no sign of disruption left in her posture or her expression, only that same composed stillness that has held this entire space in place since we arrived. “You have upheld your side of the exchange,” she says, her voice smooth and measured, carrying easily without needing to be raised. “It would be… impolite not to do the same.”

I hold her gaze as I step forward just enough to close the space without overstepping it, aware of every set of eyes still on us, of the guards who haven’t relaxed even a fraction despite the shift in tension.

“The Crimson Circle,” I say, not wasting the moment on anything else.

There’s the smallest change in her expression, not quite amusement, not quite approval, something that suggests the question is expected, if not entirely welcome.

“Mordain,” she replies, and the name lands with a weight that doesn’t need emphasis to carry. She doesn’t rush what follows. “He is older than your records will tell you,” she continues, her tone even, each word placed with care, like she’s choosing exactly how much to give and how much to leave unsaid. “Older than most would consider… manageable.”

Rhett shifts slightly beside me, just enough to signal attention without breaking his relaxed stance. “What is he?”

Titania’s gaze flicks to him for a moment, acknowledging the question, before returning to me like that’s where the answer belongs.

“An agreement,” she says, and there’s no softness in it, no attempt to frame it as anything other than what it is. “One my Court entered into a very long time ago.”

There’s no pride in the admission, but no apology either.

Just fact.