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Reviewed and denied.

Like somewhere in the dark, a masked psychopath had sat down with a fountain pen and decided to administratively reject my boundaries. I read the rest.

Patience, all will be revealed in time.

Don’t ruin the fun.

My face heated before fear got its proper turn.

Don’t ruin the fun.

The words sat there, smug and intimate, like he knew exactly how my brain worked. Like he knew I would reread them. Like he knew I would stand here barefoot, hair wrecked, shirt twisted around one shoulder, holding his note while my body tried to decide whether to panic or blush.

I hated him.

I grabbed a pen from the junk cup and flipped the note over.

NO PET NAMES MEANS NO PET NAMES.

I paused, then added:

ALSO YOUR HANDWRITING IS TOO NICE. SUSPICIOUS. SERIAL KILLER PENMANSHIP.

Then, because I had slept three hours and fear made me stupid, I wrote one more line.

IF YOU WANT TO TALK, LET'S TALK. FACE TO FACE. OR MASK TO FACE. WHATEVER.

I folded the paper again and shoved it under the vase.

Then I stepped back with my hands raised like the roses were armed.

“There,” I said. “Healthy communication.”

A floorboard creaked somewhere above me. I flinched hard enough to nearly trip over yesterday’s pants and scuttlebutted back to my couch to throw real clothes on.

I went to work feeling like I had mailed a complaint to the monster under my bed.

Lux

I should have gone back to the tower. That would have been the smart thing to do. I did have a city to run, after all.

There were territorial reports stacked on my desk, three clan heads waiting for confirmation on tonight’s meeting, a Hollowside cleanup bill large enough to offend even me, and six messages from Vale in the last twenty minutes with increasingly aggressive punctuation.

I ignored all of it, because this game was just too fun.

Liv left her apartment at six seventeen with wet hair, a hoodie pulled up to her jaw, and my note folded in its front pocket. Adorable.

She locked the door twice. Checked the knob. Glared at the roses through the window. Then she stepped onto Harlow Street and headed to the coffee shop with the determined little march of a woman who had decided fear could ride along but could not drive.

I stayed across the street.

Hood up. Mask off, for once. Glamour over my face, shadows tucked tight around my shoulders, the kind of nothing-special illusion people’s eyes slid away from before their brain formed any kind of question.

It was humiliating how much effort I put into looking forgettable for her.

Demon lord. Nightmare Hound. Lord of New Abaddon. Current disguise: moderately tired man with a newspaper in front of his face and emotional, probably mental, problems.

I followed her anyway.