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Mira comes up beside me but stays back from the glass. “Is that him?”

“Yes.”

“Is he dangerous?”

I watch his eyes waver, not dimming, but tightening under restraint. “Yes.”

Mira’s breath catches.

I continue before fear can run away with the answer. “Not the way Vaerith would say he is.”

“That is not as comforting as you think.”

“No, I imagine not.”

The man outside turns his head suddenly, attention snapping toward the far end of the courtyard. A guard patrol is passing near the fountain, their armor murmuring softly with warded metal. He steps back into the shadow cast by a stone arch, and the glamour around his horns steadies as he lowers his gaze.

He is practiced at hiding.

That should disturb me more than it does.

Instead, it makes something inside me ache.

I know what it is to survive by becoming legible only in the ways powerful people prefer. I know what it is to lower my eyes while seeing everything. I know what it is to be underestimated so consistently that invisibility begins to feel less like protection and more like a second skin.

“He is hybrid,” I say.

Mira goes very still beside me. “Infernal?”

“Yes.”

“Like a demon?”

“No. Like a human altered past the point where that word is still sufficient.”

“That sounds worse.”

“It may be extraordinary.”

“Those are often the same thing in this place.”

She is not wrong, and I resent that.

My fingers curl against the sill. The part of me trained by ledgers and clauses begins assembling possibilities, each one more dangerous than the last. If he is contract-born, there must be an origin agreement. If his infernal structure remains unstable, there must be either a flawed clause or an adaptive one. If the bond between us is reacting this strongly, then my own bloodline may not be incidental to the resonance.

That thought should frighten me.

It does frighten me.

It also lights a lamp in the deepest room of my mind, illuminating doors I did not know were there.

Mira touches my sleeve. “Do not get involved.”

I look at her hand, then at her face.

She does not withdraw. Few people in this house are brave enough to touch me without permission, not because I am powerful, but because Lord Vaerith treats useful possessions as things other people may damage only with authorization.

“You already know I am going to,” I say.