Page 143 of Smoke, Mirrors, & Misdemeanours

So Ark would do what he did best: play the indifferent heir. Let Alderrath believe he was exactly as oblivious as the Sanguine wanted him to be.

But before Ark could speak, Lucindra’s silverware clattered to her plate, the sound echoing through the silence.

“Again, Alderrath, really?” She cut him off, her eyes burning. “I came for dinner, not to be shown off like a trophy. Don’t mistake my presence for permission.”

Her chair scraped against the floor. She rose and turned to Ark—no apology in her gaze. “It seems we are both being forced into roles we didn’t audition for.” Her voice was cool, almost cold. “Go ahead. Decline your part. You won’t offend me.”

Ark held her gaze for a heartbeat. Then, he inclined his head. “My utmost thanks, Lucindra.”

Her eyes softened. “I dare say you already hold someone else in your heart. I’ve met her. She seems like a wonderful person.”

“She is.” After a breath, he added, “Perhaps, one day, you’ll visit her. She’d welcome your friendship.”

Despite her brother’s glare burning holes into her, Lucindra smiled. “I’d like that.”

Ark turned at last to Alderrath. “Any other relatives you’d like to offer up for leverage?”

Chair legs screeched across the floor. Alderrath surged to his feet, palm slamming the marble. “You’d throw it all away—for her? No name. No title. No bloodline. No one at your back. You’ll be peerless. Alone⁠—”

Ark didn’t raise his voice. “You see someone with nothing; I see someone with everything. If she is Untethered, then I will tether myself to her. We will never be alone again.”

A cold smile touched his lips. “Keep your dynasties. I’ve already chosen my legacy—it smells of cinnamon and feeds the children your houses would step over in the street.”

Alderrath’s eyes gleamed, and Ark knew the scum hadn’t reached the end of his scheming path yet. “Does your father know about this? How would he feel, in his condition, when he learns his oldest son and heir is ready to throw away everything he’s worked for—for what?”

Ark’s jaw tightened. So that was Alderrath’s angle—weaponize his father’s illness, use it to destabilize the Council, plant doubt. He opened his mouth to cut the thread⁠—

And then a voice, dry as old parchment but twice as sharp, cut through from the doorway.

“My. House Agmon is certainly comfortable deciding how I should feel about my own son.”

The voice was enough to still the whole gathering. Then, as though by an unseen tether, everyone parted, their gazes fixated upon the entrance. Ark’s own eyes followed. There stood his father, a cane in hand, though he managed to make it look more like a prop than a necessity. He was pale, yes, but he was upright. His mother stood beside him, Oromon following just behind.

His father began to walk, then paused just as he approached the luncheon circle, surveying the stunned nobles like a bored examiner at a poorly staged play.

“Tell me, my love,” he said, glancing sidelong at Delphyne, “am I mistaken, or did we not receive an invitation?”

His mother—draped in a Daemaric-blue velvet cloak, the diamonds on her horns catching the light—arched a brow. “Not a whisper. I was beginning to think we’d been forgotten.” She turned to Alderrath, cool and cutting. “Which would be terribly rude, considering how eager he seems to tie our houses together.”

Kassenor hummed. “Ah. So this is courtship. Don’t you think he should be more polite to the family he’s so desperate to crawl into bed with?” He offered a mild smile. “Back in my day, we sent flowers, not threats. Do you remember that?”

“You sent me a bouquet of poisonous flowers, darling.”

“You said you loved them.”

“Poison builds immunity.”

Their eyes met, and for a heartbeat, the political theatre fell away. Ark caught a glimpse of the private, unshakable foundation beneath their marriage. The coldness he’d once accused them of wasn’t the absence of feeling—it was the ferocity of a bond so absolute it needed no audience.

Ark watched Alderrath’s face harden before he recovered, offering a thin smile. “I invited Arkenoth. I wasn’t aware the rest of his family would be joining us.”

His mother smiled back, and somehow managed to look amused and bored at the same time. “Don’t fret. We’re only here to return what belongs to you—or your spy, to be precise.”

She pulled two things from beneath her cloak and tossed them high. A pair of severed horns arced through the air—dark, jagged, still tacky with dried blood at the base—and landed with a wet splat in the centre of Alderrath’s table, directly into a tureen of bone marrow soup. The bowl cracked. Dark liquid splattered across the white linen. The demons seated around it shrieked—high, undignified, comical sounds that would have been laughed at under any other circumstances.

Ark recognized those horns. They’d belonged to the footman who’d lured him away from Cassia’s side during the ball last night.

So—Alderrath had set that trap too.