Page 7 of Smoke, Mirrors, & Misdemeanours

An Untethered? Ark’s gaze sharpened as he looked at the woman again.

He’d spent his whole life surrounded by people who measured worth by blood. Lineage was everything in Meredith—so much that surnames came before given names, as if the family mattered more than the person. Magic wasn’t just power; it was inheritance, a mark of status passed through generations. The Echelon-class from all three magic-wielding factions had spent three centuries ensuring their blood remained pure. Every prestigious house traced its roots back to the Great Convergence, their lineages recorded and revered in their family’s Book of Names.

But an Untethered had no such claim.

He could feel it in her magic—unmoored, fluid, lacking the steady anchor of a known bloodline. She had power, but no pedigree. A ghost. An accident of fate to be dismissed.

And yet, she’d just screamed Alderrath’s name loud enough to shake the club’s foundations.

Disapproving murmurs rippled through the lobby as she crossed the threshold. Ark watched, fascinated, as her boots—practical brown kid-leather, trailing mud from the world outside—marked a path across the pristine marble. Her gaze swept the room, passed over him, and snagged on Alderrath. Beneath the cupola of stained glass, she stopped.

“Agmon Alderrath, I presume?” she said, her clear voice cutting through the murmurs.

Alderrath frowned. “And you are?”

Ark saw her chest rise with a steadying breath, her shoulders squaring. “Cassia. Aura Cassia.”

Alderrath let the name hang in the air before inclining his head in a gesture that somehow managed to appear placating and dismissive at once. “What can I do for you, Miss Aura?”

“I came to ask you to reconsider your acquisition of Starlight Orphanage at twenty-one Eldryn Gardens Row. Or let us stay on. We are good tenants, and have been for sixty years.”

The name and address clicked into place in Ark’s mind—a brief article shoved into the corner of the morning papers’ business section. A home for orphaned Untethereds had been put up for sale. Alderrath had apparently snapped up the children’s sanctuary for redevelopment. How entirely on brand.

Alderrath regarded her for a long, measured beat, drawing out the silence to make her squirm.

She didn’t.

“And why,” he asked calmly, “would I do that?”

Ark saw the brief, genuine shock in Miss Aura’s face. She had the courage to walk in here. She was also naive enough to hope Alderrath would comply easily. The flash of panic in her eyes, and her Untethered status, told him she’d most likely had the Ministry’s offices turn her away. And now she was here, in a demon club where she wasn’t welcomed, asking the worst possible person for the one thing he’d never give.

She lifted her chin. “There are fifteen children sleeping in that building tonight. They have nowhere else to go. The Ministry can’t keep them together—they won’t even try. I’ve already been to every office in this city. You’re the only one who can stop this.”

She let that land.

“I’m asking you not to take away the only home they’ve ever known,” she said, quieter now. “A home that’s been standing for sixty years, holding together children this city has already forgotten. If you tear it down, you’re not just buying land. You’re erasing them.”

Ark watched Alderrath’s face. The Sanguine’s expression, even when faced with the plea, seemed to harden. It was a minute change, gone in a flash. Alderrath smoothed a hand down the sleeve of his blue jacket, a gesture Ark knew was meant to highlight his own refinement.

“The land your orphanage sits on is far too valuable for its current purpose.”

The witch stiffened as if struck. “Too valuable to provide a home for children who have nowhere to go?”

Alderrath sighed, his voice dropping to a bored, lethal calm. “Miss Aura, you are trespassing. Leave now, or I will have the Nightwatch arrest you.” He stepped forward. “Unless you think a prison cell will help your cause.”

She paled, a fleeting wash of alarm that was instantly mastered.

“I suppose that depends,” she said, chin lifting. “Would you prefer a newspaper headline that says Agmon Alderrath had an Untethered witch dragged from his club in front of half of Angelene, or”—she shifted her weight—“would you rather be seen as a demon who, despite all odds, managed to find a shred of decency?”

The murmur in the club deepened into a hungry buzz. Alderrath’s jaw ticked. The witch had hit a nerve—and Ark found himself almost smiling. The silence stretched. One heartbeat. Two. Three. The air between Alderrath and the woman tightened like a wire about to snap. The room held its collective breath, waiting to see who would break first.

Alderrath chuckled.

It was quiet. Indulgent, even. But Ark heard the edge beneath it—the sound of an arrogant bastard who’d just remembered that not even he could throttle an Untethered witch in public.

“My reputation is quite secure from the ravings of a desperate nobody.” He flicked his wrist and gave the door attendant a subtle nod. The man scurried off—presumably to call a Nightwatch patrol. “This audience is over, Miss Aura. You are free to wait for the authorities, if you wish.”

She held Alderrath’s gaze, a world of defiance burning in the set of her jaw and the unblinking steadiness of her eyes. She must’ve seen the door attendant leaving. She knew the call to the authorities was no idle threat.