Page 71 of Smoke, Mirrors, & Misdemeanours

She didn’t wait. Her boots struck the wood floor as she followed the trail, heartbeat thundering in her throat. Caius followed. They passed a long worktable, passed a side alcove that looked like a library. Passed a vase of flowers that looked oddly familiar—pale petals behind a shimmer of a spell, still faintly smelling of cinnamon. Her Flora Notes.

He kept them?

The trail of blood led her down a dim hallway. A door stood slightly ajar, a sliver of cool, silver-blue light flickering through the gap.

Behind the door, on the bed, lay Ark.

A shuddering breath rushed out of her. She crossed the threshold before she’d even realized she moved.

The room was dark. Heavy blackout drapes shut out every crack of daylight. A deliberate fortress against the sun, designed for a Nocturne to heal. Only a single conjured light burned in the corner for the dimmest of illumination.

Even so, Ark was losing the battle. The bedsheets were rumpled, pushed back from where he’d collapsed. His chest rose and fell in shallow, uneven breaths. Sweat slicked his brow. His coat had been peeled away and heaped upon a nearby chair, his black shirt sticking to his torso, the bandage around his hand now a layer of blackened gauze.

And his glamour had slipped. The illusion of the ‘Idle Prince’ peeled back to reveal the truth beneath. Markings stirred across his collarbone—scrolls and spirals curling and uncurling like shifting smoke, pulsing black against his skin. She’d seen tattoos before. These weren’t tattoos. They moved. They breathed. His nails had lengthened to fine, sharp points, flesh colour darkening into black at the tips.

Then, she saw them: horns. Not just one set, but two. They rose from above his hairline, the larger set sweeping back in an elegant arc, dark as polished obsidian, ridged with natural whorls like the grain of ancient wood. Beside them, smaller horns jutted out, rising alongside the larger pair like a second crown.

So this was what he hid. This was what he thought the world couldn’t handle.

She should’ve been afraid. A Nocturne Echelon stripped of his glamour . . . Every story she’d ever heard told her to step back.

Instead, she stepped closer.

“Help me sit him up,” she said. Caius and Rhodes turned to her. “We need to lower the fever and treat that hand before the corruption spreads.”

Rhodes moved without argument, lifting Ark’s shoulders effortlessly. Caius left and returned with a basin of water and some clean linens.

Cassia knelt beside the bed, shedding her coat and rolling up her shirtsleeves. She dipped a cloth into the basin, the cool water sluicing through her fingers, and wrung it out. Gently, she pressed the rag to Ark’s fevered brow, sweeping along his temple, her fingers brushing against skin burning hot.

She hissed through her teeth when she saw his right hand. Yesterday’s bandage had burned through. Angry red welts branched up his wrist like cracked glass, the infection veined with a faint, eerie shimmer—residual magic still pulsing under the skin.

Rhodes leaned against the window, arms crossed tightly. “Corrupted magic latched on to his power. He tried to suppress it, but it fused for a moment.”

Cassia reached into her bag, fingers finding the small tin of emergency balm she always kept with her. “I made this salve myself. It might be too weak for a wound of this extent, but it’s better than letting the magic fester.”

“He’s an Echelon,” Caius said. “His body can handle much more than ours. He just needs something to slow it down while he heals.”

She nodded and began applying the salve—gently, carefully. When she finished, she wrapped his hand in fresh bandages, tucking the end neatly beneath the layers. He didn’t stir.

The floorboards groaned under Rhodes’s weight as he strode out of the room. His shoulders were set, his jaw tight—massive body coiled like a spring about to snap. Caius gave her a reassuring smile before he followed.

In the hallway, the half-Furia’s fist slammed into the wall with a thud that echoed through the quiet.

“It was my fault,” he ground out. “I should’ve protected him. Protected both of you. That’s my only job.”

“It was an accident,” Caius said evenly, but not unkindly.

“It could’ve been prevented.” Rhodes’s voice cracked. “If I’d just put up the barrier sooner⁠—”

“You didn’t know he was going to touch the mirror.” There was an edge to Caius’s voice Cassia had never heard before, hard and unyielding beneath the usual calm. “He was distracted, otherwise he would have remembered. You know our rhythm. We do not move until all three of us are in position. You maintain the barrier. I draw the sigil. Ark channels the power. That is how we have always operated. That is why we take these assignments together.” His voice softened. “And that is why we walk out together—always.”

Cassia watched from beside the bed, heart knocking against her ribs. She knew she was witnessing something intimate: the weight of trust, the rawness of blame, and the fear they shouldered together when things went wrong.

She looked back at Ark, and wondered how often these three had brushed so close to the edge of the abyss—how many times they’d pulled each other back from it.

Silence returned, punctuated only by Ark’s laboured breathing. Then⁠—

“Rhodes,” he croaked.