Page 74 of Smoke, Mirrors, & Misdemeanours

Caius, meanwhile, grabbed his coat from the back of the sofa and shrugged it on. A glance at his pocket watch had him wincing. He looked up at her. “May we rely on you to watch over him, Miss Aura? There is an unfinished task Rhodes and I must attend to.”

“Of course. I’ll stay with him.”

Rhodes reached into his pocket for a card—thick and sturdy, all in matte black—and passed it to her. She looked down at the silver letters: Aegis & Ash—For Estates that Come with Baggage, and a phone number below it.

Her lips twitched. So, this was what they were. Not idle aristocrats burning through inheritance, but something that required matte-black business cards and a tagline that sounded like a joke between men who’d made an art out of cleaning up the messes no one else knew how to touch.

“If you need anything, call,” Rhodes said.

Cassia nodded.

After they left, she returned to Ark’s room, finding him—as Caius had said—fast asleep. He looked different without the glamour, yes, but that wasn’t what struck her. It was the absence of his usual poise. Less steel, more soft breath. His features, usually held in check by composure, had relaxed into something almost boyish in rest.

Now that she had a moment to breathe, she let her gaze roam.

His room didn’t just look organized. It felt aligned, intentionally so, like it had been carefully coaxed into balance. Every item had its place, and every path was open. Not a single thing blocked her view from one wall to the other. Even the air itself traveled easier here, which she believed was the idea, to let power and magic flow unimpeded.

It made sense, in an odd way. She knew Nocturne Demons drew energy from structure and organization, but she hadn’t truly understood what that meant until now. This wasn’t just neatness. It was Ark, distilled into space: methodical, restrained, exacting.

Cassia crossed the room and, with a subtle gesture of her hand, conjured a palm-sized, honey-gold light that hovered just above her shoulder. In the profound darkness of the room, it carved out a small, warm sphere for her to see by without dispelling the deep shadows he needed.

She eased into a chair tucked unobtrusively in the corner, angled toward the bed but out of the room’s flow. Even here, she could feel it: nothing jutted, nothing pulled. No energy snagged.

Beside the chair, a small table held a single book: Introduction to Dealing with Cursed Objects. She let her fingers drift across the worn cover, lips quirking.

She still didn’t know what job, precisely, the men of Aegis & Ash did, but she could guess. Dangerous work. Patient work. Maybe even noble, if one tilted their head the right way.

She placed the book on her lap, opened it, and let her eyes skim the first line.

18

ARK

There was a moment, just before waking, when the pain dulled and the world narrowed to a warm hum. He drifted there—suspended between dream and reality—until the sharp, familiar pain in his hand dragged him the rest of the way.

His body ached. His throat was dry, and something hot pulsed just beneath the skin of his right arm.

He cracked his eyes open to the sight of Cassia in the corner chair—legs folded, hair loose, a small conjured light hovering above her shoulder. The glow fell across the book in her lap, an old edition from the Aegis & Ash library he’d left on the table.

She was reading Introduction to Dealing with Cursed Objects as if it were a recipe book.

He let out a faint sound—part groan, part sigh—and her head snapped up.

“I didn’t know you were awake,” she said softly, slipping in a ribbon to mark the page. “I don’t mean to disturb⁠—”

“You’re not,” he rasped, voice low and sleep heavy. “Though I’ll admit, I never imagined my postmortem vigil would include being judged based on the pages of my field manual.”

Cassia blinked. “You’re not dead.”

“Tell that to the three ribs currently filing a grievance, not to mention my right hand.”

A smile tugged at her mouth, though she tried to hide it. “You gave us a scare.”

“It’ll take more than a possessed mirror’s tantrum to kill me,” Ark murmured. He flexed his fingers. The pain was a steady throb beneath his skin, but dulled now—held at bay by her nearness, her scent.

His gaze drifted to the book still resting in her lap. “So . . . is that riveting textbook winning you over?”

Cassia glanced down at the cover, then back at him with a faint smile. “It’s giving me a surprising amount of insight into your world. I’m learning a lot about curses.”