Page 79 of Smoke, Mirrors, & Misdemeanours

“You could sit at the High Table as part of the Regency Council,” she said. “You were born with that kind of power. So why take the backdoor instead?”

He looked back at her. “That kind of power doesn’t belong to me. It belongs to the system that forged it. But this”—he gestured to their surroundings—“this is ours.”

Cassia blinked. Then she shook her head softly. “I admire you.”

His gaze sharpened. “Why?”

She looked at the horns he no longer hid, the vault of dangerous wonders. “Because if someone offered me a seat at the table, I don’t think I’d have the strength to refuse it.”

He shook his head. “You would,” he said, low and sure. “Once you see how they treat those they deem beneath them. Like the children at Starlight.”

Her smile turned soft and crooked. “Ah. You do know how to win an argument.”

She looked around the vault again, at the shelves of forgotten things he’d turned into his wealth. Then back at him. “Thank you. For showing me this.”

And for letting me in. She didn’t say the words, but she felt them, heavy and warm in her chest.

He took a slow step closer. “I did promise to show you everything one day.”

“Yes.” She offered a small smile. “Though I rather pushed my way in today.”

A flicker of something unreadable passed across his face. “Caius and Rhodes might’ve told you . . .” He paused. “I called your name before I passed out.”

She lowered her gaze, heart thudding. “Caius did. But . . .”

But. There was always a ‘but’—a wall of hesitation she couldn’t seem to climb over.

“But what?” he asked, softly.

“Your identity—your true form, your work—is something you’ve hidden for years. You’ve protected it for a reason. I didn’t want to assume I had any right to it.”

She didn’t say: I didn’t want to assume I mattered that much.

His voice dropped, low and teasing, but gentler than usual. “Even when you’re my Chosen?”

She met his gaze, a rueful smile tugging at her mouth. “You know what this arrangement is.”

He didn’t speak immediately, but the teasing faded from his face. “No matter how this ends, Cassia . . . I’d like to think we come out of it as friends. And friends are honest with each other, aren’t they?”

She didn’t speak. She’d always liked that word—friends. It had once seemed like a lifeline for a lonely girl. Warm and simple and safe.

But now, it dug in like a shard of glass underfoot. It felt like a door was being gently closed on a room she’d just begun to imagine entering. He’d just handed her the key to his hidden life, and now he was drawing a square around it, neat and careful, the way he organized everything else.

She understood. Letting someone see wasn’t the same as letting them stay.

“Yes,” she whispered. “They are.”

Her phone buzzed in her bag—an ordinary vibration, but it echoed sharply against the silence inside the vault. She jumped, fumbling to answer.

“Cassia!” came Lilibeth’s voice, breathless. “The bus is almost here. You have”—a pause, then some scuffling—“twenty minutes before we leave without you. And I swear, if Imogen tries to smuggle another bunny into her backpack⁠—”

Cassia sucked in a sharp breath, her stomach plummeting. The skating trip!

“I’m coming!” she blurted. “I’m on my way.”

She hung up, guilt blooming. “I was supposed to chaperone the children’s skating trip. I lost track of time.”

“You’ll make it.” He fell into step beside her. “I’ll walk with you. Fresh air will do me good.”