Page 35

“Of course it is.”

For a moment, the passage feels almost normal, which is ridiculous because nothing about us qualifies. The scrying mirror above may still be listening. A humiliated guard may be fetching worse men. Vaerith has marked me as a specimen, threat, or opportunity, and Isolde is standing too close to all three.

I sober first.

“You need to go back before they miss you.”

“They will have noticed by now.”

“Isolde.”

“I know.”

The way she says it tells me she understands more than I want her to. This is not a sheltered woman wandering toward danger because danger looks handsome under bad lighting. She knows the estate. She knows Vaerith. She knows what it means to be watched, owned, measured, and used.

That does not make me feel better.

It makes me angrier.

She adjusts the folio against her side. “Do not confront Talen again.”

“He earned another round.”

“Yes, and that is why you cannot give it to him. Vaerith will use every reaction. Every flare. Every rumor. He will build a story around you before you realize you are inside it.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

I meet her eyes. “He wants a monster. I’m not in a hurry to hand him one.”

The bond warms, deep and steady.

Her expression shifts, something like approval moving through her careful control before she hides it behind a small nod. “Good.”

“You say that like I’m trainable.”

“Everyone is trainable under sufficient pressure.”

“That is closer to accurate.”

Rain thickens beyond the passage, softening the street into gray lines and blurred movement. Isolde looks toward it, then back at me, decision narrowing her focus.

“There is an old drainage arcade beneath the west wall,” she says. “Not tonight. Tomorrow, if I can arrange it. It has fewer mirrors.”

“Fewer is not none.”

“No place in Vaerith’s reach has none.”

“Then maybe we meet outside his reach.”

“You do not know how long his reach is.”

“Do you?”

“Better than most.”

That answer carries old bitterness beneath the polish.