The water from the tap echoed sharply in the small bathroom, loud in a room built for silence.

  She held her hands under the stream until her skin went numb. The water ran clear, then pink, then clear again. It washed away every red fleck on her arms, her hands, her fingers. Every proof of life she had just extinguished. The smell clung to her skin anyway.

  She splashed water onto her face.

  Cold.

  Nothing like the heat she’d felt moments ago when her palm grazed the third’s skin. Hot. Too hot. Wrong. The kind of heat that didn’t belong on any living person.

  Then came the sting.

  It prickled along her palm even now, a phantom burn that refused to fade. Not even after rinsing again. And again. And again.

  Just like the image of the third man under the hood. It seared into her eyelids, blooming sharp every time she blinked.

  They had removed Rowan’s nails. Enough had been done to push a man who did not seem accustomed to pain past it entirely. Into a state where pain ceased to function as a deterrent at all.

  They had beaten the second. The bruises on her own arms proved that much, though she didn’t know how deep the damage ran beneath the cloth. Writ’s own correction period had taught her how much could be hidden.

  But acid... never that.

  The burn had been fresh. The smell strong enough to slice through the metallic tang of the room. The residue still wet on the hood, her gloves had picked it up instantly. That meant it was recent. Maybe this morning. Maybe minutes before she entered.

  Had they prepared him specifically for her?

  Or was it because he was already marked for disposal, so they used him for some test before the end? Glyphfire’s newest iteration? Another experiment? Or something else entirely?

  But they hadn’t done the same to the second, or even Rowan. The theory didn’t align.

  She exhaled, long and measured, steadying the tremor beneath her ribs. Her fingers brushed the pouch in her pocket. The soft clink of coins, Kion’s presence distilled into sound. She used it to patch the fractures in her mask.

  The show didn’t end because she had finished. She still had a performance to maintain.

  She took the small towel she’d pulled from the clean-up room, dried her face, and stepped out.

  She froze on the threshold.

  Caedern leaned against the wall outside, as though he’d been waiting for an indulgent length of time. Her coat hung loosely over his arm.

  “Took you a while.”

  She drew a quiet breath. “I didn’t know I was timed.”

  He pushed off the wall and closed the distance between them. She kept still.

  He lifted the coat. “Your coat.”

  His gaze paused on the bruise on her upper arm, just visible before she pulled her sleeve down. She took the coat and slid into it, the familiar weight settling over her shoulders.

  “Hands up. Face level,” he said, tone tightening.

  She obeyed, raising her hands a few inches from her face. The motion dragged her sleeves back, revealing the purple marks on her wrists. Dark, angry. Caedern studied them closely.

  “Turn them over.”

  She flipped both hands, palms up, showing the full ring of bruising. His gaze didn’t move.

  “Lower your hands.”

  Her arms dropped to her sides again.

  “Look up,” he said, voice taut.

  She lifted her gaze to the lamp. Too white. Too bright. And yet as cold as the room around them.

  His eyes moved to the faint shadow beneath her metal collar. He rotated the band gently to inspect it, careful not to touch her skin. Careful in the way someone is when handling a tool, not a person.

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  “Nice trick you pulled,” he murmured. “You managed to bruise my morning schedule.”

  His voice dropped. “Who assisted you?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Why stage this if you’re not planning to pin it on me?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t remember how it happened.”

  “You’ve said that too many times today.”

  “I really didn’t.”

  Caedern hooked two fingers beneath the collar and yanked her forward. She stumbled, catching herself before she fell. He lifted her just enough to force her onto her toes, his voice landing too close, colder than his breath.

  His smirk returned, sharpened. “Why do you keep getting more entertaining? I almost don’t want to return you to Tiran.”

  A chill slid down her spine, but her face stayed neutral.

  Slowly, evenly, she said, “Glad I met your expectations.”

  His laugh burst out, unrestrained, echoing far too loud in the bare room.

  Then he went utterly still.

  Not stepping back, not releasing her, simply holding her there. Waiting, as though giving her the chance to break first, if she would.

  She didn’t.

  A rapid knock slammed against the execution-room door. Caedern released her collar. She swayed but caught her balance before she hit the floor.

  Zyra stepped inside quickly, shutting the door behind her. Worry carved into her expression.

  “Sir,” she breathed.

  Caedern didn’t sigh, but the silence before he spoke felt like one. His tone dropped several degrees. “Why. are you here, Zyra?”

  “Observation noticed, sir. He’s heading here.”

  “I told you to keep watch,” Caedern said, each word clipped, “not to enter.”

  She bowed, deep and apologetic. “I— I apologize.”

  Writ noticed the way Zyra changed.

  The steel and thorns she’d shown Writ were gone. Folded away in front of Caedern. The transformation wasn’t surprising. Just... instructive.

  Caedern stared at Zyra for a long second. Flat, unimpressed, the kind of look that made people reconsider their career path.

  Then, without warning, the cold vanished as he turned back to Writ, amusement curling again like smoke. “Then it’s farewell.”

  His head tilted, voice dipping into something too close to an invitation. “Come to me anytime you get bored of Tiran. I’ll welcome you, just like you claimed.”

  Her answer came too quickly. “Noted.”

  Naturally, Zyra had already tattled.

  The door slammed open.

  Caustic filled the frame, his glare a razor pinned on Caedern. His voice was controlled. Iron-hard. “You’re not allowed to be here.”

  “Am I?” Caedern said lightly. “I don’t remember. Funny how often that comes up today.”

  Caustic advanced, steady, unblinking. But Caedern slipped past him, unhurried. Caustic shifted immediately to Writ’s side, his posture wide, as if to shield her without acknowledging he was doing so.

  At the doorway, Caedern glanced back. Only at Writ. As though no one else existed.

  “I look forward to seeing you in my court.”

  Zyra shot her a brief look before following him out, pulling the door shut behind them.

  Caustic stayed in front of her, blocking the exit completely. He didn’t move for several breaths, as if assessing whether Caedern might double back.

  Only when the room stayed silent did he turn to her. “Did he do anything else?”

  Writ answered, “He didn’t.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes.”

  Their gazes held, flat meeting flat. The lamp’s soft hum filled the quiet.

  She tried to read him, to see past the locked-down neutrality he wore so naturally. But his expression was sealed as tightly as any Accord gate.

  Caustic spoke again, voice even and formally phrased. “Harbringer Tiran instructs you to gather your belongings. You are to vacate the inn immediately.”

  He used the title. Writ noted the shift, the formality. They were deep in Accord ground.

  She blinked. “Understood.”

  “I will escort you back,” he continued. “The Harbringer will retrieve you after lunchbreak.”

  She nodded.

  Caustic moved toward the door he had entered from. She followed several steps behind. Back into the execution room.

  Writ pulled in a quiet breath, steadying herself before crossing the threshold.

  Nothing had been touched. The chairs still stood where she’d left them. The bodies. The blood. The hood lying at the wrong angle.

  She fixed her gaze on Caustic’s back. Her single point of direction in a room she refused to see. Nothing else. Not even the indicator light behind the mirror sliding from green to red. Only him.

  Nothing but him.

  The prep-room door clicked shut behind them. Papers lay scattered across the floor. Pages that had clearly fallen mid-movement. Caustic crouched to gather them, movements efficient yet edged with urgency.

  Writ stayed by the doorway, hands still. One sheet trembled faintly as he lifted it, betraying just how quickly he’d reacted.

  She kept still. Accord did not tolerate unwanted assistance. Touching even one page could be interpreted as overreach.

  She didn’t need to ask. He must have been the one who dropped them. Likely the instant he realized Caedern was alone with her. Something bloomed beneath her ribs. She pretended she didn’t feel it.

  When he finished, he rose and headed for the exit. She followed, careful to keep the same measured distance. Close enough to respond, far enough not to presume.

  “I need to drop this off at Black Quill,” Caustic said. “Mind taking a detour?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Thanks.”

  They fell into step. Caustic leading, Writ a few steps behind. No ceremony, no tension. Only movement.

  Past the stairwell. Past the repeating corridors with doors indistinguishable from one another. Past personnel who, at the sight of Caustic, quickened their steps and lowered their eyes as if avoiding the flare of a torch.

  Writ could understand why. The Black Quill pin alone meant he could place someone under watch, confine them, or clear them with a single note. No one wanted that gaze to land on them. And she had only just stepped out from under it. Assuming Tiran had told her the truth.

  Caustic didn’t react to any of it. His pace stayed steady, unfazed.

  It felt strange to follow anyone other than Tiran through Brandholt’s halls. Its own stone-and-silence corridors of the Shadow Accord.

  Strange... but not wrong. Just unfamiliar.

  Still, she wondered why the sensation felt so similar. Why the presence in front of her steadied her in the same way Tiran’s did. Even with the phantom stickiness clinging to her palms. Even with the weight of the execution settling somewhere heavy and permanent inside her. Even with the uncertainty of what awaited her next.

  It felt almost like being protected. Understood.

  But she knew better.

  Hope, here, was fleeting. Easily mistaken for something that was never truly there.

  I wonder.