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Chapter Text

“Order delights the eye; wildness compels the heart.”

— Elamara Aumar, Observations from a Ballroom Balcony

My dearest readers,

Though spring has only just unfurled her fingers across the Willow Vale, already the social Season begins to bloom—and with it, the hopeful, harried, and highly enchanted pursuits of society’s most marriageable specimens.

Whispers rustle faster than parchment in the archives of Candlekeep: Dweomerheart has stirred. Yes, that Dweomerheart—the ancestral estate of the Dowager Duchess Mystra, whose chandeliers burn with ever-fixed starlight, whose mirrors reflect not appearances but character, and whose heir, the notoriously elusive Mr. Gale Dekarios, has at last returned to take up residence.

Naturally, the county is in a state of divine anticipation.

But if the ballroom floor trembles in wait, so too do drawing rooms, modiste shops, and tea tables, for where there is power, there will be pursuit. And who should arrive on cue but the Misses Demaris of Rosemere—a trio of sisters as different in temperament as in magic. 

Miss Lily Demaris, the eldest, has a smile like a spell and ambition sharper than a well-honed dagger. It is said she can enchant a gentleman with a glance and ruin a rival with a compliment, though of course, one would never say so aloud at the card table.

Miss Celeste, the youngest, is all laughter, mischief, and untamed magic, though any governess worth her wand would be quick to note that no young lady should glow literally with excitement at a ballroom debut. Alas, no one has told Celeste. Or if they have, she didn’t listen.

And then there is Miss Seraphina, the quiet middle sister, who seems to haunt the edges of every room like a question left unspoken. So easily dismissed—until one notices the wine glass cracking in her hand or the candles flaring at her approach. Still waters, dear reader, are often the most dangerously enchanted.

Ah, but I get ahead of myself.

Let us begin where all proper stories must: in the gentle decay of inherited dignity, the hopeful gleam of new fabric, and the sudden silence that falls when a man of magic, mystery, and rather cutting cheekbones enters the square.

Let the Season begin.

~ Elamara

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a gentleman possessed of a vast and enchanted estate must be in want of a wife whose lineage and spellcraft are as impeccable as his own.

Dweomerheart, ancestral seat of the Dowager Duchess Mystra, was regarded by all genteel society as the very pinnacle of magical propriety—a place where the flowers in the garden beds bloomed according to ancient enchantments, where the chandeliers in the drawing rooms burned with ever-fixed starlight, and where the mirrors did not reflect the faces of those who gazed into them, but rather the quality of their character.

The house itself sat with a certain hauteur upon a rise at the heart of its vast demesne, its many turrets and colonnades arranged according to principles not merely architectural but arcane. The very stones of its façade hummed faintly with restrained magic, and its windows seemed always to glow with a gentle, knowing light—as though the house were quietly keeping watch over all who dwelled within and all who dared to call.

Among the gentry of the surrounding counties, no assembly was truly complete without some mention of Dweomerheart’s grandeur, its gardens, or—most particularly—the power and prestige of its chatelaine, the formidable Dowager Duchess herself. She had, it was said, never permitted so much as a misplaced fork or a misspoken incantation within her domain.

Yet there was, in recent weeks, much speculation about the estate’s future, for the Dowager’s health—if indeed a woman so intimately bound to the Weave could be said to suffer such mortal afflictions—had begun to wane. And all the whispers, all the silken gossip exchanged behind fans and over teacups, settled inevitably upon her heir: the brilliant but bookish Mr. Gale Dekarios, a man whose reputation for both wit and scholarly sorcery was rivalled only by the mystery that clung to him like a well-tailored cloak.

That Mr. Dekarios was soon to take up residence at Dweomerheart was certain. That he would be obliged to choose a wife whose magical lineage and deportment could match the estate’s peerless pedigree was also certain. What was less certain—but far more intriguing to the minds of the surrounding county—was the question of whom such a man, and such a house, might choose to welcome.

*****

The drawing-room at Rosemere wore its age gracefully—threadbare but still dignified, like a lady clinging to her lace shawl though the hem has frayed. The fire struggled to warm the corners, and the curtains, though once fine, had long since faded in the pale spring light.

Seraphina Demaris sat at her usual place near the window, her needlework resting idle in her lap. Though her gaze was calm, her mind was not; it rarely was these days. She had long ago accepted that whatever remained of their family’s security now depended less on estate management and more on the fragile art of marrying well.

Across from her, Celeste sprawled sideways on the settee, her untidy curls escaping their pins, a careless grin on her lips as she idly conjured flickering motes of light to dance above her fingers. Her reputation for mischief was well-earned, and her irreverence both scandalized and secretly delighted their small circle of acquaintances.

It was Lily—the eldest, the beauty, seated at the writing desk—who truly commanded the afternoon’s atmosphere. There was a gleam in her eye as she set down a freshly folded letter and sighed, a sigh so artfully arranged that it could only precede a pronouncement.

“I suppose you have heard,” Lily said at last, “that Mr. Dekarios is to arrive at Dweomerheart before the spring ball.”

Celeste sat up immediately, her conjured lights spiraling higher in delight. “The brooding heir himself! How convenient for your plans, Lily.”

Phina glanced over, arching an eyebrow. “Plans?”

Lily affected an innocent air that fooled no one. “I merely observe that his arrival is timely—and that the spring ball is an important occasion.” Her gaze sharpened slightly. “One ought to look one’s best for such an event. My blue silk gown, as you both know, is quite hopeless now.”

“Not as hopeless as our accounts,” Celeste muttered, spinning one of her motes into a tiny bird before vanishing it with a snap.

“Even so,” Lily continued, undeterred, “it would hardly do to appear shabby before the heir of Dweomerheart. Society will be watching him—and watching us, too, I daresay.”

Seraphina returned her gaze to her needlework, though her fingers did not move. “It is said Mr. Dekarios rarely attends such assemblies. A scholar, not a gentleman of society.”

“Which makes him all the more intriguing,” Lily replied, smoothing her skirts. “A man of intellect and fortune—an excellent prospect.”

“And how exactly do you propose to acquire a new dress?” Celeste asked, smiling slyly. “Shall we barter away the pianoforte? Or sell my wild magic to the highest bidder?”

Lily gave a soft laugh but did not answer. Her mind, Seraphina knew, was already turning over possibilities: favors to call in, old gowns to alter, ribbons to dye just so.

The sisters fell briefly silent, each absorbed in her own thoughts. Outside, the garden stirred restlessly in the wind—overgrown, untidy, but beautiful still. Much like the Demaris sisters themselves.

At last Celeste broke the quiet, her voice light but fond. “Well, Phina, I do hope you will save me a dance when the brooding heir makes his grand entrance. Though I imagine Lily shall wish to claim them all.”

Lily smiled serenely, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “He must dance with someone,” she said, her tone breezy but intent. “And I intend to ensure he remembers me.”

Seraphina said nothing but felt, for the first time, the smallest prickle of curiosity at the thought of Mr. Gale Dekarios—the heir to the grandest estate in the county, the man whose presence would set every eye alight at the ball, and whose regard—if he offered it at all—would surely never rest on quiet, sensible Seraphina Demaris.

And yet…

Something about his name lingered—a mystery, a shadow, a promise unspoken.

****

The soft bustle of Willowbridge Market filled the air with a cheerful murmur: shopkeepers calling out wares, enchanted ribbons fluttering from awnings, and the spring breeze carrying the faint scent of lilac and old stone.

With a scant ten day before the spring ball, the Demaris sisters made their way toward Madame Bellamy’s modiste shop, though there was little question as to their true purpose. Lily walked slightly ahead, every inch the picture of graceful intent, her gloved hands clasped lightly but her mind clearly occupied.

“I shall simply persuade Madame,” Lily said with airy confidence. “She’s quite susceptible to suggestion, and really, it is no crime to use a touch of magic when one’s gown is nearly falling apart. A well-timed enchantment is hardly more improper than a flattering compliment.”

Seraphina, walking beside her, kept her disapproval mild but unmistakable. “That depends, I think, on the sincerity of the compliment.”

“Oh, sincerity is so often overrated,” Lily replied, her tone light but her smile sharp. “And besides, Phina, you know as well as I that our prospects depend on such things.”

Behind them, Celeste skipped a step, tugging absently at the hem of her plain skirt, her untidy curls wild in the wind. She summoned a tiny illusion—a silver trumpet that emitted a cheerful blast before vanishing into motes of starlight. “You both worry too much. I say we storm the shop like a conquering army and claim whatever gowns we fancy!”

But before Lily could reply, a smooth, wickedly amused voice cut across the street:

“Ah… Miss Demaris. And Miss Demaris. And Miss Demaris. How fortunate am I, to encounter all three at once.”

Astarion Ancunín, leaning lazily against a stone archway, was the very portrait of elegance touched with mischief. His silver hair caught the light just so, his smile was slow and self-assured, and his pale gaze swept over them like a caress.

Lily faltered—just slightly—but then smiled, her expression softening into an inviting warmth. “Mr. Ancunín. How unexpected—and how very flattering to be so noticed.”

“I could hardly fail to notice such a trio,” he murmured, stepping closer. “The beauty of Miss Lily… the quiet mystery of Miss Seraphina… and dear Miss Celeste, who seems ever ready to summon chaos itself.”

Celeste let out a delighted laugh, spinning a tiny illusionary crown into existence above Lily’s head before vanishing it in a spray of sparkles.

Seraphina stood a step behind them, her arms folded, watching the scene with quiet disapproval that she did not bother to disguise. It was precisely this sort of display—casual, careless, conducted in full view of the town—that would feed every whisper about their reduced circumstances and desperate fortunes.

Lily, quite thoroughly charmed, tilted her head just so, letting Astarion’s flattery wash over her like sunlight. “You are incorrigible, Mr. Ancunín.”

“Miss Lily, I must confess… you quite outshine even the most enchanted finery Madame Bellamy might offer.”

Phina’s disapproval remained restrained but unmistakable—a tightening at the corners of her mouth, a quiet straightening of her back as she folded her hands more precisely. She knew Astarion’s reputation too well, and his attentions to Lily were sure to raise eyebrows.

Celeste, meanwhile, barely spared Astarion another glance before catching sight of a figure just arriving at the edge of the square—Captain Sir Wyll Ravengard, his dark uniform immaculate, sword at his hip, and posture as noble as his reputation.

And then…

A hush seemed to ripple through the square—a subtle shift in atmosphere that drew the eye before sound or sight announced it.

Seraphina felt it first: a pressure in the air, like the gathering of a storm.

Gale Dekarios had arrived.

He moved through the market with no fanfare, but it was impossible not to notice him. Tall, impeccably attired in a dark coat that was simple but perfect in cut, every button polished, every movement deliberate, his presence carried the weight of Dweomerheart itself. He did not smile. He did not wave. He observed.

At his side, Captain Sir Wyll Ravengard strode with the ease of a soldier, his uniform immaculate, his air warm but alert—a foil to the arcane quiet that clung to his companion.

Gale’s gaze swept the tableau before him: Lily’s radiant smile turned toward Astarion; Celeste’s playful conjurations; Seraphina’s still, silent watchfulness.

His eyes lingered—cold, assessing—on Astarion first, lips pressed into a thin line.

Then, without hurry, he turned that gaze upon the sisters themselves.

It was not a look of curiosity, nor even disdain. It was something quieter but no less cutting: the gaze of a man who had already measured them all—and found them lacking.

“Ancunín,” Wyll said, his tone brisk and formal, his bow toward the ladies polite but faintly restrained.

Astarion’s answering smile was wicked and easy. “Captain Ravengard. Mr. Dekarios. How very punctual you are—just in time to observe Willowbridge’s finest society.”

“Oh!” Celeste exclaimed, turning from the flirtation entirely. “Captain Ravengard! Have you returned from campaign? You must tell me about your adventures!”

Her eagerness was genuine and completely lacking in decorum, and Wyll—startled but clearly charmed—inclined his head with a bemused smile.

It was a picture of impropriety, and Gale’s dark eyes reflected his swift, silent judgment.

Wyll recovered quickly, bowing to them with a polite but guarded smile. “Ladies.”

“Captain Ravengard,” Lily greeted him with an elegant nod, though her smile was slow to leave Astarion’s face.

Astarion himself seemed delighted by the interruption, bowing with exaggerated flourish. “Ah! Captain Ravengard and Mr. Dekarios. How very punctual you are—just in time to rescue Miss Celeste from me, if that is your wish.”

Gale’s reply was cool and quiet: “Rescue may not be necessary, Mr. Ancunín, but your company is… surprising.”

Celeste, completely ignoring Gale’s disapproval, stepped toward Wyll, her eyes bright. “Tell me truly, Captain—were you at the skirmish at Winterfold? I heard tales of your heroics there!”

Wyll hesitated a moment, casting a wary glance toward Gale before answering with gentlemanly courtesy. “Indeed, Miss Celeste, though it was hardly heroic. More duty than glory.”

Celeste beamed as though he had recounted the entire thrilling saga, clearly pleased just to have engaged him.

Meanwhile, Seraphina caught Gale’s gaze for the first time—a fleeting but intense glance, his expression unreadable but sharp, weighing them all, and perhaps her most of all.

Lily, sensing judgment but unwilling to retreat, offered a parting shot to Astarion: “Do walk with us, Mr. Ancunín. I find your conversation… enlightening.”

Astarion offered his arm immediately, smiling like a cat who had just discovered a bowl of cream.

Before Lily could accept, Gale spoke again—soft but cutting: “Perhaps another time, Ancunín. The Demaris sisters have an appointment, do they not?”

Lily stiffened—ever so slightly—but her smile did not falter. “Indeed we do. Madame Bellamy waits.”

Seraphina felt the awkwardness tighten like a thread between them all: Lily, flushed with Astarion’s attention; Celeste, cheerfully oblivious and still questioning Wyll; and Gale—his disapproval quiet but absolute, already filing them away as a family of fading fortunes, unreliable manners, and questionable company.

When his gaze met hers again, for just an instant, Seraphina thought she saw… curiosity. Or perhaps she only wished to see it.

 Then it was gone, and the sisters, with practiced grace, took their leave and stepped into the modiste’s shop—Lily radiant, Celeste chattering, and Phina, as always, silent but observing, her heart faintly troubled.

The bell above the door to Madame Bellamy’s shop gave a delicate chime as the Demaris sisters entered—a sound that, to Madame Bellamy herself, must have sounded very much like a warning.

The shop, while still tidy and respectably arranged, bore subtle signs of wear: the pale silk curtains at the windows had begun to fray at their edges, the polished wood counter bore fine scratches from years of use, and the enchanted mannequins—though still standing elegantly—shifted their arms a touch too stiffly, their charms clearly losing refinement with age.

Madame Bellamy herself emerged from behind the velvet drapery leading to her workroom—a tall woman of middle years, whose fashionable gown could not quite disguise the tightness about her mouth or the wary gleam in her eye as she greeted her visitors.

“Miss Demaris,” she said, inclining her head toward Lily with careful respect. “And Miss Seraphina, Miss Celeste. Such a pleasure, as always.”

Lily, radiant and self-possessed, returned the nod with a warm smile that had melted many a merchant’s resolve. “Madame Bellamy. We come, as you must have expected, on urgent business—surely you have heard of the spring ball at Dweomerheart?”

“Indeed,” Madame Bellamy replied, though there was a hint of steel beneath her civility. “I believe the entire county has heard of it. My order book is quite full.”

Celeste drifted toward the nearest mannequin, examining the embroidery on a half-finished gown with cheerful irreverence. “Full? Madame, surely you can make room for three modest commissions?”

Madame Bellamy’s glance flickered to Celeste’s tangled curls, then to Lily’s carefully composed elegance, then—warily—to Seraphina’s calm but observant expression.

Lily stepped closer, her tone light but layered with subtle intent. “Madame Bellamy, you know how much we value your talents. And how splendid it would be—for you as much as for us—if your gowns were seen at Dweomerheart’s most important assembly of the year.”

Madame Bellamy hesitated, but her expression did not soften. “The matter, Miss Demaris, is less about desire than about time—and expense.”

At that, Lily’s smile grew just a fraction more brilliant. “Time and expense,” she murmured, weaving the words almost like a spell, “are but minor inconveniences, surely, when reputation is at stake. Your reputation, Madame.”

Seraphina caught the faint shimmer in the air as Lily’s enchantment settled into place—a gentle charm spell, subtle enough to seem like persuasion but carrying the unmistakable undercurrent of magic.

Phina felt her stomach tighten, her disapproval sharp, but she remained silent. It was not the first time Lily had employed her skill this way—and, regrettably, it was almost always effective.

Madame Bellamy’s eyes grew faintly glassy for the briefest moment—then softened. “Of course, Miss Demaris,” she said, her tone smoothing into acquiescence. “How could I refuse the opportunity?”

Lily’s smile was triumphant but demure. “Thank you, Madame. You are, as ever, a treasure.”

Madame Bellamy’s glance flickered to Celeste, who was now circling a mannequin draped in silk, frowning with theatrical disapproval.

“Madame,” Celeste declared, “I must insist my gown be practical. No tight sleeves, no stiff bodice, and certainly no corsetry—I intend to dance and play the lute with abandon, and I will not tolerate being laced into immobility.”

Lily turned with a faint laugh, her tone both indulgent and gently chiding. “Celeste, honestly—you must allow Madame some artistry.”

Celeste only grinned, tugging playfully at the sleeve of the mannequin. “Let her be as artistic as she likes below the waist, but I won’t be trussed up like a prize goose.”

Madame Bellamy blinked, her composure slipping as she struggled to reconcile this unconventional demand with the Demaris sisters’ genteel reputation.

Seraphina caught the woman’s bewildered expression and felt a pang of sympathy—but said nothing. Celeste’s irreverence was as familiar as Lily’s charm by now, and there was no restraining her once she had made up her mind.

Lily, as always, recovered swiftly, turning to the modiste with a brilliant smile. “You will understand, Madame, that my youngest sister has… particular tastes. We are most grateful you can accommodate them.”

Celeste, undeterred, added with a mischievous wink, “Just so long as I can raise my arms above my head without summoning an enchantment to do it for me, we’ll get along splendidly. I won’t be bound tight simply for the sake of society’s gaze.”

Madame Bellamy hesitated, clearly unused to such requests but too polite (or too charmed by Lily’s subtle spellwork) to protest.

Meanwhile, Seraphina moved with quiet purpose to a bolt of soft lilac muslin—simple, unfussy, but delicately lovely. Its color evoked the season without ostentation, and its lightness suited her perfectly.

When she returned with it draped over her arm, Lily’s reaction was immediate and unmistakable.

“Phina,” Lily said, aghast but managing to keep her voice low and lilting, “that is far too plain. You mustn’t appear so… subdued. Especially not at the spring ball at Dweomerheart.”

Seraphina simply folded the muslin neatly in her hands. “It’s a perfectly serviceable dress.”

“Serviceable,” Lily repeated with dismay, reaching for brighter, richer fabrics. “At Dweomerheart, you cannot afford to be serviceable. Embroidery, trim—a new bodice at least. Something. Anything.”

Seraphina only smiled faintly and shook her head. “I like lilacs.”

That quiet statement seemed to close the matter—at least for her. She left Lily and Madame Bellamy to their negotiations and, without further word, slipped softly out into the street.

Outside, Willowbridge was quieter now, the spring breeze curling around shopfronts and stirring the trailing ribbons above the modiste’s door.

Seraphina paused near a pot of actual lilacs, their gentle scent curling in the air—subtle, not showy, precisely as she liked.

The atmosphere itself seemed subtly attuned, as though the Weave recognized the approach of someone who commanded it with precision.

She turned—and there he was. Mr. Gale Dekarios.

He stood a few paces away, as if the square itself had rearranged its focus around him. His dark coat was immaculate, yes—but there was something more: a quiet pulse beneath the air between them, like a spell woven into the very cobblestones.

He did not speak immediately, but she felt—distinctly felt—that he was aware of her presence not only with his eyes, but with his magic.

Their gazes met, and she felt the faintest tingle—an almost imperceptible prickle at the edges of her senses, as though he was gauging her aura, noting the wild current that ran beneath her carefully placid exterior.

At last, he inclined his head, perfectly formal but somehow intimate. “Miss Demaris.”

“Mr. Dekarios,” she replied with a calm that felt a little forced.

Another silence—not awkward, but taut.

Then, with the faintest flicker of amusement at the corner of his mouth, he observed, “I believe you have escaped your sisters.”

“Only temporarily,” she answered. “They will summon me back soon enough, I’m sure.”

He nodded, his gaze flicking briefly toward the shop door. “And what of your own preparations? Have you found something… suitable for the spring ball?”

A thread of arcane resonance hung in the air between them—not enough for an onlooker to notice, but to Seraphina, it was palpable. His magic was tightly leashed, impeccably ordered—so unlike her own unruly gift—but its presence was unmistakable.

Then, before he could deliver some polite but empty comment, she added—dry, wry, and very deliberately:

“Though surely, Mr. Dekarios, you cannot be concerned with something as frivolous as feminine fashion. I do, however, appreciate the effort at polite conversation.”

There—just for a heartbeat—a flicker of amusement crossed his face. “You surprise me, Miss Demaris,” he said at last, the faintest note of amusement in his voice. “And I find myself… unexpectedly grateful for it.”

The shop door creaked open just then and Celeste’s bright voice rang out:

“Phina! Come rescue Madame Bellamy—Lily’s ordering lace enough to drape the entire ballroom!”

Seraphina inclined her head with perfect composure. “Good afternoon, Mr. Dekarios.”

His bow was equally precise. “Good afternoon, Miss Demaris.”

As she stepped back inside, she felt his gaze linger—a gaze that no longer simply weighed her as a potential liability or gossip-fodder. Now it noticed her: not merely for her manners, nor her plain lilac dress, but for something else.

She could not help but feel that, somehow, the air between them had recognized her wild magic and accepted it… if only for a moment.

*****

As the door to Madame Bellamy’s shop closed behind Seraphina, Gale remained standing for a moment, his gaze lingering not on the shop itself but on the lilacs beside the door—the color of the muslin she had chosen, modest, understated, almost invisible in a ballroom where silk and embroidery would reign.

A curious choice, and she herself—a curious woman.

With a faint exhale, he turned, adjusting the fall of his coat sleeve with unconscious precision as he rejoined Captain Sir Wyll Ravengard, who waited a few paces off, standing at ease near a stone pillar wreathed in ivy.

Wyll watched Gale approach, one brow raised in quiet amusement. “You’ve a thoughtful look, my friend,” he remarked lightly. “Was Miss Demaris so very diverting?”

Gale gave him a sidelong glance, then spoke with measured disinterest—a tone that did not quite mask the fact that he had noticed. “Not what I expected.”

That earned a short laugh from Wyll, warm but knowing. “Ah. The Demaris sisters. A curious household indeed. Respectable enough—once.”

His gaze drifted toward the shop, where the murmur of Celeste’s cheerful irreverence could still be heard faintly through the window.

Gale’s tone was soft but precise. “Once?”

Wyll nodded, folding his arms lightly. “The family’s fortune was lost some years back. Their father—Alaric Demaris—had grand ideas. Entered into a venture to import enchanted curiosities directly from the Feywild. Promised rare treasures. Promised… profits.”

A pause, then a dry note creeping into his voice. “Turned out his partner was no reputable merchant, but a hag.”

Gale’s brow lifted almost imperceptibly. “A hag?”

“Indeed,” Wyll confirmed, eyes glinting faintly with amusement. “Madame Bramblethorn, or so she styled herself. Took his investment, sent back nonsense and curses, and vanished before he could recover a single coin. The poor man died of humiliation not long after, and the estate’s been quietly declining ever since.”

His gaze sharpened slightly as he studied Gale’s expression. “Their situation is well known in the county. Everyone’s watching to see if Miss Lily can secure a match that might restore their fortunes. She’s quite determined, I gather.”

Gale’s reply was slow and careful. “Yes… so it would seem.”

 Wyll was not the sort to miss much—especially where Gale was concerned. With a chuckle, warm but just a touch needling, he added:

“You seemed quite taken with the middle one—the one no one much bothers with.”

Gale’s expression did not change, but his gaze flicked briefly toward the closed shop door, where Celeste’s bright laughter could still be heard through the glass.

“Not taken,” he corrected quietly, smoothing a slight wrinkle at his cuff. “Surprised.”

Wyll’s grin widened just a fraction. “Surprised, hmm? Well. Seraphina Demaris may not shine like her elder sister, but they say she’s the sensible one—the one who keeps their household from complete ruin.”

Gale, quiet as ever, let this sink in. But inwardly… inwardly he turned over Seraphina’s words again.

“Surely you cannot be concerned with something as frivolous as feminine fashion. I do, however, appreciate the effort at polite conversation.”

No flash. No artifice. No need to beg his regard—and that alone had held it, if only for a moment.

“She likes lilacs,” he murmured, almost to himself.

Wyll caught that, too—and wisely kept his amusement unspoken.

“Come on then, Gale,” he said at last, clapping a hand on his friend’s shoulder as he straightened. “You can puzzle over Miss Seraphina later. We’ve duties enough before the ball.”

As they walked away, Gale’s mind was no longer entirely occupied with duty—but with a woman in soft lilac muslin, who did not seem to care a whit whether he noticed her at all.

*****

Seraphina had always found shopping exhausting—not physically, but in the quiet way that attending to appearances, small talk, and the careful navigation of her sisters’ livelier spirits seemed to drain her.

So after a modest supper—thin stew with little beef,  coarse bread, and a decanter of wine whose dullness could no longer be disguised even by the most forgiving palate—Seraphina had quietly folded her napkin, prepared to rise.

But Lily, graceful even in complaint, set down her glass with a sharp click.

“Honestly,” she said, her voice light but edged, “this is absurd. We are not helpless, nor are we destitute—not truly. If we would simply make proper use of what we have…”

Celeste, lounging sideways on her chair, raised an eyebrow. “And what do we have, Lily?”

Lily’s gaze flicked toward the empty decanter and the chipped plate on the table before returning, luminous and determined. “We have magic,” she said simply. “And I cannot fathom why we insist on pretending otherwise. What is the point of having magic if we continue to live like paupers?”

That struck home—and Seraphina felt it even before she saw Celeste’s grin fade into something sharper.

Seraphina’s reply was gentle but unyielding. “Because, Lily, magic costs.”

Lily’s lips parted in immediate protest, but Celeste cut in, her voice bright but carrying a harder undertone. “Wizardry might cost only the price of ink and scrolls, a pinch of ash here, a lock of hair there… but our magic—Phina’s and mine—doesn’t tally so neatly.”

She conjured a delicate flame above her palm—just a simple flicker—but even that small conjuration wavered strangely, bending sideways as if caught in a breeze that no one else could feel.

“Every time we ask more than a cantrip of it,” Celeste continued, “it asks back… in ways we can’t predict. It has moods.”

Lily shook her head, her tone clipped. “That’s just because you’ve never learned to control it properly.”

“Control it?” Seraphina met her gaze steadily. “You think you understand it, Lily, but you’ve never felt it refuse you. You’ve never felt it laugh at you.”

She paused, laying her hands flat on the table, her voice quiet but resolute. “You’ve studied wizardry as though it’s a craft—like embroidery or elocution. But what Celeste and I carry… it isn’t a craft. It’s a current.”

Celeste nodded, a mischievous smile returning to her lips—but tinged with something older and more knowing. “And sometimes the current carries you.”

Lily’s expression tightened—not in cruelty, but frustration born of genuine belief. “It’s a waste,” she murmured, looking down into her glass. “To have this gift and refuse to use it properly.”

Seraphina softened then, but only slightly. “It’s not refusal, Lily. It’s respect. You wield wizardry—but Celeste and I… we host wild magic. And you’re toying with things you don’t truly understand when you ask us to use it like a wand or a wine key.”

The silence that followed was not angry—but it was heavy. Heavy with all the differences between them: differences of temperament, of philosophy, of inheritance itself.

At last, Celeste broke it—as she always did—with levity, conjuring a tiny illusion above Lily’s wineglass: a miniature Lily herself, tapping her foot impatiently and swirling the dregs of conjured claret.

“Perhaps we should let Lily conjure her own wine next time,” Celeste teased. “If it turns into moths or bees, at least it will be entertaining.”

Even Lily laughed at that—but her laugh was quieter than usual, and tinged with thought.

Seraphina rose then, smoothing her skirts, feeling that familiar weariness again—not from the day’s errands, nor from their modest supper, but from the effort of holding peace between power that refused to serve and a sister who would not be satisfied until it did.

The fire in the grate glowed low but warm as the sisters prepared for bed, casting a gentle, flickering light across the mismatched coverlets and old wallpaper, where faded vines curled up the plaster as if still reaching toward better days.

Lily sat at the dressing table, brushing her hair with slow, dreamy strokes, a soft smile on her lips that spoke of flattering compliments and imagined waltzes. Celeste was draped sideways across her own narrow bed, hair unpinned, her mischievous eyes alight even at this late hour.

Seraphina, as ever, sat quietly on the edge of her bed, folding a shawl over her lap, trying—but failing—to entirely tune out her sisters’ inevitable chatter.

It was Celeste who pounced first, unable to contain herself any longer.

“So,” she drawled, her voice wicked and gleeful, “our quiet, sensible sister has attracted the full attention of Mr. Dekarios—the brooding heir himself. I must say, Phina, it was very well done.”

Seraphina did not look up, her voice mild. “Nonsense.”

Lily laughed softly, setting her brush aside. “You cannot deny it, dearest. He was quite focused on you. I daresay Mr. Dekarios admires quiet dignity—and plain lilac muslin.”

At this, Celeste gave a delighted squeal, flinging a pillow toward Seraphina’s bed. “Plain lilac muslin! What a triumph, Phina. He’ll be composing odes to modest fabrics before the week is out.”

Seraphina sighed but could not entirely suppress a smile. “You both have far too much imagination between you.  It is natural that Dweomerheart should look to Rosemere’s eldest daughter, after all.”

Lily’s gaze grew softer, more thoughtful. “It was quite interesting, though. He spoke to you far longer than he did to me—and I was the one in conversation with Mr. Ancunín.”

Seraphina’s expression shifted—serene but suddenly serious. “It’s not Mr. Dekarios who concerns me.”

Both sisters fell still at that.

Celeste was the first to break the silence, sitting up properly, her curiosity piqued. “Not Mr. Dekarios? Then who?”

Seraphina folded her shawl more tightly, her fingers moving quickly now. “It’s Mr. Ancunín. I don’t trust him.”

Celeste laughed. “No one trusts Astarion Ancunín, Phina—that’s half the fun.”

Seraphina shook her head, her tone low and firm. “It isn’t a matter of fun. His flattery is too easy… his attentions too calculated. I fear he is not the harmless rake he pretends to be.”

Lily hesitated, her dreamy smile dimming just a little, doubt creeping into her eyes. “He is… charming.”

Celeste, irrepressible as always, grinned. “And handsome.”

Seraphina met Lily’s gaze evenly. “Be careful, Lily. Please.”

For a long breath, even Celeste fell silent, sensing the seriousness beneath her sister’s quiet words.

Then, with a theatrical sigh, Celeste collapsed backward into her pillow. “Oh, we’re all doomed—to scandal, heartbreak, or poetry about lilacs.”

That won a soft laugh from Lily—and even Seraphina’s lips curved into a rare, fond smile, but as she rose and extinguished her candle, her mind lingered not on Celeste’s laughter nor on Lily’s flirtation… but on the way Mr. Gale Dekarios had looked at her: not with flattery, nor curiosity alone—but with the steady, weighing gaze of a man who noticed things others did not.

And that thought, more than anything, was what kept her awake long after the fire had faded.

Chapter Text

Ah, my dear and delightfully attentive reader—

You return just in time to observe a most instructive morning unfold in the drawing room of Rosemere, where ambition is brewed as briskly as the tea, and no heart is safe from enchantment—be it magical or otherwise.

One might assume, in the absence of maternal oversight, that three young ladies of marriageable age would occupy themselves with embroidery, poetry, or other gentle diversions. One would, of course, be mistaken.

Miss Lily Demaris—whose beauty is only rivaled by her appetite for social ascendancy—has taken it upon herself to engineer a most serendipitous meeting with the newly returned heir of Dweomerheart. How fortunate, then, that Lord Silverbough is both respectable and susceptible to finely inked flattery (with or without a suggestion rune tucked discreetly beneath the closing salutation).

Her younger sister Miss Celeste, ever the irreverent enchantress, prefers to charm the world with lute, laughter, and illusionary teapots. One might say she plays the fool, were it not for the unmistakable gleam of cleverness behind her grin.

And then there is Miss Seraphina. Quiet. Watchful. Undeniably magical—and not nearly as compliant as her serene expression might suggest.

But beware, dear reader: schemes set in drawing rooms tend to unravel in glades, and not every picnic ends in polite conversation. Especially not when Mr. Astarion Ancunín arrives with flowers in hand and secrets in his smile…

—E.A.

“I am determined that only the deepest love

 will induce me into matrimony.”

The following morning rose bright and fragrant, bathed in sunlight and lilac-scented breezes, carrying with it a deceptive air of tranquility. The county seemed to conspire to lend its charms to every hedge and garden, each corner softened by light and bloom. Yet within Rosemere’s tired drawing-room, where faded curtains stirred in the gentle air, Lily’s ambitions lent a sharper edge to the day’s gentility. The morning might have belonged to blossoms and birdsong, but Lily had already claimed it for schemes and quiet determination.

Their mother’s absence, prolonged by the illness of a cousin in Silvery Vale, left the sisters free of restraint—and left Lily to direct the household entirely to her liking.

Celeste was sprawled sideways on the faded settee, her lute propped against her bare knees as her fingers danced over the strings, coaxing out the lively melody of an old tavern song—a tune distinctly too cheeky for polite company but rendered with such innocent charm that it felt almost respectable. Almost.

“There once was a maid from the harbor’s end

Who had a heart—and a purse—to lend…”

She hummed along softly, sending an illusionary bird to perch jauntily atop the teapot as she played, glancing sidelong at Seraphina as if daring her sister to object.

Seraphina sat nearby, her needlework untouched, watching Lily move between desk and window with a purposeful gleam in her eye.

At last, Lily spoke, laying a fresh sheet of paper before her.

“I have devised the perfect plan,” she declared, smoothing the page with the flat of her hand.

Celeste arched an eyebrow. “Does this plan involve haunting the road to Dweomerheart until Mr. Dekarios notices us?”

Lily ignored her, her smile cool. “No need for anything so undignified. We shall instead arrange an introduction quite properly—at Silverbough Hall.”

Seraphina set aside her work at once, wary. “You intend to involve Halsin?”

“Of course,” Lily replied, selecting a quill with fastidious care. “Halsin is a gentleman of excellent standing. His estate—so charming, so natural—would appeal to a man like Mr. Dekarios. The very image of health and probity.”

She dipped her pen with practiced ease. “Mr. Dekarios strikes me as the sort of gentleman who equates an afternoon outdoors with good character. Quiet woods, polite conversation—how could he refuse? It would seem both genteel and virtuous.”

Celeste laughed aloud. “You’re describing a clever snare disguised as a picnic.”

Lily smiled, her eyes glinting. “A picnic in the best sense. Entirely respectable. Halsin would never refuse us.”

Seraphina’s tone was mild but edged. “And you are certain Mr. Dekarios will attend?”

Lily gave a small shrug. “With Halsin’s invitation? Certainly. It will seem innocent, above reproach—and entirely natural.”

Celeste leaned forward, mischief bright in her gaze. “Then read us your masterwork as you compose it. Let us admire your artistry.”

Lily obliged, speaking smoothly as she set quill to paper.

“My dear Mr. Silverbough,

How long it has been since we had the pleasure of your company at Rosemere ? I trust this letter finds you in excellent health, and that your beautiful woods have come into their full spring bloom.”

She continued without pause, her pen moving deftly as her voice softened into calculated warmth:

“As you have no doubt heard, Mr. Gale Dekarios has taken residence at Dweomerheart, and society naturally anticipates the pleasure of his acquaintance. It occurred to me that a small gathering at Silverbough Hall would be the ideal setting for such an introduction—simple, tasteful, and perfectly suited to your reputation for elegance and good sense.”

Seraphina’s brow furrowed faintly, but she said nothing—yet.

Lily kept writing, her words quick and polished:

“Might you consider such a gathering before the spring ball? You have always been generous in your hospitality, and an occasion under your roof would lend a most agreeable air of decorum to our acquaintance with Mr. Dekarios.”

Celeste clapped her hands lightly. “Flawless! Entirely proper—and entirely transparent.”

But even as she spoke, Seraphina’s gaze sharpened. She had caught something: a flicker of magic, subtle but undeniable, trailing beneath Lily’s quill.

With a sudden realization, she leaned forward and saw the faint shimmer where Lily’s pen traced not just elegant script but a delicate suggestion rune, so fine it could pass unnoticed except by one attuned to such things.

“Lily,” Seraphina said quietly but firmly, “what precisely are you weaving into that letter?”

Lily’s pen stilled, but her smile did not falter. “Nothing at all, dearest. A flourish—just… ensuring that Halsin reads it with the spirit in which it is intended.”

Seraphina’s expression hardened—a rare severity in her usually gentle features. “A flourish? That’s no flourish, Lily—that’s a spell. A suggestion rune, finely worked.”

Celeste sat up straight, all amusement vanishing. “Lily, you can’t enchant a letter to Halsin.”

“It’s harmless,” Lily insisted, waving one elegant hand. “A nudge. Halsin will never even know.”

Seraphina folded her hands in her lap, her tone quiet but resolute. “You know as well as I that such magic has no place in a letter between friends. It’s a deception.”

For a moment, Lily met her sister’s gaze, and in that silence something sharper passed between them—a contest of wills dressed in civility but far from gentle.

At last, Lily relented with a light laugh, lifting the quill from the page. “Very well, Phina. If it offends your sensibilities, I shall leave Halsin to his free will. But mark me: He would have said yes regardless—or very nearly so.”

Seraphina inclined her head, accepting the concession but not quite soothed. “Then you have nothing to fear from sending it unadorned.”

Celeste exhaled a relieved breath, her easy grin returning. “Truly, Lily—you mustn’t enchant every difficulty into submission. Some things ought to unfold as they will.”

Lily smiled again—serene, composed, and as calculating as ever. “Some things, perhaps. But not all.”

With that, she sanded the letter, carefully folding it with precise creases, the faint shimmer of suggestion gone but her intent perfectly intact.

As she sealed it, Seraphina watched quietly, her thoughts not on Lily’s triumph but on the man who would soon receive this orchestrated invitation—and on the question that still hovered, unanswered, beneath all of Lily’s schemes:

Would Mr. Gale Dekarios truly be so easily maneuvered?

The wax seal on Lily’s letter to Halsin was barely cool when an unexpected knock echoed at the front door—a sharp, confident knock that suggested the caller already presumed himself welcome.

Before a word was spoken, Celeste let out a low laugh. “That is no tradesman’s knock.”

Lily moved gracefully to the window, parting the lace curtain to confirm what she already suspected.

There, poised with perfect elegance and a hint of deliberate languor, stood Astarion Ancunín, impeccably dressed and holding a small but artfully arranged bouquet of narcissus and blush roses.

As soon as the butler hesitated at the threshold, uncertain whether to admit the unexpected caller, Celeste’s dry voice floated from the drawing-room, carrying just enough mischief to serve as invitation and rebuke both:

“Do let him in, Baines—we wouldn’t want Mr. Ancunín to waste such a fine bouquet on the doorstep.”

Only then did Astarion step lightly across the threshold, his smile deepening, his voice rich and smooth as silk:

“I simply could not rest until I knew what Miss Lily had chosen for the spring ball.”

Celeste allowed a faint, sardonic smile. “His timing is impeccable,” she observed quietly to Seraphina, “just as our day was threatening to grow dull.”

Astarion was admitted and entered with graceful ease, offering the bouquet directly to Lily with a bow just bordering on mockery.

“Miss Lily,” he said, his tone rich and smooth, “a small offering—to grace your drawing-room, or your mirror, should you prefer beauty reflected.”

Lily’s smile remained poised, though Seraphina could read the flicker of calculation behind it. “Mr. Ancunín, how unexpected.”

“Unexpected, yes,” he replied smoothly, settling himself without invitation into a chair, “but, I hope, not unwelcome.”

Celeste observed all this with narrowed eyes, one leg crossed elegantly over the other, her expression arch with amusement—a woman entirely aware of the games unfolding before her, and savoring them.

Lily inclined her head just so, keeping her composure. “Mr. Ancunín. You honor us—with both your flowers and your… curiosity.”

“Curiosity is one of my better qualities,” he replied, draping himself artfully into a chair, his walking stick propped nearby.

As Celeste reached for a second teacup and began pouring—her movements unhurried but precise—Astarion’s gaze drifted almost lazily across the small writing desk, where the freshly sealed letter to Halsin lay neatly atop its blotter, its wax still cooling.

His smile sharpened, and he leaned back with an air of careless ease. “Ah… but I interrupt important business, do I not?” His eyes gleamed as he gestured lightly toward the letter. “A correspondence, I see—and so early in the day. Shall I take it to post for you, Miss Lily? I would be delighted to play the errand-boy for so charming a household.”

Astarion’s gaze lingered on the letter a moment longer, then slid back to Lily with disarming warmth.

Before Lily could reply, Seraphina set aside her needlework with deliberate care and interjected, her tone mild but edged with quiet wariness:

“That’s generous of you, Mr. Ancunín… but curious. You seem unusually eager to assist with our correspondence this morning.”

Astarion turned to her at once, amusement brightening his pale gaze. “Ah, Miss Seraphina. Ever the discerning one. I thought only to be useful.”

Seraphina’s gaze was steady, thoughtful—but there was a steel behind her calm that Astarion did not miss.

“Useful… or inquisitive?”

The words hung lightly, not impolite but not playful either—a subtle challenge, cool and precise.

Astarion’s smile did not falter, but it deepened into something darker, a gleam of genuine delight at the subtlety of her barb.

“Can one not be both?” he asked gently.

Lily, sensing the undertone but determined to steer the moment back toward politeness, replied smoothly, “Your kindness is appreciated, Mr. Ancunín, but the letter is a private matter and we must trouble Baines for the errand.”

Astarion inclined his head with the perfect grace of a man who knew exactly when to retreat—outwardly.

“Of course,” he murmured. “I would never presume to intrude on private business.”

 But his gaze lingered, just for a heartbeat, on Seraphina rather than Lily—a look of acknowledgment and amusement, as if he recognized her as an unexpected opponent in a game he thought he was playing alone.

*****

That afternoon, the sisters set out for Willowbridge on a necessary errand—to collect a parcel of lavender oil, dried rosemary, and other herbs for Celeste’s potions, along with a bolt of muslin for household mending. The spring air was soft and fragrant, the square alive with market chatter, but none of this could distract Seraphina from the task at hand. Celeste walked with her usual unconcern, her lute slung across her back and an empty satchel at her hip. In a house where two of three sisters hesitated to cast even the simplest charm for fear of what wild magic might awaken, Celeste’s brewing had become their compromise—a way to live in a world saturated with enchantment while respecting the unruly currents that marked her and Seraphina both.

Lily kept pace at her side, every inch the image of graceful poise despite the homely nature of their errand. They had paused at the apothecary’s window when a familiar voice called from across the square, warm and polished:

“Miss Demaris—Misses Demaris.”

Turning, they saw Captain Sir Wyll Ravengard approaching, his upright bearing impeccable as ever, clad in a dark coat that perfectly complemented his easy air of restrained warmth. Beside him walked a woman whose presence was in stark contrast: his sister, Jenevelle Ravengard, pale, cool, and striking in her severity. Her bonnet shaded a face that seemed carved in winter frost, and though her gloved hand rested lightly on a parasol, there was nothing delicate about her gaze.

Lily, serene and swift to command the moment, dipped her head gracefully. “Captain Ravengard, Miss Ravengard—what a happy encounter.”

“Indeed,” Wyll replied, with a courteous bow and a smile that reached his eyes. “The day seems determined to be agreeable—and the company improves it further.”

Jenevelle offered a brief nod, her gaze sweeping over the sisters and lingering ever so slightly on the satchel slung at Celeste’s hip.

After a few pleasantries, Wyll said, almost idly but with unmistakable curiosity:

“I understand that Lord Silverbough is to host a small gathering—a picnic, I believe? Quite soon, in fact.”

Lily’s smile did not falter but sharpened subtly. “How swift the village news is. Lord Silverbough’s plans must still be but a notion.”

Wyll’s smile deepened. “You know Willowbridge, Miss Lily—rumor often outruns truth. Especially when it concerns anyone at Dweomerheart.”

Jenevelle, speaking for the first time, allowed a faint note of disdain into her tone. “The entire county seems determined to make itself useful to Mr. Dekarios. I confess I cannot imagine why.”

Celeste, mature but no less irreverent, arched a brow as she tucked a stray curl behind her ear. “Perhaps because we all admire a man who reads too many books and smiles too little.”

That won a quick, genuine laugh from Wyll—but Jenevelle’s expression did not soften. Her gloved fingers tightened on her parasol.

“Lord Silverbough’s gatherings,” she said, “are typically attended by persons of unimpeachable character. I do hope he maintains his standards.”

Seraphina absorbed the barb with composure but made no reply, while Lily, quick and deft, met Jenevelle’s frost with grace:

“Halsin Silverbough’s taste has never been questioned, Miss Ravengard. And I’m sure his guest list will reflect that.”

*****

The following day brought a quiet tension to Rosemere, a sense of expectancy that hung over breakfast and clung even to the sound of the clock in the hallway ticking away the hours. Lily, as serene as ever, spent most of the morning near the window, ostensibly reading but glancing toward the drive at each creak of a wheel or flutter of birds.

It was Seraphina who noticed first when Baines appeared in the doorway, holding a sealed letter with a faintly bemused expression.

“From Silverbough Hall, Miss,” he announced simply.

Lily rose at once, a smile blooming—not too eagerly, but with just enough grace to disguise her triumph. She crossed the room, her fingers brushing lightly over the thick cream-colored envelope, its seal pressed with Halsin Silverbough’s familiar crest: a stag beneath an oak.

“Thank you, Baines,” she murmured, taking the letter and holding it a moment before breaking the seal with a slender knife.

Celeste, sprawled in an armchair, tilted her head in idle amusement. “Well? Read, Lily. Let us not suffer in suspense.”

Seraphina, seated near the hearth, kept her hands busy with needlework, but her gaze flickered upward—calm but attentive, her curiosity tempered by wariness.

Lily unfolded the parchment with exquisite care and began reading aloud, her voice smooth but gaining brightness with each line:

“My dear Miss Demaris,

It is always a pleasure to hear from you, and I must admit that your letter arrived at a most felicitous moment—for I had already been considering a modest gathering at Silverbough Hall to mark the season’s turn.

Your suggestion that such a gathering might include Mr. Dekarios is an excellent one. I understand that he has expressed an interest in the natural beauties of the estate’s woodlands, and I believe he would find the company equally agreeable.

Therefore, I shall write to Mr. Dekarios at once and propose that he join us this very Saturday for a luncheon and walk in the glades. Naturally, I hope you and your sisters will attend as my honored guests.”

Lily’s eyes gleamed with satisfaction as she folded the letter neatly again. “Perfect,” she said, as if she had expected no other outcome.

Celeste gave an appreciative clap of her hands. “A luncheon and walk in the glades. Entirely innocent, utterly respectable… and precisely what you wanted.”

Seraphina’s tone remained mild but edged with quiet insight: “How very convenient that Mr. Dekarios had already expressed interest in Halsin’s woods.”

Lily smiled with delicate precision, slipping the letter onto the side table. “Gentlemen of his character are always eager for a pastoral interlude—or at least they can be persuaded that they are.”

Celeste stretched languidly and arched a brow at Seraphina. “So then, dear Phina… what shall we discuss on this pastoral outing? Surely we must prepare something sufficiently erudite to delight Mr. Dekarios.”

Lily, still radiant with the glow of her triumph, picked up the thread immediately, her voice light but deliberate. “Quite so. He is reputed to be a scholar above all—a man who prefers books to society. It would not do to be caught unprepared.”

Seraphina set aside her needlework and regarded them both, one brow arched with mild amusement. “Then perhaps you should begin with a treatise on Netherese ruins or the properties of moonstone. He is, after all, a wizard of no small accomplishment.”

Celeste gave a delighted laugh. “Moonstone and ruins? Oh, how very romantic.”

“Romantic or not,” Lily replied smoothly, “it is precisely the sort of subject that might capture his interest—and show ourselves to advantage.”

Seraphina’s smile was faint but genuine. “You intend to study up, then? To recite a list of historical curiosities while walking through Halsin’s woods?”

Lily met her gaze without flinching. “I intend,” she said carefully, “to ensure that I do not appear foolish. Conversation is the most delicate of arts.”

Celeste leaned back with a mischievous glint in her eye. “Perhaps we should quiz one another before we go. Shall I prepare questions about ancient elven dynasties? Or obscure alchemical formulas?”

“Obscure enough,” Seraphina murmured, “that none but Mr. Dekarios would know the answers—and we could feign just enough interest to please him.”

*****

The morning of the Silverbough Hall picnic dawned bright and fragrant, a day that seemed almost too well-ordered, as though even the clouds and breeze had conspired to assist Lily’s schemes. The household stirred with an energy it had not known in months—not from abundance, but anticipation.

In the drawing-room, Lily moved briskly between window and sideboard, issuing gentle but unmistakable instructions. Her pale blue day dress was perfectly pressed; her bonnet ribbon freshly pressed; her gloves laid out with military precision.

Across the room, Celeste slouched artfully on the edge of a chair, her lute balanced casually on her knees as she tuned a string with a mischievous smile tugging at her lips.

“Celeste, you must leave the lute behind,” she declared with crisp finality. “It’s unbecoming—and Halsin certainly has a pianoforte at Silverbough Hall you could play, if the urge takes you.”

Celeste paused, her fingers hovering over the strings, then turned slowly toward her eldest sister with an expression of pure incredulity, one brow arched high.

“How am I supposed to play a pianoforte,” she asked, her voice low and edged with dry amusement, “in the—” she caught herself just in time, substituting a pointed pause for what might otherwise have been a colorful word, “—woods?”

Seraphina, who had remained quietly observant through most of Lily’s instructions, allowed a small, fleeting smile at that—for even she could not deny the absurdity of the notion.

But Lily only lifted her chin, undeterred. “You’ll hardly need the lute. The entire point is to conduct ourselves properly… not as wandering minstrels.”

Celeste laughed lightly, plucking a few defiant notes anyway. “Then I suppose I’ll sit on a log and recite poetry instead,” she teased, her irreverence as effortless as ever.

Before Lily could muster another retort, the distant sound of carriage wheels on gravel reached them—a sound altogether unexpected.

The sisters turned in unison toward the window, and Celeste let out a low, delighted laugh.

“Well, Lily,” she murmured, “you seem to have attracted yet another suitor.”

There, drawn up before the modest sweep of Rosemere’s front path, was Astarion Ancunín’s coach: elegant, lacquered, its brass gleaming. Leaning languidly against the carriage door stood Astarion himself, dressed impeccably in dove-grey with silver thread at his cuffs, his pale hair catching the morning light.

A small bouquet of fragrant lily of the valley rested in one gloved hand—a calling card as audacious as the man himself.

From outside, his voice carried easily:

“Ladies! I could not bear the thought of your delicate feet subjected to the dust of the road—so I have come to convey you to Silverbough Hall in comfort and… style.”

Seraphina felt Lily go very still beside her—a stillness that spoke volumes.

Before anyone could speak further, Astarion added with a touch of feigned humility, “But I will, of course, await your invitation to enter…”

At that, Lily sighed—long-suffering but composed—and stepped forward to the window, her voice perfectly pitched: light, gracious, yet careful.

“You are most welcome, Mr. Ancunín,” she called, ensuring propriety was satisfied.

With that single sentence, Astarion crossed the threshold of Rosemere—not merely the literal one, but, as Seraphina knew too well, a far subtler boundary.

He entered smoothly, offering the bouquet—now revealed as a perfect, artful arrangement of lilies of the valley—directly to Lily with a bow just shy of mockery.

“Miss Lily,” he drawled, extending the flowers with an amused gleam, “a spray of lilies of the valley—forgive their impudence in daring to share your name.”

Lily accepted the bouquet with flawless poise but said nothing, her mind clearly turning over the dilemma his presence now posed.

Celeste, meanwhile, took up her position near Seraphina’s side, her smile wry.

“Well,” she murmured softly, “I’m glad for the ride—these boots are miserably uncomfortable.”

But it was Seraphina who spoke aloud—her voice quiet but edged with the kind of politeness that contained steel.

“You are very generous, Mr. Ancunín,” she said, her gaze steady, “but I wonder… how did you come to know that we would be bound for Silverbough Hall this morning?”

Astarion met her eyes with effortless charm and not an ounce of remorse.

“Ah, Miss Seraphina—you underestimate Willowbridge gossip. The whole village knows the day and hour of this little gathering… and I could not possibly allow Miss Lily to travel unaccompanied.”

*****

Silverbough Hall appeared almost timeless in the late-morning light, its whitewashed stone walls softened by ivy and the gentle encroachment of wild roses. The wooded glade behind the house shimmered green and dappled, the kind of quiet sylvan beauty that poets praised but few truly appreciated.

The picnic was laid beneath a copse of ancient oaks, where dappled sunlight played upon linen cloth and silver dishes. The scent of lavender and moss wove through the warm air, mingling with the subtle aroma of wild herbs and freshly baked bread.

The sisters descended from Astarion’s coach in careful order—Lily first, radiant and composed, Celeste lighthearted and teasing, and Seraphina, quiet but observant, her eyes already scanning the scene before her.

Halsin himself appeared from the shadows of the trees, genial and warm, a contrast to Gale’s cool reserve. His voice rang out cheerfully as he crossed the grass to greet them. “Miss Demaris! And your sisters—it is a delight to see you here at last. You’ve brought fair weather, it seems.”

Lily returned his bow with flawless grace. “Lord Silverbough, we are honored by your hospitality. Your glade is lovelier than we remembered.”

But it was not Halsin Silverbough who commanded Seraphina’s attention.

It was Gale Dekarios.

At first glance he was every inch the heir of Dweomerheart: dressed in a coat of midnight wool, immaculately cut and threaded with a subtle gleam of silver at the cuffs; his boots polished to perfection, though plainly ill-suited to the soft loam beneath the trees; a fine watch chain glinting at his waist as if placed precisely to please the eye.

Yet for all that refinement, there was a quiet, almost endearing awkwardness about him—a stiffness in the set of his shoulders, a studied deliberation in the way he clasped his hands behind his back, as though aware of the part he was meant to play but faintly uncomfortable in its trappings.

His dark hair, carefully combed but already stirred by the breeze, softened what might otherwise have been a severe bearing. And though he moved with grace, Seraphina sensed it was the grace of someone accustomed not to woodland paths but to corridors lined with tomes and theories—where reputation preceded him as surely as spellwork followed in his wake.

There was something about him—a particular quietness—that spoke of mastery, but not ease. The very air seemed to hum faintly near him, not as if he commanded it deliberately, but as if the Weave itself hovered near, drawn to him out of long acquaintance.

His gaze swept the assembled party with polite detachment, pausing just long enough on Lily’s polished smile to meet the expectations set before him—but it did not linger.

No, it was when his gaze settled—quietly, unexpectedly—on Seraphina that she felt its true weight: a moment’s pause, a measuring glance neither approving nor dismissive, but thoughtful, appraising… as though he were reading the opening lines of a book he had not expected to find intriguing.

A man dressed flawlessly for society, she thought, and yet somehow ill at ease within it—a prodigy disguised as a gentleman, a wizard disguised as a suitor.

Then, at last, he spoke. His voice was lower than she expected, cultured and precise, but without the easy warmth that came so naturally to Halsin.

“Miss Seraphina Demaris, is it not?”

The way he said her name—careful, deliberate—felt as though he was tasting it, weighing its syllables for worth.

Seraphina inclined her head, composed but not submissive. “Mr. Dekarios.”

A pause stretched just long enough to feel deliberate. Then he added, almost as an afterthought: “Your reputation precedes you.”

His words were polite, but the tone—dry, faintly skeptical—made them anything but complimentary.

Seraphina met his gaze evenly. “As does yours.”

There was the barest flicker at the corner of his mouth, as though he was unaccustomed to being met so directly—and appreciated it, if only in spite of himself.

The glade was soon alive with easy laughter and clinking glasses, the silver dishes gleaming in dappled sunlight as Lily presided with polished grace. Celeste strummed a light-hearted tune on a borrowed lyre—mocking Lily’s insistence that she leave her lute behind—and Wyll gamely tried to match her irreverence with tales of naval exploits that surely owed more to fancy than fact.

Astarion lingered near the curve of an ancient oak, the picture of indolent grace, one ankle crossed over the other and a glass of wine poised carelessly in his hand. His attentions moved with sly precision: one moment, he had bent low beside Lily’s seat, his voice pitched low enough to carry only to her ear—a salacious morsel of gossip, wickedly timed and wittily phrased, that drew a ripple of genuine laughter from her despite her efforts at decorum.

Before the sound of her mirth had faded, he straightened again with feline ease, stepping lightly to Celeste’s side as she plucked at her lute. Without hesitation, he joined her song—a harmony half-mocking, half-exquisite—his pale gaze bright with mischief as though this entire picnic were a private stage for his amusement.

Nearer the edge of the gathering, where the wildflowers pressed into the glade and the conversation grew less raucous, Halsin stood with Gale and Seraphina, his easy manner a balm against Gale’s evident reserve.

Jenevelle Ravengard perched stiffly at the outer edge of the group, parasol tilted just so, her cool gaze flitting from one sister to the next—each glance a silent indictment.

It was Halsin who broke the quiet with gentle intent, turning to Gale with a smile that reached his thoughtful eyes.

“I recall you asked me once about the age of the standing stones just beyond the orchard,” he said. “Miss Seraphina has studied them, you know—she might share more than I ever could about their markings.”

At this, Gale turned slightly, his gaze finding Seraphina again with that same measured curiosity—polite detachment shading into something keener.

“Indeed?” he said, his voice low, precise. “Their markings are early Netherese, if I am not mistaken.”

Seraphina inclined her head, resisting the urge to smile at his cautious phrasing.

“Partially,” she replied. “The stones themselves predate Netheril, but many were re-inscribed during the height of their empire’s influence—likely in an attempt to claim older sites for their own mythic legacy.”

Her answer, cool and deft, seemed to catch Gale’s attention more than all the practiced charm that swirled at the center of the picnic.

He regarded her closely.

“Fascinating,” he murmured. “You surprise me, Miss Demaris. I would have assumed your household was… otherwise occupied.”

Seraphina met this with a calm arch of her brow.

“We manage both conversation and scholarship,” she said. “Even in so modest a household as ours.”

That bare flicker of a smile ghosted across Gale’s mouth—not warmth, exactly, but recognition. Respect.

Jenevelle, standing not far from them, interjected coolly before more could pass between them.

“I doubt most in this company could read a Netherese sigil from a cook’s recipe, Mr. Dekarios.”

Her words cut neatly through the air, her disapproval sharp as her parasol’s silver tip.

Seraphina, however, did not rise to the barb; she allowed her silence to convey more than any retort could.

It was Gale who surprised her again:

“True,” he said smoothly, glancing toward Jenevelle with just a hint of dry amusement. “But perhaps that is precisely why today’s conversation is proving… unexpectedly worthwhile.”

Halsin, catching Seraphina’s eye, gave her a wink behind Gale’s back—wordless but fond, as if acknowledging that her poise had already won a small victory.

Meanwhile, across the glade, Lily’s laughter rang out over Celeste’s teasing verse, while Wyll recounted a tale of a shipwreck that could not possibly have happened on any sea known to Faerûn. Celeste, plucked a lazy chord on her borrowed lyre and murmured to no one in particular, “Mark me—he’ll choose Phina in the end. The one who won’t lift a finger to win him.”

The scene around them was bright and airy—Lily’s laughter spilling like wine, Celeste and Astarion trading teasing verses of some irreverent song, Wyll laughing obligingly while Halsin presided over the gathering like a genial oak come to life. But here, at the edge of it all, Seraphina found herself beside Gale Dekarios, who looked as though he would rather be anywhere but among linen-clad guests and woodland wildflowers.

He cleared his throat softly, not quite looking at her, his gaze fixed somewhere in the near distance where sunlight dappled the moss. “It seems… unusually clement weather for such an expedition. I take it the county does not always oblige its hosts so kindly.”

Seraphina gave him a measured glance, sensing his discomfort but appreciating the effort. “You suspect the weather itself has been arranged for your benefit, Mr. Dekarios?”

His lips twitched. “No, I suspect everything else has been arranged for my benefit. The weather is merely cooperating.”

There was a pause—a flicker of acknowledgment between them that neither was entirely fooled by the bucolic innocence of the gathering.

Then, very quietly, he added, “You’ve not much spoken today, Miss Seraphina. And yet—” he turned toward her properly now, his gaze cool and searching, “you seem to prefer observation over performance.”

Seraphina inclined her head, her smile faint but precise. “Is that so rare, Mr. Dekarios?”

“For a woman of your… aptitude?” His gaze sharpened just enough to suggest that he chose the word deliberately. “Yes.”

Her brow lifted, and she replied, lightly but not without steel: “You speak as if you’ve determined my aptitude at a glance.”

“Not at a glance,” he said smoothly. “By proof.”

He made no pretense of his meaning. Of course he had noticed the faint aura of magic about her. Of course he had detected it—the simplest of cantrips to reveal the truth. And of course, her studied silence about it only intrigued him further.

She met his gaze without flinching. “It’s considered impolite to inquire too closely into a lady’s accomplishments, Mr. Dekarios.”

“Indeed,” he murmured. “But it’s considered extraordinary for a lady not to boast of them, when they might recommend her so effectively.”

Seraphina allowed her smile to deepen, serene but unreadable. “Perhaps mine are not so easily recommended.”

Gale’s expression flickered—not quite amusement, but something closer to interest sharpened by suspicion. “That would make you… unusual.”

“And wizards,” she replied gently, “do so love what is unusual.”

That earned her a proper smile at last—wry, almost self-deprecating—but only briefly. He glanced away again, his discomfort never quite leaving him. His finely polished boots, she noted, were utterly unsuited to the forest floor; they sank slightly in the soft loam, and he seemed acutely aware of it.

Then he added, with a kind of weary candor, “I was advised this walk in the woods would reflect well on my character. But I confess, Miss Seraphina, I would rather be indoors. Preferably near a fire, with something difficult to read.”

Seraphina laughed softly—not mockery, but genuine appreciation. “Then we are alike in that.”

Gale turned back toward her sharply, as if that small admission had caught him off-guard. His gaze met hers again—cool, searching, but this time with something warmer beneath it. Recognition, perhaps, or curiosity refined into something finer.

*****

As the shadows lengthened beneath the oaks and the last crumbs of cake were spirited away by daring songbirds, Wyll Ravengard strolled toward Gale, who had retreated—ever so politely—to the edge of the glade, as if the cool shade might shield him from both sunlight and scrutiny.

With his characteristic warmth, Wyll laid a steadying hand on Gale’s shoulder. “You look as though you’d rather be drafting a treaty than attending a picnic,” he said lightly, but his glance was perceptive, the glimmer of camaraderie unmistakable.

Gale managed a faint smile, though his gaze remained fixed on the distant blue haze of the woods. “You know as well as I, Wyll, that this is no idle gathering. Lord Silverbough is affable enough, but his hospitality today serves a purpose.”

“And what purpose is that?” Wyll asked gently, though his tone made clear he already knew the answer.

Gale’s voice lowered, taut with irony but not bitterness. “To remind me that while I may be heir to Dweomerheart’s estate and its library, I am also heir to its obligations. My late uncle married wisely, so they say. My mother urges me to do the same.”

He turned slightly, catching Wyll’s eye at last. “And wise, in her estimation, means advantageous. Preferably a wizard of good breeding. Magic strengthens a house, after all. The Demaris sisters… well, Lily would at least check that particular box, I suppose.”

His gaze drifted toward Seraphina, who stood in the filtered sunlight with perfect composure, utterly unbothered by the quiet scheming that swirled around her.

“She is not an obvious candidate,” Gale said softly, almost to himself. “Neither practiced nor public in her gifts, and entirely too difficult to read.”

Wyll followed his gaze and allowed a knowing smile. “Ah, and isn’t that exactly what makes her interesting?”

Gale huffed a quiet breath—not quite a laugh but not a sigh either. “Interesting, yes. But not… convenient.”

He fell quiet for a moment, the murmur of the gathering wrapping around them—Lily’s laughter bright and artful, Celeste’s irreverent song weaving through Astarion’s occasional quip.

Then, with a bit of wry honesty, Gale added, “Propriety would suggest that if I must attach myself to a Demaris sister, it should be Lily—the eldest, the wizard, the one prepared to stand beside the heir of Dweomerheart without reflection on her worth.”

His gaze drifted back to Seraphina, her stillness almost luminous amid the laughter and music. “And yet… I cannot help but feel my heart should have some say in the matter.”

Wyll’s smile softened—not amused now, but understanding, touched by his own hard-won experience. “That’s the curse, isn’t it?” he said quietly. “We know precisely how these things ought to be arranged—by station, by accomplishment, by convenience. But none of that has ever kept the heart from its quiet rebellion.”

Gale inclined his head slightly, an admission without words.

Wyll clapped his shoulder gently, the gesture easy but firm. “It’s a terrible business, my friend… when duty and desire refuse to align. But take it from a man who knows something of making an ill-thought-out pact, “ if your heart won’t be quiet, you’d best listen to what it’s trying to say.”

Gale didn’t answer at once, his gaze steady on Seraphina’s profile, the pale ribbon at her throat fluttering in the breeze, her expression serene but her mind—he suspected—sharp and full of secrets.

When he spoke at last, his voice was low, almost tender: “I only wish I could be certain… that it’s my heart speaking at all—and not some deeper instinct to chase after the unreadable, the inscrutable, simply because it resists classification.”

Wyll laughed then, soft and rueful. “Ah, well… you’re a wizard. You can’t help but love a riddle.”

Chapter Text

“The eyes of society are sharpest where hearts are most tender.”

— Elamara Aumar, Collected Whispers, Vol. II

My most devoted readers,

One scarcely dares set pen to page for fear of igniting fresh sparks upon already-smoldering scandal—but such is the duty of your humble chronicler, and such is the price of proximity to power.

The Dweomerheart Ball—that storied assembly of silk, starlight, and sorcerous lineage—has come and gone like a summer storm: beautiful, theatrical, and not without a touch of ruin. All who were anyone were in attendance, of course. Some left with favor. Others left in disgrace. And a few—a very few—left with their illusions torn away like tulle from a shattered hem.

The Misses Demaris of Rosemere entered society’s grandest stage in fine form:

Lily, polished as ever, radiant in silver-blue, danced with scandal.

Celeste, barefoot and bewitching, flirted with danger itself.

Seraphina, the quiet one—ah, but she was seen, my darlings. And by none other than Mr. Gale Dekarios, heir to Dweomerheart and arbiter of order in all things arcane.

It seems the matchmakers’ favored daughter is no longer the only sister drawing the gaze of powerful men—or the ire of vigilant women. When the heir’s first dance goes to the wrong sister, and the eldest is later seen beneath moonlight with a gentleman of—shall we say—uncertain appetites, even the garden blooms whisper.

And as for Celeste, well… when a star goes missing in the middle of the ball, one begins to wonder if the constellations themselves are shifting.

One might say the Demaris fortunes rose with the moon—and set just as swiftly.

There will be consequences. There always are.

But the question, dear readers, is who will dare pay them?

— Elamara

The morning of the Dweomerheart Ball rose clear and brilliant, as though the very skies themselves conspired with Lily’s ambitions. Every window of Rosemere was flung open to admit air sweet with lilac and the faint tang of dew on stone; even the birds seemed determined to herald the day as a triumph before the first strains of music began.

For the Demaris sisters, this was no ordinary date in the calendar—it was the occasion. The ball at Dweomerheart was where matches were not merely made but displayed, where the county’s finest families cast their lots for future alliances, and where a clever conversation—or a single dance—could set the course of a lifetime.

In Lily’s mind, this was the culmination of her careful maneuvering: her gown already laid out in pristine elegance; her fan chosen to complement precisely the shade of her ribbon; her scent—subtle but deliberate—meant to enchant without appearing calculated.

Even the house itself seemed transformed. The faded curtains looked suddenly genteel; the tarnished silver gleamed as if determined to reflect a brighter future. The air hummed with anticipation—excitement almost palpable but not untempered by anxiety.

“You must not be too forward, Lily,” Seraphina murmured gently, setting aside the little book she had been reading. Her gaze held a quiet warning. “Mr. Dekarios is no ordinary gentleman. He is a wizard—a powerful one. If you attempt… persuasion”—she let the word hang delicately—“he will surely perceive it.”

Across the room, Celeste gave an inelegant snort, lounging across the settee in her irreverent glory, her dark curls tumbling loose. “Oh, let Lily scheme, Phina. It will all end in delicious humiliation, and we’ll have something new to gossip about.”

Lily’s expression sharpened, but she recovered quickly into polished serenity. “There is nothing wrong with a little guidance,” she replied airily. “I simply mean to encourage the best possible outcome.”

Seraphina’s smile was faint but edged. “Be cautious, Lily. Encouragement and enchantment are not the same—and a wizard like Mr. Dekarios would know the difference.”

Celeste laughed, swinging her feet from the settee. “I rather think he’ll enjoy noticing. Wizards adore puzzles—and you, dear sister, are nothing if not a pretty one.”

Lily lifted her chin, undeterred, her eyes bright with determination. “Well, puzzle or not, I intend this evening to be memorable.”

Lily’s name was already on every matchmaker’s lips as the inevitable choice—the eldest, the most polished, and surely the most fitting match for the heir of Dweomerheart. Polite society required no persuasion to believe that Lily’s beauty and charms would soon secure his affections. Yet among those who observed carefully, it had begun to seem that Mr. Dekarios’s gaze—cool and unreadable as it was—drifted elsewhere… and that elsewhere was Seraphina.

*****

The carriage wheels crunched over the gravel drive, carrying the Demaris sisters toward the great house. Even before they turned onto its winding drive, its reputation preceded it: a place where arcane power and old blood intertwined so completely that the very air was said to shimmer faintly with the residue of centuries of spellcraft.

At first glance, it appeared merely grand—pale stone softened by ivy and moonlit roses. But nothing here was merely anything: turrets gleamed faintly with enchantments; windows reflected back more than candlelight; hedges reshaped themselves overnight; ancient trees whispered in forgotten tongues.

For generations, this had been Mystra’s earthly seat—a house that served as the court of magic itself. To be welcomed here was not mere hospitality. It was an acknowledgment of one’s place in the arcane hierarchy. It was to step into power’s shadow—and perhaps, if one was very careful, into its favor.

Within, the strains of a string quartet drifted through the open doors, the air scented faintly with beeswax, roses, and the sharp tang of magic—a reminder that the house itself was no ordinary country manor, but the seat of an ancient and distinguished arcane lineage.

Lily stepped down first, radiant in a gown of silvery-blue silk like liquid starlight, every movement arranged to catch both light and attention. Celeste followed irrepressibly in midnight-blue satin, silver stars scattered across her bodice and hair. And then Seraphina descended, serene and graceful in soft lilac muslin, unadorned but for the narrow ribbon at her throat—a study in restraint amid her sisters’ brilliance.

A ripple passed through the gathered guests as they crossed the threshold—not mere curiosity, but speculation.

The steward at the door bowed low, announcing them formally:

“The Misses Demaris of Rosemere.”

The announcement, though spoken with perfect neutrality, seemed to ripple through the gathered guests like a stone cast upon still water. Eyes turned—not just toward Lily, as propriety and prediction demanded, but toward the trio as a whole. There was admiration, curiosity… and among the keenest observers, speculation.

The grand hall beyond the threshold was illuminated not merely by candlelight but by an ambient glow that emanated from unseen enchantments woven into the very walls. The chandelier above them hung impossibly suspended without chain or rope, its crystal arms gleaming with captured starlight.

Lily accepted every gaze with flawless poise, her smile perfectly pitched—warm but remote enough to suggest she was already accustomed to such attention. Celeste swept forward on a ripple of irreverence, nodding to no one and everyone at once, her midnight-blue skirts trailing behind her like a comet’s tail.

Seraphina followed last, neither seeking nor shunning attention, but already conscious of its presence. There was a grace to her restraint that did not go unnoticed; where Lily commanded admiration and Celeste invited amusement, Seraphina evoked something subtler—genuine esteem.

She was known, among those who mattered, as the Demaris sister whose conversation was worth having, whose quiet wit and perceptiveness left a lasting impression. Indeed, it was said that even those who professed to admire Lily’s beauty and Celeste’s sparkle preferred to sit beside Seraphina when the evening waned.

Gale Dekarios stood slightly apart from the most prominent cluster of guests, his figure unmistakable in an impeccably tailored black coat whose understated embroidery suggested the constellations themselves. He did not speak, did not smile—but his gaze, sharp and assessing, had already found them.

Already found her.

Polite society’s gaze presumed Lily would claim his attention. But when Gale inclined his head, it was not toward Lily’s gleaming entrance, nor Celeste’s comet-like dash—but Seraphina’s quiet composure.

At that quiet beginning, the night’s true dance had already begun.

Even as the steward’s voice faded and the sisters stepped fully into the ballroom’s splendor, Celeste broke ranks—inevitably, gloriously.

With an impish gleam in her eye and no regard whatsoever for the careful pace of their entrance, she darted across the polished marble floor, skirts lifted just high.

“Captain Ravengard!” she called, her voice lilting just enough to draw glances but not scandal. “You cannot pretend you did not see me arrive.”

The tall officer, resplendent in his dress uniform, turned with a broad smile that was both fond and faintly resigned. Wyll bowed gracefully as she reached him—though it was less a bow of deference than of camaraderie. Around him, several members of his regiment exchanged amused glances, clearly accustomed to Celeste’s particular kind of chaos.

Several officers near him—gentlemen in impeccable coats but with an air of languid detachment—smiled as well, though their smiles carried something cooler, a knowing look that did not quite match Wyll’s warmth.

“Miss Celeste,” Wyll said warmly, offering his arm without hesitation. “I confess it would be impossible not to see you. You arrive like a comet—unpredictable, dazzling, and entirely without warning. To ignore your arrival would be an act of magic I am not capable of.”

One of Wyll’s fellow officers—a lieutenant with an expression halfway between admiration and disbelief —inclined his head gallantly. “We would be honored to provide entertainment, Miss Demaris.”

Celeste’s smile widened, unbothered, even as something subtle and unseen shimmered beneath their words. The officers’ conversation had a practiced ease to it—but their eyes, and the slight, almost imperceptible tension in Wyll’s jaw, spoke of deeper intent.

They were, after all, no ordinary officers. Each bore a commission, fateful, binding, and eternal as a price for their power.—a truth Celeste, with her instinct for mischief but not malice, did not yet fully grasp.

“Careful, Celeste,” Wyll murmured, leaning close, his gaze flickering after the officers. “When they gamble, the stakes are unusually high.”

But Celeste only laughed, tossing a stray curl from her brow. “Then they will find me a poor mark indeed,” she teased. 

Across the ballroom, Lily watched this with a tight smile, noting the contrast between her youngest sister’s heedless charm and her own carefully measured grace.

Seraphina, standing just behind Lily, observed without comment but with the faintest suggestion of amusement. Celeste, at least, would never be accused of subtlety.

Before Lily could step forward for a formal introduction, another figure emerged from the crowd, swift and certain as moonlight slipping between clouds: Mr. Astarion Ancunín, impeccably dressed, his pale features arranged into a smile of perfect charm.

“Miss Lily Demaris,” he said smoothly, his voice low and velvet-soft as he bowed with courtly grace. “Forgive my boldness—but I must claim the first dance before some duller rival has the chance to make his claim. To wait even a moment longer would be… unbearable.”

Lily barely hesitated, airy and delighted, “Oh, Mr. Ancunín, you are incorrigible,” she replied lightly, already offering him her hand as though this too had been part of her plan all along. “But who am I to deny such gallantry? Of course may have my first dance.”

Gale Dekarios watched as Lily, all shining silk and effortless laughter, allowed herself to be led onto the floor by Astarion Ancunín—without so much as glancing back toward the host whose privilege she had just overlooked.

Surprise flickered across his features—swiftly contained—but for an instant his finely ordered expectations scattered like so many chess pieces overturned.

Then, with a breath as if accepting a private jest, he turned smoothly to Seraphina, who stood poised nearby, observing all with her usual quiet composure.

“It would hardly do,” Gale said, his voice low and touched with wry humor, “for the host of this august evening to miss the first dance altogether, would it?”

His expression softened—not quite a smile, but something close—as he extended his hand toward her in courtly invitation.

“Miss Demaris… may I?”

Seraphina blinked, caught wholly off-guard as Gale’s gaze—sharp but not unkind—settled fully upon her. The sudden intimacy of it, the quiet inevitability of his offer, sent an unexpected warmth rising to her cheeks.

“I… of course,” she managed, though the words came a breath late and softer than intended.

Her fingers hesitated just for a heartbeat before finding his, her usual composure faltering in the face of his deliberate courtesy. Yet even as her pulse fluttered, her posture remained straight, her chin lifted—a quiet acknowledgment that one could stumble and still carry oneself with dignity.

And indeed, refusal was impossible. Not merely because he was the host, but because something in the tilt of his head, in that almost-smile, made it clear that this invitation was not simply a matter of decorum.

As the quartet struck the opening notes, Gale led her onto the floor with an ease that belied his own surprise—a wizard’s precision, paired with the smallest hint of amusement at how swiftly the evening’s arrangements had rearranged themselves.

Amid the glint of medals and polished boots, a man stepped forward—a lieutenant with pale gold hair and a smile honed like a blade.

“Miss Celeste Demaris,” he said smoothly, bowing with studied grace, “may I claim the first dance?”

His name was Lieutenant Everard Locke—a name whispered in certain salons where debts were measured in more than coin. His commission, like those of his fellows, bore the seal of the Prince Regent himself—a commission that, though it gleamed in gold thread, was darker than any uniform could reveal.

Celeste, unaware but delighted by his gallantry, set her fingers lightly in his gloved hand. “I had thought to scandalize the floor a little later this evening, Lieutenant Locke—but how could I refuse such a proper invitation?”

“Will you join us after, Miss Demaris?” Locke murmured as they turned, his words a soft promise meant for her ear alone. “A few friends and I gather in a quieter room when this tedious formality concludes. Cards… wine… conversation far more delightful than what the ball allows.”

There was something almost hypnotic about the cadence of his voice, a subtle coaxing that flirted with enchantment but never quite crossed the line.

Celeste tilted her head playfully. “How very tempting, Lieutenant Locke… you must save me a seat at your table.”

His smile deepened—not just polite but pleased, almost triumphant—as the music swelled around them.

Wyll, across the floor, watched with a calm that was far too careful—his back straight, his hands clasped behind him, his dark eyes narrowed just slightly as if weighing when, and how, to intervene.

Jenevelle Ravengard stood at the periphery of the ballroom, her gloved hands folded neatly, her gaze cool and calculating as it swept across the glittering scene.

“Brother,” she murmured, just loud enough for Wyll alone to hear, “you cannot tell me you have failed to notice the spectacle unfolding before us.”

Wyll, ever patient, lifted a brow but offered no immediate reply.

Jenevelle continued, her voice a low, pointed thread of critique: “Miss Lily Demaris has now danced three times with that scandalous Mr. Ancunín—positively parading herself about while Mr. Dekarios, their host, stands all but neglected.”

Her gaze shifted, cutting sharply across the dance floor to where Celeste twirled, laughing too freely in Lieutenant Locke’s arms.

“And Celeste,” she added with a note of icy disbelief, “has—unless my eyes deceive me—discarded her shoes entirely. Barefoot, Wyll. Dancing barefoot, like some wild creature escaped from the hedgerow.”

Wyll allowed himself a smile—small, rueful, but with a glimmer of genuine fondness. “That does rather sound like Celeste.”

“And now you’ll observe,” Jenevelle pressed, her voice low and cutting, “Mr. Dekarios has abandoned Lily entirely in favor of her quiet, forgettable sister. What an embarrassment.”

But Wyll’s patience, long but not infinite, reached its end. He inclined his head slightly toward Jenevelle, his tone smooth but touched with gentle reproach:

“Perhaps, dear sister,” he said, “you might attend to your own dance card rather than policing the choices of everyone else.”

Without waiting for reply, he stepped neatly past her, his military bearing softened by genuine warmth as he crossed to Seraphina and Gale—who stood at the edge of the floor, their conversation polite but shaded with a new and quiet intrigue.

 Wyll bowed lightly before them both. “Miss Seraphina,” he said, addressing Seraphina with careful courtesy but a gleam of brotherly fondness in his eye, “you are much admired this evening—but I would ask, before the night grows too late, that you spare a dance for me.”

Wyll offered her his arm with an irrepressible smile. “Then, if you are willing, the next is mine?”

Gale inclined his head in courtly acknowledgment, a faintly amused look passing over his features as Seraphina accepted.

As they took their place on the floor and the next set began, Wyll’s tone shifted—still light, still respectful, but carrying a note of quiet seriousness meant for her ears alone:

“Forgive my intrusion, Miss Demaris—but I would not be a friend to your family if I did not speak plainly. Your sister Celeste—she is in merry company this evening, but some of her new acquaintances are officers in title only. Their invitations to her after the dancing are not… entirely innocent.”

Seraphina’s brows lifted just slightly, her expression remaining serene for the benefit of onlookers as she absorbed the warning beneath his words.

“She’s drawn their attention,” Wyll added softly, “and they do not all possess the honor they wear on their sleeves.”

And together, they completed the set with effortless grace—each perfectly aware that, even amidst the music and candlelight, the evening’s undercurrents had just grown more complex.

At the edge of the ballroom, Jenevelle Ravengard lingered a moment longer, her gaze tight with resentment as she watched Wyll turn his full attention to Seraphina Demaris. When no glance was spared for his sister, no conciliatory word, her composure thinned to ice.

With a flick of her fan and a small, deliberate turn, she slipped away from the dancers, gliding through the terrace doors and into the cool hush of the garden.

Moonlight silvered the paths, casting pale shadows across clipped hedges and marble urns, and the air was fragrant with night-blooming jasmine and fresh earth. The garden should have offered a balm to her wounded pride—but a soft sound stopped her.

Laughter—soft, warm, unmistakably Lily Demaris’s.

Jenevelle’s sharp eyes narrowed. She stepped lightly along the flagstone path, guided by instinct as much as curiosity, until a darker alcove came into view.

And there, half-sheltered by trailing vines and the shadow of a crumbling stone arch, she saw them: Lily and Mr. Astarion Ancunín.

Their posture alone was damning—Astarion’s body leaned close, too close, his head inclined in a manner that suggested a private intimacy beyond propriety. His face was turned toward Lily’s neck, his lips brushing near the pale skin just below her ear, lingering far longer than any innocent murmur required.

Lily tilted her head back as if encouraging the attention, her gloved hand resting lightly on his shoulder but her expression—half laughter, half languor—betraying no shame.

The moon caught them perfectly: her bared throat gleaming, his pale features shadowed, his mouth too near the place where pulse met skin.

It was a tableau made not for moonlight but for whispers.

Jenevelle’s breath caught—not in shock, but in satisfaction. She lingered just a moment longer, committing every detail to memory: the angle of Lily’s head, the shameless proximity of Astarion’s pale face to her bared throat, the unmistakable implication of clandestine intimacy.

Then, with exquisite calculation, she withdrew—drifting along the shadowed path until she reached the terrace’s edge where the ballroom’s lights spilled faintly onto the stone.

There, within earshot of both guests and servants, she let out a soft gasp—artfully pitched to seem genuine—before allowing herself to stumble deliberately against one of the stone urns.

The clatter was delicate but unmistakable: the soft scrape of stone against stone, the flutter of her skirts as she caught herself in a faint and feminine collapse.

In an instant, conversation at the nearest tables hushed, curious glances flickering toward the terrace doors.

As expected, a nearby footman hurried forward—his movement alone enough to draw the gaze of several matrons seated near the open doors. Their sharp eyes turned just as Jenevelle straightened herself with a graceful, tremulous smile, one hand pressed lightly to her temple as though to suggest a brief faintness.

“Oh, forgive me,” she murmured aloud, just loud enough for those nearest to hear. “The evening air… I’m quite overcome…”

And, as she spoke, the watchers’ gaze followed hers—drawn, naturally, to the very place she allowed her eyes to rest: the shadowed corner of the garden where Lily Demaris and Mr. Ancunín still lingered, caught unaware in their too-intimate pose.

A ripple passed through the gathering—a rustle of fans, a flicker of exchanged glances, a collective breath drawn and held.

Jenevelle lowered her lashes demurely, her smile perfectly serene.

*****

Inside the ballroom, candlelight shimmered over crystal and silk, but Gale and Seraphina stood just beyond the dancers’ sweeping arcs—close enough to feel the music’s rhythm, distant enough to share a conversation untouched by formality.

Gale’s expression, so often reserved, was transformed. A rare ease played across his features, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth as he tilted his head slightly, leaning nearer.

“And you cannot mean it,” he said, his tone dry but his eyes glinting with quiet delight. “You truly prefer The Oracular Compendium to The Collected Letters of Elminster? Miss Demaris, that borders on heresy.”

Seraphina laughed—an unguarded sound, warmer and freer than she had intended. “I do! I find Elminster insufferable after forty pages… but the Compendium has wit, even when it’s absurd.”

His brows lifted with exaggerated scandal. “Wit? Absurdity? Miss Demaris, I was beginning to think you irreproachable, but this… this is a revelation.”

The exchange lingered in a kind of suspended charm—neither performing for the room nor consciously withdrawing from it. When Seraphina’s gaze lifted to meet his fully, there was no mistaking the sincerity in her smile or the warmth in his regard.

For the first time that evening, she felt… chosen. Not by the designs of society, nor by her sister’s schemes, but simply—as herself.

Then—

The music faltered.

A hush spread outward from the terrace doors where murmurs had begun. Heads turned, and the graceful symmetry of the waltz unraveled into confusion and speculation.

Seraphina followed Gale’s glance instinctively, her mirth giving way to a sinking recognition even before the hush fully settled. There, at the threshold, stood Jenevelle Ravengard—her figure pale in the moonlight, one gloved hand pressed dramatically to her temple, and around her a gathering clutch of matrons whose fans fluttered with avid dismay.

Even before Seraphina glimpsed the direction of their gazes—out into the garden—she knew.

Lily. Astarion.

A tableau crafted for scandal, and Jenevelle’s performance ensured that every eye would now follow.

At her side, Gale straightened, the ghost of amusement lingering at the corners of his mouth but tempered now by wry resignation. His voice, pitched just for her ear, was quiet but touched with an almost tender irony.

“It seems your sister has kept her promise,” he murmured. “This evening will be memorable indeed.”

Seraphina’s breath caught—not in shock, but in that sudden, sobering realization that their fleeting intimacy had been swept into the wider currents of society’s judgment.

Her spine straightened almost imperceptibly, the warmth of the moment with Gale folding neatly away as she resumed the role she alone could fulfill: the steady hand, the unflappable sister, the one to manage the inevitable consequences of Lily’s heedless charm and Celeste’s irreverent spirit.

“I beg your pardon, Mr. Dekarios,” she murmured, her voice soft but already distant—formal once more. “It seems my family requires my attention.”

She dipped a quick, impeccable curtsy—a mark of respect not cold but careful—and slipped into the eddying crowd with a grace born less of artifice than of sheer necessity.

The ballroom was already alive with whispers. Matrimonial prospects, reputations, entire futures could teeter in a single instant at Dweomerheart, and Seraphina knew it.

She reached the terrace doors in time to see Lily—radiant, laughing, flushed with delight and unaware or unwilling to acknowledge the full danger of the scene—as Astarion leaned just a shade too close, his pale face still hovering near her neck in a gesture no innocent gentleman would feign.

Even now Lily basked in the attention, wholly convinced of her own control. Seraphina felt a sharp pang of love and frustration—a reminder that it would fall to her, as ever, to sweep up the wreckage.

But there was no time to intervene directly. The matrons already circled like hawks, and Jenevelle’s calculated swoon ensured every eye remained fixed on Lily and Astarion.

Seraphina moved quickly, pivoting back into the ballroom, scanning the crowd—not for Lily, but for Celeste, whose irreverence might now be either their saving grace or their ruin.

Celeste, who—was nowhere to be seen.

A knot tightened in Seraphina’s chest. Not at Celeste’s absence itself—her youngest sister was prone to slipping away—but at the unmistakable chill that threaded through her instincts now. The officers of Wyll’s regiment were clustered together still, wine glasses raised, but their laughter rang false to Seraphina’s ear.

Wyll himself was absent, no doubt distracted by duty or perhaps by the need to manage his sister’s calculated theatrics. The remaining officers smiled too easily, too knowingly… and Celeste’s silver-starred gown was conspicuously missing from their circle.

A new urgency propelled her forward, her movements swift but controlled—a careful dignity masking the worry that now prickled at the edge of her composure.

Whatever Lily had done, whatever scene was unfolding in the garden, it could be managed—but not if Celeste’s absence went unnoticed too long.

For the first time that evening, Seraphina felt the full weight of her solitude. Lily charmed, Celeste sparkled… and only she remained to bear the consequences.

Drawing a careful breath, she made for the far edge of the ballroom, eyes sharp as she searched for any sign of Celeste—her pace quickening, her heart already preparing for what she feared she might find.

Seraphina’s steps quickened as she crossed the ballroom’s marble floor, her gaze cutting keen and searching between the swirls of silk and flashes of epaulette and lace. No silver-starred Celeste. No laughing voice flitting like birdsong among the officers. No sign at all.

Gone.

The certainty settled hard—a cold knot tightening beneath her breastbone, and just as swiftly, her course was set. She turned sharply on her heel and headed for the terrace doors, where Lily still stood, framed in moonlight and scandal, the last lingering whispers of Jenevelle’s faint surrounding her like perfume. Astarion was already withdrawing with a languid bow, his charm undimmed and his conscience, as ever, untouched.

Lily caught sight of Seraphina approaching and arched one perfect brow in mild irritation, her fan fluttering shut as if to ward off an inconvenient draft, but before she could speak, Seraphina seized her wrist—not roughly, but firmly enough to shock Lily into stillness.

“You must come with me,” Seraphina said, her voice low but urgent, a note of iron beneath its customary calm.

Lily blinked in surprise. “Whatever for? I was—”

“Celeste is gone,” Seraphina cut in, her eyes bright with unspoken worry. “And I believe she has been led somewhere she should not go. You are the only one among us who can safely use magic.”

 At that, Lily hesitated—but just long enough for another voice, low and measured, to cut between them,

At that, Lily hesitated—but just long enough for another voice, low and measured, to cut between them.

“Miss Demaris.” It was Gale Dekarios. His tone was quiet, almost gentle, but threaded with something brittle—something that snapped the air taut around them.

Seraphina froze, her fingers still clasped around Lily’s wrist, her heart already braced for what she sensed was about to unfold. When she turned to meet his gaze, she found it as steady and inscrutable as ever—but the warmth she had glimpsed there earlier was gone, banked behind a cool civility that felt far sharper than any rebuke.

“I had thought,” Gale continued, his words precise, each one weighed and deliberate, “that I could set aside what I have observed this evening. That I might… overlook certain improprieties, histories, for the sake of…”

He stopped himself then, a pause as cutting as any accusation, before he resumed with almost painful care, “But it appears I was mistaken.”

His gaze did not waver, and though his voice was soft, it carried with it all the force of finality.

“Your family has made itself a spectacle, Miss Seraphina, a spectacle in every quarter of this house tonight. Your eldest sister flaunting herself in the gardens, your youngest vanished in pursuit of folly, and even you… entangled in scenes that no prudent gentleman could comfortably endure.”

Lily stiffened at his side, her indignation palpable, but it was Seraphina he addressed and Seraphina alone who felt the weight of each word fall.

And yet—it was not the cutting nature of his speech that struck deepest, but the faintest shadow of regret in the way he held himself, as though this censure was as much a grief to deliver as it was a duty.

When he spoke again, it was almost tender.

“I am not a man who permits disorder, Miss Seraphina.  I am Mystra’s chosen, her mortal heir. I cannot attach myself—however tempted—to a family so determined to invite ruin upon itself.”

Seraphina met his gaze steadily, though her throat ached with a thousand unspoken things—explanations she could not give, apologies she would never stoop to offer. Her fingers loosened from Lily’s wrist.

Without flinching, she inclined her head—not coldly, but with a grace so quiet it might almost pass for indifference.

“I understand, Mr. Dekarios,” she said softly. Then, without another word, she turned back to Lily, her voice low and resolute.

“We must go. Celeste is missing.”

Lily faltered then—her anger evaporating in the face of that grim truth—and after a moment’s hesitation, she nodded, slipping into step beside her sister with only a brief, backward glance at Gale.

The two women moved swiftly toward the carriage house, their silks whispering in counterpoint to the murmurs rising behind them.

And Gale remained where he stood, immobile but inwardly undone, the final notes of his rebuke ringing far louder in his own ears than they did among the assembled guests.

The road was dark now, moonlight threading silver over rutted lanes as the carriage swayed and creaked beneath them, leaving Dweomerheart—and its glittering humiliation—behind.

Inside, the lantern swung gently, its light catching on the pale satin of Lily’s abandoned fan and the curve of Seraphina’s gloved hands, folded tightly in her lap.

Neither sister had spoken since leaving the ballroom, but at last Lily broke the silence, her voice softer than usual—almost penitent.

“Why Silverbough?” she asked. “Why not home?”

Seraphina, watching the moonlit hedgerows slip past, answered without turning. “Because Halsin will help us.”

She felt Lily’s quick, skeptical glance but did not flinch.

“Halsin,” she continued, “is not of Mystra’s court, nor does he concern himself with gossip or decorum. He holds his own seat of power—older, wilder… rooted. What scandal means to us, to society—it means nothing to him.”

The creak of the wheels seemed louder for a moment, then Lily spoke again, her tone thoughtful this time.

“You trust him.”

Seraphina allowed herself a small smile—faint but genuine. “Yes. I do.”

For all Lily’s cleverness and charm, it was Seraphina who understood that their troubles now required an ally who would not hesitate, who did not bow to the same polite hierarchies that had so swiftly turned on them tonight.

“Halsin will not mind that Celeste danced barefoot or that you were seen laughing with Astarion beneath the moon,” Seraphina said gently, though with a hint of dry amusement at her sister’s expense. “And he will not mind that I… forgot my place.”

That last phrase lingered—soft but carrying an unspoken ache.

Lily did not answer, but after a long pause she leaned slightly closer, resting her gloved hand atop Seraphina’s.

Outside, the air grew wilder, scented with leaf and woodsmoke as the road wound toward Silverbough’s ancient forest—a place untouched by the ambitions of wizards and society alike.

And in that carriage, under that swinging lantern, the sisters sat together in quiet accord, their roles at last inverted: it was Seraphina leading now, and Lily following, their silks rustling softly as the wheels carried them toward sanctuary—and toward whatever reckoning lay ahead.

Chapter Text

“No one falls from grace quite so quickly as a woman who refuses to kneel.”

— Elamara Aumar, Annotated Correspondence, Vol. IX

My cherished readers,

It is a truth known to every hostess and harlot alike that scandal may be survived, even savored—provided one is the first to speak of it. Yet sometimes, even the most artful spin cannot conceal what lies beneath: the crack of judgment, the echo of boots in the dark, the hush that falls when a name is spoken and no one answers back.

Last night, polite society danced beneath enchanted chandeliers at Dweomerheart. This morning, they whispered over teacups—and not of lace or linens, but of Lilies in the garden, sorceresses gone barefoot, and a host scorned at his own ball.

But, it is not the host’s wounded pride that concerns us now, nor the way Miss Lily Demaris holds court at The Gilded Finch with a rake draped at her side like an accessory. No, my dears—the truest peril blooms in silence.

Miss Celeste Demaris is missing, and  circles that widen from that absence are no longer ruled by gossip or gowns.

They lead, instead, through the wild paths of Silverbough, where a certain druid-lord waits—not with flirtation, but with fury. They lead to Captain Wyll Ravengard, whose uniform bears not only medals, but debts. And they lead, ever darker, toward a place where names are traded like coin, and women of power are taken not as guests… but as gifts.

Is it a scandal? A tragedy? A test of character?

Perhaps all three. But one truth rings clear:

The Season has ended. The hunt has begun.

— Elamara

The night was at its deepest hush when the carriage creaked to a halt before the gates of Silverbough Manor. The road behind them had dwindled into rutted lanes and shadowed forest paths, where moonlight slanted through ancient boughs and wild roses tangled at the verge.

The manor itself waited like a quiet sentinel, its timbers dark and ancient, the moss at its eaves silvered by starlight. No lantern burned in its windows—none were needed. The light glimmered softly from the moon-washed leaves of the great silverbough tree that grew at the heart of the garden, its branches spreading wide and low, as though embracing all beneath them.

The sisters alighted from the carriage in the cool hush of midnight, the manor house rising before them—its old stone softened by ivy and moonlight. It was a place apart, not merely remote but untamed, the encroaching forest seeming to press close around the house as if sheltering it from polite society’s gaze.

Before either sister could lift a hand to the great iron knocker, the door swung inward with a slow creak, revealing Halsin himself—broad-shouldered and half-shadowed, his bare arms crossed loosely over a linen shirt unlaced at the throat, tawny hair rumpled as though he had just risen from sleep… or some wilder rest.

His keen eyes took them in at a glance—no surprise in their depths, only steady welcome.

“You are late,” he said simply, voice deep and rough as old oak, “but not unwelcome. You both look as if the world has had its way with you tonight,” he said, stepping forward to take the reins from the tired coachman.

Lily, ever attuned to detail even in fatigue, felt the faintest thrill of curiosity stir. Why hadn’t they needed to knock? she wondered. Had he slept in the garden itself, like some great bear, stirring at the scent of their arrival? The thought lingered at the edge of fancy as Halsin stepped aside, broad and quiet, allowing them entrance without ceremony.

The manor’s interior was warmly dim, a great fire low but steady on the hearth, casting a golden glow over timber beams and antler hooks, stone floors softened by ancient rugs. The house smelled of woodsmoke, herbs, and something faintly wild—moss or leaf-mould or the breath of the surrounding forest itself.

Without raising his voice, Halsin spoke a word to no one visible, and from some adjoining chamber a housekeeper appeared—a stout, silver-haired woman in a plain apron who needed no explanation. She dipped a brief curtsy, already heading for the kettle.

“Tea,” Halsin murmured, “and a little bread and honey.”

Then, to the sisters—his gaze settling on Seraphina’s composed exhaustion and Lily’s brittle determination: “Sit. And tell me what trouble has driven you here.”

The sisters sank gratefully onto the broad settee near the hearth. The lamplight danced over their gowns—creased and travel-worn now, faint streaks of dust at the hems—and for a moment neither spoke. But it was Seraphina who found her voice first, as she always did when necessity demanded it.

“It is Celeste,” she began. “She is… missing. I cannot say for certain what has happened, but she was last seen in the company of officers from Captain Ravengard’s regiment. Men who… did not carry themselves as true gentlemen should.”

Seraphina’s voice remained steady, but guilt curled beneath every word, a quiet ache she would not speak aloud. It was there in her too-careful posture, in the way her gaze dropped for the briefest instant toward her folded hands, pale against her lap. While her sisters had played their parts—Lily with reckless flirtation, Celeste with irreverence—it had been Seraphina who had let her guard slip, indulging in stolen laughter while folly unfolded around her.

 Halsin, silent until now, straightened. His dark eyes, kind a moment before, narrowed with sudden, feral focus. Beneath his breath, something like a growl vibrated in his chest. The hearthlight caught on the sinews of his neck and shoulders as if he might, at any moment, shrug off his human form and rise into something far older and wilder.

He did not need to ask further questions. He knew what it meant—Wyll’s regiment, men with commissions bearing the seal of the Prince Regent and souls bought dearer than coin. He knew the danger their company represented, and more than that: he understood precisely what kind of threat they might pose to a young woman like Celeste.

Without turning his head, he spoke, his tone clipped and firm, meant to brook no hesitation.

“Jareth,” he called.

A footman appeared almost instantly from the shadows, as though summoned by instinct rather than voice. Young but sharp-eyed, with a soldier’s readiness in his bearing.

“Go to Baldur’s Gate at once,” Halsin ordered. “Find Captain Wyll Ravengard—Wyll, not his father—and tell him he is summoned to Silverbough tonight, without delay. Do not fail to reach him.”

Jareth inclined his head without question and was gone before another word could pass.

Then, at last, Halsin’s gaze returned to the sisters. There was anger still in his dark eyes, but beneath it a protective resolve. He had measured this threat and found it familiar—and unwelcome.

“You did well to come here,” he said quietly, his voice lower now but no less certain. “Whatever business those officers intended… it ends here. I will see to it.”

Lily let out a quiet scoff, her silvery-blue skirts rustling as she shifted in her chair. “This is all quite ridiculous,” she declared, her voice light but edged with irritation. “None of this would have happened had Jenevelle Ravengard kept her jealousy in check. She could not bear that the attention tonight was mine—so she made a scene.”

Her gaze flicked toward Seraphina, not unkind but certainly unrepentant. “I hardly think a few dances and a walk in the garden amount to a catastrophe. And as for Celeste…” She waved a gloved hand, as if to sweep the matter aside. “She’s prone to wandering off, you know that as well as I do. No doubt she’s somewhere being perfectly charming and entirely unconcerned with all this hand-wringing.”

Lily’s smile was polished, almost careless—her confidence undimmed even now. “Truly, we are making too much of it. When the morning comes, I daresay Celeste will return of her own accord, laughing at the whole affair.”

Halsin’s gaze settled on Lily, steady and unflinching, the warm gleam of his golden eyes darkening as he listened to her airy dismissal. 

“You misunderstand me, Miss Demaris,” he said, almost a growl beneath the civility of his tone. He folded his large hands together atop the table, the quiet creak of leather and wood the only sound in the room. “I do not think this is a matter of gossip or mischief or some ordinary moonlit adventure.”

He leaned forward slightly, his voice softer now, but no less grave. “These men — these officers — are not all what they seem. I have heard whispers of their patron’s influence. If Celeste was in their company and has not returned… then I fear the matter is far darker than idle flirtation.”

His gaze moved briefly, almost imperceptibly, to Seraphina — a look of understanding, of quiet acknowledgment for the burden she carried — and then back to Lily, whose polished veneer was beginning, just faintly, to show a crack.

Halsin sat back, broad shoulders easing but his words no less serious: “Whether you believe the danger or not does not change that it is real. And I would not wait for morning to discover what may have become of your sister.”

Then, in a lower rumble, almost to himself: “Wyll must be summoned. At once.”

Lily gave an elegant little shrug, the glimmer of amusement returning to her eyes as if she could simply will the whole matter into something faintly ridiculous. “Well,” she drawled, flicking an invisible speck of dust from her skirts, “if there truly is nefarious intent involved… we should almost certainly send word to Mr. Ancunín. Anytime there is reckless rakishness afoot, he is certainly aware — and quite possibly complicit.”

Her laughter was light, but it did not quite reach her eyes — a brittle charm, carefully applied.

Halsin’s brows rose, not in humor but in grim assessment. He held her gaze for a long moment, letting the weight of silence fall heavy before answering.

“Mr. Ancunín,” he said at last, his voice a low rumble, “is a creature of winks and shadows, and I do not doubt he has made a study of impropriety. But I do not think even he understands the stakes tonight.”

His gaze shifted pointedly between the sisters. “I will not waste time consulting with rakes and wits. The danger is real, and so is my duty to protect those under my roof — even if they do not yet understand the peril they invite.”

He rose to his feet, the chair creaking as it yielded to his height and mass, and called softly to the waiting footman in the hall. “No. Captain Ravengard will know where these men have gone.”

Then, turning back to Lily with a rare severity: “If you still think this absurd, I suggest you pray you are right — for if you are wrong, Miss Demaris… Celeste may already be beyond even my reach.”

After Seraphina’s grim report and Halsin’s curt command to the footman, the sisters had sat together in restless vigil while night crept steadily toward dawn. The fire burned low, lamps guttered and flickered, and outside the tall windows of Silverbough, mist began to gather in the folds of the ancient forest.

Hours passed — the tense, sleepless hours of waiting that weigh heavier than action — before hoofbeats broke the hush at last.

The footman reappeared in the doorway with a brief bow. “Captain Ravengard has arrived, my lord.”

Wyll entered not as the polished guest of a ball but as a soldier summoned to grim business. Dust streaked the hem of his uniform cloak, a faint sheen of sweat at his temple betraying the speed of his journey.

Seraphina rose at once. Despite her fatigue and the crumpled edge of her muslin skirt, she carried herself with perfect grace — but her voice, when she spoke, carried a quiet thread of contrition.

“Captain Ravengard… I owe you an apology,” she said softly, her hands clasped before her. “I did not heed your warning. I thought that I could be watchful enough. And now Celeste… Celeste is missing.”

Wyll’s expression, grave but not unkind, softened fractionally as he met her gaze. “Miss Demaris,” he said gently, “you are not to blame for the choices of men who I myself mistrust.”

Lily had roused at the soft creak of the manor door, a pale sliver of dawn threading through the curtains and gilding her silvery-blue gown where she’d curled carelessly on the settee. One slipper had slipped from her foot sometime in the night, and a lace-edged handkerchief dangled forgotten from her fingers. She blinked against the dawn’s light, her lips parting as she registered the arrival.

Wyll stood just inside, his uniform travel-worn, his dark gaze shadowed but steady.

Halsin, already on his feet with the quiet economy of a man who wasted no motion, greeted Wyll with a nod of acknowledgment but no pleasantries.

“Tell me what you know,” he said, voice low and edged, more growl than speech. The feral timber beneath his words made clear that he had slept little — or perhaps not at all — and that the wild strength beneath his civility was near the surface.

Wyll inclined his head. “The officers in question — Locke and his ilk — they left the ball early. Discreet, but not enough. I know where they might go: a lodge on the outskirts of the county, half-ruinous, a place not meant for respectable company. If they have taken her… it is likely there.”

A muscle jumped in Halsin’s jaw. He turned sharply toward the footman, who stood just beyond the threshold.

“See that my horse is made ready. Now.”

Then he looked back to Seraphina, and his gaze softened fractionally — though the promise it carried was no less fierce for that gentleness.

“Miss Demaris,” he said, “you have my word: Celeste will be found. No matter what road I must ride, or what shadows I must pursue, I will see her safely returned.”

Then Halsin turned to Seraphina, his expression steady but thoughtful, a hint of warmth softening the lines of his face.

“You and your sister are, of course, welcome to remain here as long as you wish,” he continued, “but I have asked the footman to keep the carriage readied, should you prefer to return to Rosemere.”

His tone was measured, practical but kind.

“That may be the wise course,” he added. “If there is news, it may find you there first… and, if by some chance Miss Demaris is correct and Miss Celeste was merely adventuring, she will no doubt be at home by now.”

A pause, heavy but not unkind.

“But know this: whatever you decide, Silverbough remains a sanctuary for you — and I will see Celeste safely home.”

The words held quiet reassurance, free of judgment. He asked no questions about Lily’s indiscretions or Celeste’s folly; he offered no platitudes about society’s inevitable gossip. Only a practical kindness, and a promise that his aid was unconditional.

With that, Halsin inclined his head in a gesture that spoke more like an oath than farewell and turned toward the door, calling for his horse to be made ready.

Lily, who had drifted back to drowsy alertness as Halsin spoke, straightened on the settee and gave an airy little sigh.

“Oh, Seraphina,” she said, smoothing the rumpled folds of her silvery gown with exaggerated delicacy, “we must return to Rosemere at once. I cannot very well amble about the countryside in a dirty evening dress, and truly —  Celeste has likely enjoyed a far better night’s sleep than I.”

Her tone was light, but carried that characteristic blend of self-assurance and practiced insouciance, as if the entire night had been a tiresome inconvenience rather than a descent into scandal and uncertainty.

She rose with languid grace, gathering her gloves and fan as if this were simply the end of an evening, “Besides,” Lily added with a faint, mischievous curve of her lips, “should Celeste come wandering home, it would hardly do for her elder sisters to be absent.”

*****

The carriage rocked gently as it rolled through the shadowed lanes, morning light  catching on the pale trim of Seraphina’s gloves and the shimmering folds of Lily’s silvery-blue gown — now creased and dusted faintly with travel.

They rode in silence for some time, the road quiet save for the soft clatter of hooves and the creak of the wheels.

At last, Lily broke the stillness, her voice light but tinged with weary disdain. “Well. I suppose this is what comes of letting Celeste make her own amusements.”

The words struck an immediate chord of irritation in Seraphina; she turned sharply, her eyes narrowing. “Amusements? Lily, she is missing. You saw those men — Wyll’s warning was not for nothing.”

Lily lifted a hand, fingers fluttering dismissively as if to brush away her sister’s concern. “Oh, Phina, please. She’s likely slipped off somewhere delightful, drinking too much wine and flirting outrageously with some unsuitable officer. Celeste is quite capable of taking care of herself — when she bothers to. She’s a powerful sorceress, you know… if she’d only stop idling about with that lute.”

Her tone was almost airy, but Seraphina caught the glint of something sharper beneath it — frustration perhaps, or even jealousy, though it was buried too deeply to rise fully.

“She is young and reckless,” Seraphina replied coolly, “but that does not mean she’s invincible. And you…” Her voice softened, but there was steel beneath it, “…you are treating this far too lightly.”

Lily sighed dramatically, leaning her head back against the squabs. “I am tired, darling,” sighing as if this conversation itself were an inconvenience. I danced half the night and spent the other half sitting up in that bear’s house while you and Halsin brooded like characters from some dreadful novel. Forgive me if I decline to conjure anxieties. If she’s made a poor choice — as we all do, from time to time, then we shall count in Wyll and Halsin to remedy the situation. Must we truly behave as though the world is ending? Jenevelle certainly seemed delighted to treat every moment as catastrophe.”

A note of genuine bitterness crept in at the mention of Jenevelle’s name.

Seraphina’s fingers tightened over her skirts. “Jenevelle did not invent this scandal, Lily. You handed it to her.”

That struck. Lily’s mouth thinned, but she gave no immediate answer. She simply turned her face toward the window, watching the trees blur past.

After a long moment, she spoke again — quieter, but without surrender. “I do wonder, Phina… what Gale must think of us now.”

Seraphina’s gaze softened despite herself. “He will think what he must.”

But inwardly, Seraphina felt the sting afresh—his words still echoing, deliberate and final, “I cannot attach myself… to a family so determined to invite ruin upon itself.”

The realization was bitter—and humbling.

She had thought herself sensible, discreet, beyond reproach. But tonight she had flirted like a silly girl while chaos bloomed around her—and he had seen it all too clearly.

The carriage rattled over a rut in the lane, pulling her back into the present. Lily’s pale profile glimmered faintly in the morning light, serene as ever, her thoughts already drifting toward new schemes.

Seraphina sat straighter, her chin lifting almost imperceptibly. “So be it,” she thought.

If Mr. Dekarios could judge so easily, let him. She had no time now for regrets—and certainly no patience for wounded pride.

Celeste was missing, Lily would require guidance, and someone—someone—must meet this day with clear eyes and a steady hand.

The sun stood high by the time they reached Rosemere, its pale rays falling softly across the ivy-clad facade, lending the weary old house a grace it did not often claim in daylight. The sisters had scarcely settled—Seraphina in quiet determination, Lily languid but restless—when the sound of hooves on the gravel drive drew their attention.

A moment later, the butler appeared in the doorway, his expression carefully neutral but carrying a hint of suppressed curiosity.

“Mr. Ancunín,” he intoned, “calls upon Miss Lily.”

Before Seraphina could reply, Astarion himself stepped lightly into the hall, all immaculate charm and irreproachable polish, as though the night’s debacle were no more than a dream. He carried an extravagant bouquet—pale roses and sprays of lavender artfully bound in silk ribbon.

His smile, sharp but radiant, was tempered with a disarming humility as he inclined his head. “Forgive the intrusion. I could not allow the day to pass without conveying my… apologies.”

His gaze flicked briefly to Seraphina, who regarded him with cool reserve, then back to Lily—whose air of casual exhaustion transformed, in an instant, into practiced delight.

“Oh, Mr. Ancunín,” she said, rising from the settee with that effortless grace she wielded so well, “you are too kind. But there’s really no need for apology—I found last night… rather delightful.”

Her smile was dazzling but wry, hinting at private amusement.

Astarion gave a low laugh, bowing slightly as he extended the bouquet. “Even so, it would wound me to think I had added to the… complications of the evening.”

Lily accepted the flowers with airy elegance, holding them delicately as though they weighed nothing at all. “Your contrition is noted, sir,” she said, teasing but light. “And accepted. Shall we declare the matter settled?”

Astarion’s smile widened, sly but sincere. “As you wish, Miss Demaris. I live only to serve.”

His tone was smooth, but Seraphina caught something underneath—a keen attentiveness, a subtle watchfulness. It was difficult to know what Astarion truly thought of the night’s scandal, but it was clear that he intended to remain at Lily’s side.

Astarion’s gaze lingered on Lily as she tucked the bouquet into a silvered vase, her every motion artfully unhurried. Then, with a glimmer of mischief lighting his pale features, he allowed himself a languid sigh.

“Truly,” he said, voice low and silken, “I think it rather admirable that I rescued you from what could only have been a dismal fate last night.”

Lily arched a brow, her lips curving into a smile that was equal parts amusement and challenge. “Oh? And what dreadful fate was that, pray?”

He stepped a little closer, tilting his head just so—a conspirator’s lean, a lover’s ease. “Why… an entire evening in the company of Mr. Dekarios, of course,” he murmured, his tone laced with wicked amusement. “A man of impeccable scholarship and… decidedly less impeccable party manners.”

His eyes gleamed as he added, “I daresay you would have been subjected to rapturous discourse on the virtues of cataloging one’s grimoires while all around you society sparkled. I did you a kindness, Miss Lily—a mercy, really.”

Seraphina, who had remained quiet until now, let out a soft exhale that was not quite a laugh but not quite a sigh either. “Kindness is certainly one word for it,” she said dryly.

As Lily arranged the extravagant blooms, the door knocker rang again. This time, it was answered with a touch more formality—Rosemere, despite its faded state, still knew how to stage an entrance.

Lily and Seraphina were still in the drawing room when the butler returned to announce the next caller.

“Mr. Dekarios,” he intoned.

Lily looked up, faintly startled but clearly intrigued, smoothing her skirts as she rose from her languorous seat. Before either sister could fully compose themselves, Gale entered.

He was impeccably turned out despite the hour: dark coat and waistcoat precisely fitted, cravat perfectly arranged, but a trace of shadow lingered beneath his eyes—a man who, perhaps, had not slept as soundly as decorum required.

“Miss Seraphina,” Gale said, “I beg your pardon for calling so early. I came to inquire… I have heard troubling news this morning—of your sister Celeste.”

His tone, though even, carried a note of genuine concern. “It was said she has… well and truly gone missing. I hope—” he hesitated, choosing his words with care, “—that there has been some resolution? Or that you are at least safe at home while inquiries are made, he paused, “ I found this among my books this morning—a volume I believe you were particularly fond of.”

He extended the book toward Seraphina with deliberate courtesy: Her copy of the Oracular Compendium, its familiar spine catching the morning light.

“And,” Gale added, with a glance that flickered toward Lily and back to Seraphina, “I could not in good conscience delay its return, given… all that has transpired, though I will regret the opportunity to read your margin notes.”

Seraphina inclined her head, her voice calm but edged with fatigue. “Thank you, Mr. Dekarios. No… there is no word as yet. We are returned from Silverbough, but Celeste remains missing.”

For the briefest instant, something unreadable flickered across Gale’s face—a tightening around the eyes, a subtle breath caught and held—but he masked it quickly.

Lily, determined as ever to maintain control of the drawing room’s atmosphere, interjected lightly: “Truly, Mr. Dekarios, we are quite recovered from last night’s drama. I’m sure Celeste will turn up shortly, none the worse for wear.”

But her charm fell a little flat in the quiet gravity of the moment. Gale gave her only the most perfunctory nod before returning his attention to Seraphina—a deference that did not go unnoticed.

Astarion’s smile sharpened as he reclined further into his chair, crossing one elegantly booted ankle over the other. His sharp smile softened into something almost earnest—though the glint in his pale eyes suggested mischief barely held in check. He rose fluidly from his languorous pose and turned toward Lily, one hand resting lightly on the back of her chair.

“Perhaps,” he said, voice low and silken, “I could escort you for an hour’s respite, Miss Lily. A diversion might do wonders—for both our nerves. And there is that rather charming little tea house in the village… The Gilded Finch, isn’t it? Surely no better place to be seen today than among polite company, reminding them of your unassailable poise.”

Lily’s brows lifted, an amused curve touching her lips. “Ah… The Gilded Finch. How terribly convenient that you know precisely where we should go, Mr. Ancunín.”

Astarion’s smile widened a fraction. “I am but a humble student of the social landscape, my dear Miss Lily. And what better time to be seen than the morning after society has decided to whisper?”

Before Lily could respond, Gale spoke—his voice quiet but measured, drawing attention not through volume but gravity.

“Miss Seraphina,” he said, addressing her properly, pointedly, with a slight incline of his head, “should you wish it… I might offer some assistance of a more practical sort.”

His gaze was steady but not cold, a trace of that earlier warmth returning as he added, “A scrying spell, perhaps. To determine Celeste’s whereabouts, or at least whether she is within reach of inquiry. I… understand the delicacy, of course, but it would be no trouble. Only say the word.”

There was a faint pause before he continued, more formally now, retreating just slightly. “But I do not wish to intrude.” His glance flickered, almost imperceptibly, toward Lily and Astarion as they prepared to depart—a subtle acknowledgment that he knew his place in this morning’s drama.

“Pray, send word if you wish my aid,” Gale concluded gently. “I shall take my leave for now.”

Seraphina inclined her head, grateful despite herself for Gale’s offer.

 Astarion, ever the predator in velvet gloves, inclined his own head toward Seraphina as well—a faint bow, almost deferential but with that glimmer of amusement intact.

“I shall return Miss Lily safely, of course,” he added smoothly, though his tone carried a playful irreverence that made clear he considered ‘safe’ a flexible concept.

As they departed, Seraphina watched from the window for a long moment. She watched her prospects slip away, arm-in-arm with a gentleman society found deliciously dubious.

The village lay bathed in warm, languorous sunlight as Lily and Astarion made their way toward The Gilded Finch, a vision of practiced nonchalance.

Lily’s gown—a crisp, pale lavender walking dress perfectly suited for a fashionable morning call—was freshly pressed, her gloves immaculate, and her bonnet tied at just the right angle to catch admiration without seeming contrived. Only the faintest dusting of fatigue at her temples hinted at the ordeal of the previous night, and even that she carried as if it were an accessory.

Astarion, walking slower than his usual brisk pace, offered his arm as though he had all the time in the world and intended to be admired for it. 

The bell above the door of The Gilded Finch gave a delicate chime as Lily and Astarion crossed the threshold, but the soft note was immediately swallowed by a sudden, palpable hush.

Every eye turned. Cups hovered halfway to lips, conversations fell into conspicuous silence, and a ripple of disbelieving fascination spread like a tremor through the crowded tearoom.

The hostess, startled into inaction, could only offer a hesitant nod before Lily glided past her without pause, sweeping directly toward the sunlit corner table that offered the most prominence—and therefore, the most scandal. Astarion and Lily, it seemed, were radiantly unrepentant.

It was then that a sharp, familiar voice cut through the murmuring air like a blade.

“Miss Demaris.”

Jenevelle Ravengard stood near the fireplace, her pale gloved hands folded with deliberate grace, her cool gaze fixed on Lily with something very near triumph.

“What extraordinary courage you show this morning,” she continued, her tone soft but carrying easily to every corner of the room. “To flaunt yourself so openly—when only hours ago your family cast such a pall over an otherwise splendid evening.”

Her gaze flicked—almost dismissively—to Astarion, then back to Lily with icy precision. “And to bring… company.”

Lily did not so much as blink. She removed her gloves with unhurried elegance, her smile never wavering, though a faint, imperious tilt of her chin conveyed her disdain more clearly than words.

“Why, Lady Jenevelle,” she replied, her voice honeyed and clear, “how kind of you to greet me so warmly. And how gracious of you to remember that society’s gaze can only rest where there is something worth seeing.”

A murmur swept through the room—half shock, half admiration.

Astarion’s smile widened, a spark of wicked delight sharpening his features as he dipped into an elegant, mocking bow. “Indeed, Lady Jenevelle,” he said smoothly, his voice carrying just enough to be heard at every table, “we would not dream of depriving you of entertainment this afternoon. After all… I imagine you had nothing but an afternoon of tedium and piety planned in our absence.”

His glance—cool and appraising—flicked from her polished gloves to the silver pendant at her throat, a pointed reminder of her reputation for clerical virtue.

A ripple of laughter, sharper now, rippled through the tearoom—some shocked, some delighted.

Astarion straightened, the corners of his mouth curling just slightly further as he added, “How fortunate that Miss Lily and I could rescue you from so dreary a fate.”

Lily settled gracefully into a corner table beneath the bow window. Astarion took the seat opposite her with languid ease, his smile fixed in a posture of amusement that did not quite disguise the sharpness beneath it.

Around them, the Gilded Finch hummed with low voices and not-so-subtle glances. Fans fluttered. Teacups clinked. The ripple of scandal followed them from table to table as if they trailed perfume.

Lily lifted her chin, perfectly composed, her gloved fingers resting lightly on the edge of her saucer. “Such tedious creatures,” she murmured to Astarion, her voice low but unmistakably arch.

“Ah, but delicious in their hypocrisy,” Astarion replied with wicked relish. “You’ve made this room worth visiting today, my dear. It was dreadfully dull before your arrival.”

Their tea arrived—delicate china, steaming infusions, little sugared cakes—all attended by a wide-eyed maid whose curtsy trembled with both nerves and curiosity.

But even as Lily reached for her spoon, her gaze flicked toward the window—and froze.

Across the square, no more than thirty paces away, a knot of officers emerged laughing from a side street, their uniforms unmistakable. They paused before the heavy oak doors of the Raven and Rose—a gentleman’s club infamous for its shadowed back rooms, cards, drink, and far less respectable diversions.

Lieutenant Locke was among them, his pale hair bright in the sunlight, and his laugh—sharp and knowing—carried faintly across the square.

Lily felt Astarion’s gaze shift instantly, following hers. His smile remained, but now it gleamed with a predator’s interest.

“Well,” he murmured, sipping delicately at his tea as though nothing were amiss, “shall we admire their bravado from here, or would you prefer a closer look? I daresay the Raven and Rose is precisely the sort of establishment where a lady such as yourself would be spoken of for decades if glimpsed at the threshold.”

*****

The butler had withdrawn, the door had closed behind Mr. Dekarios, and still Seraphina stood near the window, her hands folded tightly before her as if to anchor herself against the rush of conflicting thoughts.

Gale’s offer had been careful, almost formal—but there had been warmth beneath it, a sincerity that lingered even after he had gone. Pray, send word if you wish my aid, he had said. A simple kindness. A gesture of concern. And yet…

Seraphina felt a hot flush creep beneath her collar at the memory of how she must have appeared last night: flustered, flattered, hopelessly exposed under society’s gaze—and worse, his. She had wanted to believe herself above all that. Composed. Sensible. Immune to scandal’s sting.

Instead, she had spent half the evening wrapped in private laughter at Gale Dekarios’s side—only to be humiliated by her family’s ruinous descent before the night was out.

How could I even speak to him again without inviting further embarrassment? she thought bitterly. To accept his offer of assistance now would feel almost like admitting that his earlier judgment—that their family was a spectacle—had been right.

And yet… she knew his talents could not be dismissed. Scrying. Arcane inquiry. If anyone might pierce the murk around Celeste’s disappearance without the delays of polite inquiry or Wyll’s soldiers, it was Gale.

Her fingers tightened around the folds of her skirt. She hated that she needed his help—and hated more that she still cared how he saw her.

*****

Somewhere far from Rosemere, far from the bright chatter of tea houses and society’s whispers, Celeste Demaris stirred—her wrists bound cruelly behind her, the coarse rope biting into her skin. A faint, bitter taste lingered on her tongue—opium, she suspected, laced into whatever wine they’d offered. Her head ached dully, but her mind was sharp. Furious.

A single lantern swung from an iron hook above her, casting long shadows across the rough stone floor and the damp timbers of what seemed an old hunting lodge. No windows, only the scent of smoke and old ale, the creak of beams shifting in the night.

Beyond the cracked door, she heard them—officers’ voices, laughing low and conspiratorial.

“Did you see her face when the powder took hold?” one said, his tone dripping with cruel amusement.

“She’s a pretty thing, no doubt, powerful too,” murmured another. “The Prince Regent will be very pleased. Such a prize—and so easily won.”

A third voice joined them, colder and more calculating: “We must keep her quiet. His Grace is particular about his acquisitions—and he’ll want this one delivered without scandal.”

Celeste’s eyes flashed in the half-light, her jaw tightening against the surge of helpless fury.

Acquisition. Prize.

She strained against the ropes, testing their knots. Her magic simmered beneath her skin—a thread of power she could barely touch, dulled by whatever they’d given her—but it was there. Waiting.

She would not wait long.

Not for Wyll.

Not for Halsin.

Not even for her sisters.

Her breath steadied, her resolve colder than the stone beneath her.

If they thought her captured, they would soon learn how wrong they were.

Chapter Text

“The amusements of society are rarely so innocent as they appear—

sometimes, they conceal the most terrible designs.”

It is one thing to lose a dance partner; quite another to lose a sister. Whispers wind from Dweomerheart to Silvery Vale of Miss Celeste Demaris—spirited, scandalous, and now… vanished.

The city guard proves unhelpful, the servants murmur of strange lights, and those with sharper tongues speak of omens best left unvoiced. Captain Ravengard returns in haste, bearing tales of sigils burned into stone and bargains whispered in shadow.

A certain druid-lord prowls at the edges of the tale, and Mr. Ancunín is seen far too often at Miss Lily’s side. Yet this scandal has slipped beyond the reach of ballrooms and parlors. Somewhere in the wilds, a door has closed behind our missing sorceress—and polite society may find itself without the key.

The rope burned her wrists, but Celeste Demaris kept perfectly still.

The fibers rasped with every breath, but she neither slumped nor struggled. Instead, she leaned her cheek against the cool stone, listening—not for pity, but for pattern.

Voices drifted from the next room, distorted by distance and the uneven timber of the door. Laughter, low and lazy; the scrape of boots on flagstone; the soft clink of dice in a leather cup.

She counted them carefully.

Five.

Five voices.

Five shadows, their cadence familiar now—two near the hearth, one pacing, and two more by the ale-barrel, murmuring too low for her to catch the words.

If there were only three, she thought, she might have risked it, but five… five meant failure. Five meant being dragged back, bound tighter, drugged deeper.

And she could not afford another mistake.

The bitter tang of laudanum still coated her tongue, but its haze was lifting. Magic simmered beneath her skin—a faint prickle at her fingertips, aching. She had slim recollection of what transpired last night, but her torn dress and the dull ache she felt…everywhere, meant they were powerful.

Outside, a gull called—a single sharp cry in the morning air—and one of the men laughed louder in response.

“The Prince Regent will be pleased,” came Locke’s voice at last, smug and close. “Did you see her eyes? Like a little wildcat. He’ll enjoy that spirit. He always does.”

A low chuckle answered him—a ripple of cruel amusement—but Celeste tuned them out. Her attention was elsewhere now, tracing the pattern of creaking floorboards, mapping their weight and rhythm.

They were too comfortable. Too confident.

Her fingers flexed minutely against the rope, testing not only the knot’s give but the trembling pulse of the Weave itself where it brushed her fingertips

Soon—but not yet.

Two spells… three at most. She would wait for better odds, for arrogance to slacken their guard.

Her mouth curled, just faintly, at the thought.

They had caught her, yes—but they had no idea what they’d done, who she was.

*****

Lily lifted her teacup again, posture immaculate, her smile the very image of unbothered grace—but her gaze remained sharp, sweeping across the square with deliberate ease.

Across the way, a handful of officers loitered before the Raven and Rose’s oak doors, their uniforms impeccable but their air unmistakably idle. They smoked, shuffled their boots on the flagstones, and cast glances down the road as if awaiting someone.

“They’re waiting,” Lily murmured, her voice low but precise.

Astarion’s pale gaze followed hers, his smile languid but his eyes bright with interest. “For whom, one wonders,” he replied.

And then—almost on cue—a figure turned the corner at an unhurried but confident pace. Locke, his pale hair catching the morning light, approached the waiting officers with that same insufferable ease that had marked him at the ball.

As soon as he drew near, the officers straightened—too quickly, too eagerly—and then the laughter began.

It rolled out in a careless wave, brittle with relief and self-satisfaction.

“And the prince himself will be pleased—you’ve delivered the prettiest prize yet, Locke!”

Another officer’s laughter barked out sharp and mean:

“Never thought we’d see her so easily brought low… after all her airs…”

Locke said something then—too low to catch in full—but Lily saw the flash of his smile, narrow and knowing, as he swept a hand through his hair and leaned back against the club’s stone façade.

Lily’s fingers traced the rim of her teacup, her gaze turned not toward the laughing officers but inward, distant, as though the low sunlight glinting off the china had stirred a memory long kept half-buried.

“Celeste was never meant to belong to this family,” she said at last, her voice soft but carrying, her smile faltering into something more ambiguous—almost wistful. “She was found in our garden, you know. Abandoned beneath the old hawthorn tree… on a moonless night.”

She glanced toward Astarion, as if gauging his attention, then looked back to the cup in her hands.

“Swaddled in bloodied linens,” she continued lightly, as if recounting a half-forgotten fairy tale, “a silver coin beneath her tongue and a dagger beside her—a curious little bundle left upon the moss.”

A faint shrug lifted one shoulder, her tone slipping back into its usual airy poise. “It was said she was left as a warning… or a gift. No one quite knew. My parents brought her in, raised her…”

Her gaze sharpened then, just slightly, meeting Astarion’s with a glimmer of something darker beneath her languid exterior.

“But Celeste was never truly ours. Even as a child, she… she was different.”

Lily set down her cup, her fingers curling neatly around the handle, careful and deliberate.

“The hag,” she added, lowering her voice. “That little family scandal everyone imagines was about my father’s debts. But that was never it.”

A bitter amusement touched her lips—a smile that did not reach her eyes.

“No, darling… that bargain wasn’t about coin or land. It was about Celeste.” Her fingers drummed lightly on the saucer.

“She showed signs, even then,” Lily said quietly. “Dark, strange powers no one could name… not even my mother, for all her secrets. Powers that terrified the housemaids, made the horses shy from her touch, turned milk sour overnight.”

She tilted her head faintly, her expression unreadable.

“So my father made his little deal—to protect her, or perhaps to protect us all from her. What price he paid… well, no one ever spoke of that either. But it wasn’t silver, I assure you.”

And then, with a careless flick of her fan, she dismissed the heaviness as if it were nothing more than a passing shadow.

“Perhaps,” she added, tone light as spun sugar but sharpened by implication, “whatever darkness followed her into our garden that night has finally come to call.”

Her smile was dazzling again—chilling in its polish—but her gaze lingered on the officers at the club, and her fingers tightened ever so slightly on her fan’s delicate frame.

Astarion’s breath caught—whether in genuine surprise or simply for effect was impossible to tell—and then he laughed, soft but rich with delight.

“Oh, my dear Miss Lily,” he murmured, leaning forward conspiratorially, his crimson eyes gleaming with wicked amusement. “I confess—I had no idea the Demaris family was even more scandalously enchanting than rumor suggested. A foundling left beneath a hawthorn? A father making shadowy bargains with hags? Bloodied linens and silver coins and… daggers, no less!”

He let out a low, appreciative sigh, one hand resting theatrically over his heart. “It’s positively delightful, utterly delicious.”

Then—just as quickly—his smile sobered, though it did not fade entirely. There was still a glint of something sly in his gaze, but sincerity threaded beneath it, unmistakable.

“But… we should intervene, shouldn’t we?” he asked, his voice softening, growing almost earnest. “For all her mystery—and all her darkness—Celeste is your sister… isn’t she?”

His head tilted slightly, pale fingers toying with the edge of his saucer. “And there are some scandals, Miss Lily, that even I cannot ignore.”

His smile returned then—sharp, knowing, but touched by something warmer beneath.

Lily let out a soft, almost theatrical sigh, though there was a thread of genuine resignation beneath it.

“Of course we should confront him,” she murmured, setting her teacup down with deliberate grace. “Though truly… I rather pity them.”

Her gaze flicked toward the knot of officers across the square, her lips curving into something between a smile and a warning.

“They’ve no idea what kind of trouble they have in store—none whatsoever. And neither, for that matter, do I.”

She glanced sidelong at Astarion then, her expression wry but shadowed. “Celeste has barely cast more than a cantrip in her entire life. But… if she is imperiled—truly imperiled—I have no idea what she might do.”

*****

Seraphina sat alone within the carriage, her gloved hands folded tightly on her lap, her face schooled into a mask of composure—but her thoughts roiled with discomfort.

Gale’s offer had been careful, almost gentle, and yet the prospect of going to him now… she could hardly bear it. To stand before him, after last night—after her easy laughter and careless flirtation, after the spectacle her family had made of themselves—it felt like an admission of everything he must already think.

But there was no alternative. Wyll’s regiment could not be trusted—not now, not when it was likely that very regiment, or elements within it, had facilitated Celeste’s disappearance. Halsin had already ridden into the wilds. Lily… Lily was holding court at The Gilded Finch, all scandalous smiles and arch glances.

There was no one else. If she wanted her sister back—and she did, desperately, she would have to swallow her pride.

The carriage turned sharply, its wheels groaning against the uneven cobbles as it wound through the quiet lanes toward Dweomerheart. The day felt too bright, too sharp against her raw nerves, every passerby seeming to look just a little too long, as if they could see through her composed facade to the fear twisting beneath.

She pressed her hands together more tightly still, willing them to stillness.

In the end, she would ask, even  if it meant humiliation, even if it meant placing herself—once again—beneath the gaze of Gale Dekarios.

The carriage jolted to a halt outside the handsome stone façade of Gale’s house in Dweomerheart, the morning sun glinting on polished brass and mullioned windows. Before the footman could fully descend from the perch, Seraphina was already reaching for the handle herself, anxious to complete what she had come here to do before her nerve deserted her entirely.

The door opened before she could reach for the knocker. Gale himself stood in the threshold, as though he had anticipated her arrival—or perhaps divined it.

He was dressed plainly but immaculately, as always: a dark waistcoat, his shirtsleeves rolled just enough to bare his forearms, the shadow still beneath his eyes. And yet his expression was composed… even gentle.

“Miss Seraphina,” he said quietly, inclining his head. “You honor me.”

That simple greeting made her breath catch, though she swallowed it down quickly. She stepped forward, pausing just within the doorway, hands still clasped before her.

“I come,” she said, voice carefully steady, “because I must ask for your assistance. Celeste… she remains missing. And I cannot—I will not—trust Wyll’s regiment to resolve this. Not when it seems they may have been complicit.”

Gale’s expression sobered immediately, the faint warmth in his eyes replaced by something altogether more serious—a sharp intelligence awakened, an instinct to act.

“I had rather hoped you might,” he murmured, though there was no arrogance in it. “Please… come in.”

He stepped aside, allowing her entrance, and as she crossed the threshold, Seraphina felt her tightly guarded composure waver—just slightly. The air inside smelled faintly of parchment, lavender, tea and something ineffably arcane: a quiet sanctuary set apart from the chaos she carried with her.

Gale shut the door gently behind them, his gaze already searching hers—not for judgment, but for clarity.

“Tell me everything,” he said, his voice low but resolute. “From the beginning.”

Seraphina drew a breath, long and careful, as Gale gestured for her to sit in a deep velvet armchair by the hearth. She remained standing instead, her gloved fingers tightening briefly at her sides.

“I am not here,” she began, “for society’s sake. Nor my own reputation. I need your skill… and your discretion.”

Gale inclined his head once, a precise acknowledgment that asked no questions, offered no commentary—only permission to go on.

“Celeste vanished last night. Taken, I believe. Not by common scoundrels, but by officers who wore the Prince Regent’s livery and moved… differently. Too polished. Too deliberate.”

Her gaze dropped for the briefest instant before she forced it back up, meeting his. “They did not behave as men bound by ordinary duty. There are whispers, you know—always have been. That his regiment is no regiment at all, but… something else. That loyalty runs deeper than crown and country.”

“You are right to be unsettled, Miss Seraphina,” he said. “There are whispers—arcane whispers—that speak of the Prince Regent’s darker predilections. Power… influence… the hold he exerts over his men goes beyond mere command or loyalty.”

Seraphina lowered her gaze just briefly—both relieved and unnerved to hear that her instincts were not hers alone.

“I came to ask whether you might… assist,” she said quietly. “Could you scry her? Locate her?”

“I can try,” he said softly, “but know this: if the force holding her is what I suspect—if it truly emanates from the lower planes—she may be beyond my reach.”

He exhaled slowly, and for a moment his expression gentled—a rare glimpse of the man behind all that erudition.

“But I will try, Miss Seraphina. If you bring me something of hers, I will do all that I can.”

*****

The laudanum’s haze had thinned now, though her head still throbbed at the temples. Her magic felt tantalizingly close, prickling along her fingers and pooling at the base of her throat—but she knew better than to squander it.

Two spells. Three at most. And five men.

She flexed her wrists again, feeling the raw skin where rope bit flesh. Not yet.

Their laughter had settled into an easy cadence again, punctuated by the occasional clatter of dice or clink of tankards. Complacency was returning—a gift she intended to exploit—but it would take more than carelessness to shift the balance.

Beyond the door, Locke’s voice rose above the others, smooth and unctuous. “He’s coming tonight,” he said. “His Grace doesn’t wait long for his prizes.”

A ripple of dark laughter followed, thick with cruelty and anticipation, and Celeste felt her pulse spike.

He. The Prince Regent.

The air felt colder suddenly, though the fire in the adjacent room burned steadily. She’d always known her origins were shadowed, her very presence in the Demaris household a thing of mystery and muttered warnings—but this was different.

This was deliberate. This was fate tightening its noose.

Her fingers brushed the floor, tracing the seam between stone and timber where, just faintly, she could feel a current—a trickle of dampness perhaps, or something deeper.

In the next room, one of the men called for another round, and chairs scraped roughly across flagstone.

Locke’s laughter lingered. “A rare night, gentlemen… and one that will be most richly rewarded.”

Celeste closed her eyes briefly, steadying herself. 

They think they own me. They think I am a prize to be delivered. They have no idea what they have done.

Her breath came shallow, and the rasp of rope against her skin blurred as an old memory rose, sharp and unbidden.

She had been small—perhaps six summers—barefoot beneath the hawthorn tree where they had found her. Alaric Demaris knelt before her, his polished boots forgotten in the dew-damp grass. His hands, so often sure, his fine coat brushing the moss, his silvered hair gleaming in the afternoon sun. His gloved hand cupped her cheek with a tenderness she had long since forgotten.

“You must never use your gifts, darling,” he’d murmured, his voice soft but edged with an intensity she hadn’t understood then. “Not even for play. You don’t know what it is you carry—what it might bring.”

He’d kissed her forehead, lingering a moment longer than necessary, as though memorizing the shape of her innocence, then pulled back, eyes shadowed.

“Promise me, Celeste,” he’d whispered. “Promise me you won’t cast.”

She had promised, but children’s promises are fragile things.

But later, in a fit of childish fury—when Lily had snatched the ribbon from her hair, when cruel words had stung sharper than nettles—Celeste had lifted her hand without thinking.

The surge had been wild and immediate, joy and rage wrapped together.

A flicker of light. A rush of heat.

The barn roof caught first. In moments the stable was an inferno, and through the smoke came screams—terrible, equine screams that haunted Celeste’s dreams even now.

And Lily’s voice—shrill, desperate, breaking on grief: “My pony!”

That dappled mare had been Lily’s joy, her constant companion, her pride before society ever knew her name.

And Alaric—dear, doting Alaric—had gone pale as marble when he’d gathered Celeste in his arms, his embrace shaking but unyielding.

That very night, he’d ridden into the woods, alone, to make his bargain.

She’d known it even then, though no one had spoken of it aloud: the hag in the marsh, the silver chain that appeared the next day in his study, the sudden chill that clung to the house ever after.

It was her fault.

That loss—the whispered ruin of the Demaris name, the quiet withdrawal of old friends and creditors alike—had been hers to bear, though she was too young then to bear it properly.

From that day forward, Lily’s polished grace had always honed to an edge when turned toward her. That cool smile, those sharp little comments… it had all begun with that fire.

And Seraphina? Sweet, careful Phina had never understood why. They were nearly the same age, after all. To her, Celeste had always simply been sister.

But Lily… Lily had lost something precious in that blaze. A pony, yes—but more than that: trust, innocence, and perhaps her place as the cherished eldest.

That had been Celeste’s true inheritance.

The bitterness of it curled cold in her chest even now, a second rope that bound her as surely as the one biting her wrists.

But she was not a child anymore.

Her gaze shifted—sharp, assessing—toward the uneven light pooling beneath the door. The officers’ laughter was still rolling, coarse and thoughtless, but she could sense it softening at the edges, fading into drink and idle boasting.

They still thought her a prize.

Still thought her docile, drugged, tamed.

Her fingers flexed minutely. The Weave stirred in response, simmering just beneath her skin—wild, eager.

Soon. Not yet. But soon.

*****

Lily’s fan snapped shut with a soft click, her wry, shadowed gaze fixed on the officers lingering across the square.

Across the square, Locke tipped back his head and laughed. Whatever tale he had just shared sent the others into fresh amusement.

But Lily’s eyes narrowed slightly, and with a final sip of tea, she rose—flawless as ever, but with a subtle tension now in every line of her posture. “Shall we stroll?” she asked airily, not quite looking at Astarion as she adjusted her gloves. “I feel suddenly in need of… proximity.”

Astarion rose as well, slipping easily into step beside her, offering his arm with exaggerated gallantry. “Ah, Miss Demaris, so bold this morning,” he purred. “But how delicious it is to be scandalous with purpose.”

Just as Lily and Astarion stepped from The Gilded Finch, their pace slow and deliberate, the sound of hooves on cobblestones turned their heads.

A modest carriage had halted just beyond the square; the door opened before the footman could dismount. Seraphina descended in a swirl of soft grey silk, her gloves immaculate but her expression pale and tight, her composure worn as thin as the morning light.

Her gaze locked instantly on her sister—on Lily’s elegant posture and Astarion’s easy, conspiratorial proximity—and something cold and sharp flared in her chest.

The single word—quiet, clipped—halted their progress.

“Lily.”

Seraphina’s voice carried across the square, low but edged with urgency, drawing both Lily and Astarion to a halt.

Lily turned, her expression bright and unbothered, but her gaze sharpened as she took in Seraphina’s pale face and rigid posture. “Phina,” she drawled lightly. “Out so early? Come to join our little promenade?”

Seraphina did not rise to the bait. She stepped forward, lowering her voice but not its intensity. “Lily, don’t,” she murmured, her tone taut with warning. “Not here. Not now.”

But Lily’s smile only widened, polished to a gleam, though a dangerous glitter had crept into her eyes. “Why ever not? He’s right there, darling—right there.” Her fan lifted almost lazily, gesturing with deceptive casualness toward Locke and his cohort still gathered outside the Raven and Rose.

Lily’s smile did not falter, but her voice dropped to a blade’s edge.

“Phina,” she said sweetly, “he knows. He knows what happened to Celeste. Look at him—look at them, laughing as if this is all some grand amusement. And you would have me stroll past as if we haven’t noticed? As if we can simply… wait?”

Seraphina’s reply was immediate, her voice low but firm. “It would be folly to confront him here, Lily. You think he’ll confess? That he’ll simply blurt out where she is over tea and jeers from his friends? All you’ll earn is gossip. More scandal.”

But Lily tilted her head, the curve of her smile turning almost wolfish. “Darling, the scandal has already arrived. The whispers began last night—and I daresay you and your… wizard have done nothing to silence them.”

At that, Seraphina’s breath caught. “You know full well Gale will help. He’s our best hope.”

“And while you wait on hope,” Lily murmured, “I will deal in facts. The fact that Locke is standing right there, basking in his little triumph.”

She stepped closer, her fan snapping shut with a soft, deliberate click. “You can wring your hands and consult your precious wizard, but I will not sit idle while that man laughs at us. He knows what happened. And he will answer.”

Astarion, watching with quiet delight, raised a pale brow and offered a languid aside: “How very thrilling this has become…”

But Seraphina ignored him, her voice tight with urgency now. “Lily, listen to me. I am asking you—begging you—not to be reckless. Not again.”

Her gaze darted briefly to the officers clustered outside the Raven and Rose, then back to her sister, her voice dropping to a fierce undertone.

“Think, Lily. If you confront Locke now, here—he will not confess. He will simply warn them. And what then? His compatriots will panic. They’ll hide her more deeply… or worse.”

She stepped closer, her gloved hand hovering near Lily’s sleeve, not quite touching but pleading all the same.

“Mr. Dekarios warned me,” she continued, her voice a little softer but no less urgent. “He told me—whatever power holds Celeste may not be bound to this world.”

But Lily cut in smoothly, her tone light but edged. “Yes, well… Mr. Dekarios conveniently absent, is he?” Her fan snapped open with a deft flick, concealing the faint flush of frustration rising in her cheeks as she continued, “He  is tucked away in his fine house, scrying into a crystal ball or scribbling in some ancient tome—but I am here. We are here.”

She turned slightly toward the Raven and Rose, her chin lifting in defiance. “And Locke is here, Phina. Right in front of us. Laughing about… whatever he’s done.”

Her gaze sharpened as it met her sister’s, the polish slipping just enough to reveal the steel beneath.

“It would be folly—cowardice—to turn away now.”

Before Seraphina could muster her reply, Astarion’s voice slid into the pause between them, smooth and almost indulgent.

“My dears,” he purred, stepping between them with an exaggerated, almost languid grace, “might I suggest… an elegant compromise?”

He turned slightly, his pale gaze settling on Lily with a glint of mischief beneath the polish. “You and Miss Seraphina could pay a visit to dear Mr. Dekarios—he does so love to be consulted, doesn’t he?—while I,” and here his smile sharpened into something wolfish, “take it upon myself to… slip inside the Raven and Rose. A little reconnaissance, nothing more.”

His gloved hand lifted, fingers brushing the air as though dismissing the danger entirely. “A subtle inquiry here, a charming word there… You’ll have your information, my dear Lily—and the satisfaction of knowing you acted quickly—but without need for a dramatic scene in the street.”

Astarion tilted his head, the glint in his crimson eyes somewhere between mischief and calculation.

“Well,” he murmured, brushing an invisible speck from the cuff of his impeccable coat, “it seems I must make myself useful after all. Why don’t you two lovely creatures go and beg assistance from your handsome wizard? I will… explore the Raven and Rose. Quietly.”

He gave Lily a slight bow, the gesture both deferential and faintly mocking.

“Fear not, Miss Lily. I shall keep my wicked curiosity in check—and return before dusk with something worth whispering over wine.”

Lily’s smile did not quite reach her eyes. “Do take care, Mr. Ancunín,” she replied smoothly, slipping her arm through Seraphina’s as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “It wouldn’t do for you to become tomorrow’s gossip in place of my sister.”

Astarion chuckled low, turning with languid ease toward the shadowed entrance of the Raven and Rose.

“But what a charming scandal it would be,” he called over his shoulder, before vanishing into the cool gloom.

For a heartbeat, Lily watched him disappear, her mask of light indifference firmly in place. Then, with a brisk adjustment of her glove and a flick of her fan, she turned back to Seraphina.

“Well, darling,” she said, her tone airy but edged with genuine intent now, “it seems you’ve won this round. Shall we go plead with your solemn Mr. Dekarios? I am suddenly very much in the mood to take advantage of his formidable mind.”

Seraphina did not immediately reply—her expression tight with worry but also relieved, as if some tenuous cord of control had just been restored.

She gave a small nod, her voice lower but firm. “Thank you, Lily. Truly.”

Lily’s smile tilted wryly as they began walking together toward Dweomerheart, her tone lilting with practiced ease even as her gaze lingered back toward the tavern.

“They’ve no idea what kind of trouble they’ve stirred,” she murmured, half to herself. “And neither do we.”

Then, with a glance sideways at Seraphina—a rare glimpse of something softer beneath her polished exterior—she added quietly, “Let’s pray your Mr. Dekarios has a plan.”

*****

The carriage drew to a smooth halt before the gates of Dweomerheart, the sun now climbing toward its zenith and gilding the stone façade in bright, almost austere light. The house itself looked as serene as ever—but to Seraphina, it seemed charged with new significance.

She descended first, grateful for the steadiness of her gloves against the polished brass rail, but Lily was already a step ahead, smoothing her skirts with perfect nonchalance as she regarded the front door.

“It feels almost improper,” Lily murmured under her breath, “visiting without an invitation. But then again… propriety is hardly our strong suit this week, is it?”

Seraphina shot her a warning glance just as the door opened—precisely timed, as though Gale had anticipated not merely their arrival but their hesitation.

“Miss Seraphina. Miss Lily.” His voice was calm, gracious, but there was a perceptible undercurrent of alertness beneath the greeting—as though he was already engaged in calculations the moment their carriage turned onto the lane.

“Please,” he said, standing aside to usher them in, “come in.”

The drawing room was immaculate as ever, but tea had already been set—and, more tellingly, the large desk near the window was strewn with arcane instruments, scrying foci, and neatly stacked tomes. Clearly, he had not been idle since Seraphina’s earlier visit.

Lily seated herself without invitation, fanning herself with languid precision while her sharp eyes took in every detail. Seraphina, by contrast, stood near the fire, her posture composed but tense.

“We need your help,” Seraphina said simply, no preamble this time.

Gale inclined his head, his gaze steady on her. “And you shall have it.”

He crossed to the hearth, folding his arms—not in dismissal, but in focus.

“But,” he continued smoothly, “there is something you should both know. The magic that shrouds the Prince Regent’s dealings… it is not merely rumor or intrigue. Arcane whispers abound of darker predilections, and the hold he exerts over his regiment is… unnatural. He is no ordinary noble, nor merely a patron of ruthless men. He is, I suspect, something far more dangerous.”

Lily’s brows rose faintly but she said nothing, merely tapping her fan once against her knee.

Seraphina swallowed hard. “Then what can we do?”

Here, Gale’s expression shifted slightly—just a touch of that wry amusement that so often shadowed his brilliance—but there was genuine purpose behind it.

“We invite him to a party,” he said.

That caught them both off guard. Lily blinked first, a small, incredulous laugh escaping before she caught herself.

“A party?” Seraphina repeated, voice tight.

Gale nodded once, precise and calm. “The Regent would not refuse an invitation from me—not as Mystra’s chosen. A summons from Dweomerheart would command his presence. He would not dare decline.”

He paced slowly toward the window, hands clasped lightly behind his back, his voice gaining momentum as he thought aloud. “It gives us an opportunity—a distraction. The Prince cannot both attend such a gathering and continue whatever he is orchestrating in secret.”

His gaze flicked back to them, sharp but kind. “It would buy time. Time for Captain Ravengard to act discreetly… and for Halsin to do whatever it is druids do when called upon to assist.”

The last phrase was delivered with a faintly wry inflection—polite but unmistakably patronizing, as though the very notion of trusting critical matters to the slow rhythms of wild things was, to Gale, an exercise in indulgence.

Lily’s lips twitched, but she did not interrupt. Seraphina, for her part, gave no outward sign of noticing, though there was a flicker of amusement—possibly irritation—in her gaze.

Gale continued, entirely composed. “It would allow those working on your sister’s behalf the time they need, under the cover of society’s most glittering distraction.”

His next words softened, his gaze returning to Seraphina: “And you will both be at the very heart of it. No one will question your presence. No one will imagine that the true game is elsewhere.”

Lily let out a soft, incredulous snort, folding her arms with the practiced ease of a woman about to deliver a barbed remark. “This very night? And how, pray, do you intend to draw all of polite society on such short notice, Mr. Dekarios? Even you cannot conjure a ball out of thin air before sunset.”

Gale turned, one brow lifting with an almost imperceptible smirk, the faintest glint of amusement in his gaze. “Miss Demaris,” he replied, “I have at my disposal the favor of Mystra herself. I assure you, a summons from Dweomerheart is no ordinary invitation.”

He allowed the weight of that to settle, but then added—almost lazily—“And truly, would anyone resist the chance to glimpse the scandalous Misses Demaris on display once again, all within the polite sanctuary of my halls?”

His gaze swept between them, lingering just long enough to make the remark feel deliberate—calculated.

Then, with a pointed glance toward Seraphina, his tone softened but did not lose its edge. “Oh, and do make sure Ancunín arrives in the carriage with you both. His reputation alone will ensure that every whisper in the room is about you—and nothing else.”

Chapter Text

“There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart”

— Elamara Aumar, Collected Whispers, Vol. II

Dearest readers,

The chandeliers of Dweomerheart have seen many evenings of laughter, music, and well-bred intrigue—but on this night, the music would be little more than a prelude to something far less harmonious.

The Regent himself arrived with all the languid grace of a man who believes nothing can touch him, trailed by a pale-haired aide whose watchful gaze was anything but idle. The Misses Demaris descended the staircase as if to greet the court of Faerie itself, their beauty the sort that draws eyes—and conceals intent.

Yet beauty was not the only thing concealed that evening. One heart, beating far from the ballroom’s warmth, fought a battle none of the assembled guests could see—a battle against the pull of a darkness older and hungrier than any polite society could name.

The afternoon light slanted low through the ancient oaks as Wyll Ravengard reined in his mount, damp earth and fallen leaves muffling the hooves’ steady tread. Halsin dismounted beside him, silent as the forest itself, though his broad frame moved with restless impatience.

They had ridden since dawn, following faint tracks that vanished and reappeared like half-forgotten memories—signs of men skilled at covering their trail. A broken branch here. A scuffed stone there.

Neither man spoke at first, but the air between them was taut with shared frustration.

A splash of midnight silk with silver stars embroidered caught the dim light—a scrap of fabric torn and tangled among brambles, delicate and unmistakable: the hem of an evening gown. Wyll knelt, fingers brushing it free. He turned it over slowly, noting the fine weave… and the faint, telltale stain near the torn edge.

He lifted it to his face and inhaled. His expression darkened.

“Opium,” he said at last, grim and quiet. “in sweet port, most likely.”

His gaze traveled further—a broken branch, fresh and sharply snapped, another farther along, and deep scuffs where boots had slipped in mud.

Halsin crouched beside him, brushing moss and damp leaves aside to reveal a crushed patch of earth where footprints tangled and turned back on themselves.

“She put up quite a fight,” Wyll murmured, almost to himself.

Wyll straightened, folding the scrap of silk carefully and tucking it into his coat. His dark gaze swept westward, where gulls wheeled low and the sky darkened with the promise of night.

Halsin’s broad shoulders tensed beneath his plain shirt. “Salt in the air… this trail leads toward the sea.” His gaze hardened, scanning the dimming woods. “Toward the cliffs above Waterdeep, perhaps—or something hidden near the harbor.”

For a moment, the forest seemed too quiet around them, the hush oppressive. Then Halsin straightened, casting Wyll a look shadowed with resolve. “We must press on—but swiftly now. Time is running thin… and I can no longer be sure these woods will guide us as they should.”

The last of the light drained from the canopy as they mounted again, their horses picking their careful way through reed and shadow. Somewhere ahead, beyond bracken and fog, the men they hunted laughed as if they owned the world.

*****

As dusk crept further into Dweomerheart, soft lamplight replaced the last slanting rays of day. A distant chime sounded—a subtle but unmistakable summons—and within moments a maid appeared, curtseying neatly at the doorway.

“Your gowns have arrived, Miss Demaris… Miss Seraphina,” she said gently, her arms filled with tissue-wrapped parcels that bore the unmistakable marks of Waterdeep’s finest modistes. The seal of Maison Cendré gleamed faintly on each ribbon-wrapped bundle.

Lily lifted a brow, turning toward Gale with a look that was half amusement, half intrigue. “Mr. Dekarios,” she murmured, her fan brushing lightly against her lips, “you do surprise me. Had I known you could conjure a new wardrobe at a whim, I might well have given you the honor of the first dance.”

Gale’s smile was subtle but deliberate. “It seemed… efficient,” he replied, not without a trace of satisfaction. “And I took the liberty of ensuring your gowns will suit the evening’s aesthetic precisely. No doubt the Regent would expect nothing less.”

Seraphina accepted her package with quiet grace, though she did not quite meet Gale’s gaze as she murmured her thanks.

Before either sister could speak further, a soft knock interrupted the exchange. A liveried footman stepped inside with a bow.

“Mr. Ancunín has arrived, sir. Shall I show him in?”

Lily’s expression brightened immediately—arch and amused—as she turned to Seraphina. “How efficient and punctual,” she murmured, eyes gleaming with that irrepressible mischief. 

“Do show him in,” Gale said, his voice smooth but lightly sardonic as he gestured toward the door. “The evening cannot properly begin without him.”

As Astarion stepped lightly into the drawing room, immaculate as ever—his coat perfectly tailored, his boots polished to a soft gleam, a spray of lavender tucked into his lapel—he paused to survey the scene with evident delight.

“My, my,” he drawled, “a drawing room full of scandal and silk. Dweomerheart looks almost convivial tonight. Almost.”

His gaze swept to Lily and Seraphina, noting the parcels in their arms. “Tell me—are you dressing for the Regent tonight, or for me?”

Lily let out a low laugh, already turning toward the grand staircase with her parcels in hand. “I shall dress quickly, Mr. Ancunín,” she called over her shoulder, her voice lilting but edged with intent. “The entire city will soon be watching… and it would hardly do to be late for such a spectacle.”

Seraphina followed in her sister’s wake, though her posture remained taut, her mind clearly elsewhere.

Gale lingered for a moment, watching them ascend before turning to Astarion with a faint, dry smile.

Gale’s gaze settled coolly on Astarion as he approached, his expression unreadable but his voice low and deliberate:

“Charm them if you must, Ancunín,” he murmured, the name edged with faint condescension, “but stay close. This is no mere soirée. The real work begins tonight—and I trust you won’t mistake spectacle for strategy.”

He inclined his head just enough to feign courtesy, his voice cutting smooth and cold as silk:

“Of course, Master Dekarios. I wouldn’t dream of distracting from your soirée,” Then, leaning in ever so slightly, letting just the barest flicker of challenge enter his tone, “Though one wonders, truly—did you summon me here tonight to hear what I learned at the Raven and Rose… or simply to savor the sound of your own derision?”

Gale did not so much as blink.

He inclined his head a fraction, tone clipped and utterly calm—an air of weary command more than genuine curiosity:

“Did you learn anything that might actually prove useful, Ancunín? Speak quickly, if you please.” His gaze swept over the waiting room with deliberate detachment, already calculating the next step. “I too must dress for the evening, and I should prefer your report not delay me.”

Astarion gave an elegant, deliberately slow shrug, pale fingers brushing an imaginary speck from his sleeve before he reached inside his coat.

“Oh, I did learn something, Master Dekarios,” he purred, drawing out a folded scrap of parchment.”

“While charming one of Locke’s friends—he was terribly obliging, by the way—I happened to relieve him of this.” He flicked it lightly toward Gale. “Even you might find this scandalous trifle interesting.”

Gale caught it neatly, already smoothing the crumpled note between his fingers as his gaze sharpened. “Good gods, Ancunin, this is the Regent’s seal.” He immediately recognized the deep red wax stamped with the Regent’s personal signet—a stylized crowned lion entwined with arcane runes. “I admit I am surprised you didn’t open it.”

Astarion’s smile curled wickedly as he tipped his head, crimson eyes gleaming with mock-innocence, “I may be a libertine, Master Dekarios, but I’m not a fool. Curiosity is a vice I indulge often, but not so recklessly as to meddle with wax that hums with infernal menace. I thought it best, this once, to let discretion triumph over curiosity—a rare occurrence, I assure you.”

Gale’s brow furrowed as he broke the seal with deliberate care, the wax parting beneath his thumb like brittle bone. He unfolded the letter slowly, eyes scanning the first few lines—his expression darkening almost at once, “It’s addressed not to one of his officers… , but to an Eidothea, an oddly fey name,” he murmured, more to himself than to Astarion, his voice low and tight with dawning realization. “This has the hallmark of a hag’s bargain. This is no mere order—it’s a promise… a bargain still unfolding.”

His thumb traced the script, reading under his breath: “… the girl will be delivered… you will have your new vessel… the debt fulfilled…”

Then, with a quiet scoff as realization dawned further:

“The Regent’s debts are coming due… and Celeste is to be the payment.”

But before he could continue, the soft click of heels on polished wood drew his gaze upward—Lily and Seraphina descending the grand staircase, gowns immaculate, their expressions equally so.

Lily’s voice, light and pointed, carried easily across the room.

“My, my… such solemn faces, and neither gentleman dressed for company. Shall we cancel the evening altogether?” Her cool gaze lingered briefly on Gale’s furrowed brow, the letter still open in his hand.

Gale cleared his throat, hastily folding the parchment and slipping it inside his coat with studied nonchalance, “Merely… last-minute details,” he murmured, the words almost an evasion. “Nothing for you to trouble yourselves with, Miss Lily.”

Before the silence could stretch too long, Astarion stepped forward with effortless grace, his crimson gaze warming as it settled on Lily, “A thousand apologies for our negligence, Miss Lily,” he purred, sweeping her into a playful twirl before releasing her with an exaggerated bow, one arm crossed theatrically over his chest. “How could we dare keep such company waiting?”

His smile gleamed—sharp but sincere—and he straightened, tilting his head slightly as if in apology, “I shall amend my shameful state at once… I wouldn’t dream of disappointing you further this evening.”

Without awaiting further reply, he turned and strode lightly from the room, the faintest hint of mischief still curling at the corner of his mouth.

Gale inclined his head, recovering his composure with cool efficiency.

“If you will excuse me as well, ladies… I have arrangements to complete and, it seems, attire to attend to.”

His gaze flickered briefly to Seraphina—a quiet reassurance there, subtle but certain—before he moved toward the door.

*****

The dusk pressed close around the old lodge where Celeste lay bound, but inside her, the shadows had begun to shift.

The drug’s fog had thinned to nothing now—leaving only clarity, sharp as a blade, and rage cold enough to hone it.

Her breath slowed, her fingers flexed against the ropes once more, but this time she felt something different: her pulse moving with the Weave itself, magic gathering beneath her skin with the familiar hum of inevitability.

Beyond the door, the men still laughed. The scrape of dice. The clink of pewter mugs. A bawdy joke tossed back and forth. 

Locke’s voice rose above them all, “We’ll deliver her tonight—before moonrise. Then this whole affair will be behind us. She’s docile enough now… The Regent will be pleased.”

Her fingers burned with latent energy, her wrists raw but strong. The knot at her back would give way with a single searing word, a single surge of will—and she was ready. She inhaled slowly, letting that power coil inside her, not wild this time but sharp, focused—enraged. 

With one final breath, she spoke the first syllable—low, almost gentle—and the ropes at her wrists began to smoke, a tiny cantrip, nothing more. Just enough heat to loosen the knot, to blacken and fray the coarse fibers.

Her heart hammered in her chest, not with fear but with focus.

She dared not do more—her magic would sing too loudly if she did. A single spark, a single slip, and they would come storming through that door before she was ready.

Their laughter had quieted now—cards dealt again, the scrape of mugs, a snort of amusement. Locke’s voice, smooth and confident, drifted through the wood, “By this time tomorrow, we’ll be enjoying a proper bounty from this little adventure… the Prince will be generous when he’s rid of that… burden.”

Celeste’s jaw tightened.

Burden.

Her fingers slipped free. The ropes fell, blackened and frayed, into her lap. Her hands trembled—not from weakness, but from the coiled force waiting to be unleashed.

She could hear her blood in her ears, a hot, insistent drumbeat that thrummed in time with the Weave itself—shimmering, humming, calling. It wanted her to speak. To burn. To strike.

Not carefully, not with the precision she had practiced so painfully since childhood—but with fury. With ruinous abandon. That dark pull—always there, always whispering just beneath her careful smiles and sweet songs—rose now like a tide.

Why wait? it murmured. Why plan? Rend. Ruin. Let them suffer.

She felt it coil beneath her skin, as much a part of her as breath itself: that hunger for mayhem she had denied since childhood, since that day in the barn when flame had leapt at her careless command and stolen Lily’s pony—and so much more.

But still she waited, her palms flat against the cold stone, trembling not with fear but with restraint. The shadows under the door shifted.

She could almost taste the moment her control would snap—the thrill, the satisfaction of unleashing it all and letting them burn for what they had done, for every time she had swallowed this urge and played the docile sister.

She did not wait another moment. The dark urge, so long leashed, surged—hot and wild.

Her fingers curled as the cantrip completed its work: the ropes at her wrists crumbled to ash, leaving raw, bleeding skin, but she barely felt it. In the same breath, she rose—no hesitation, no subtlety—and flung open the door with a crack that silenced the laughter beyond.

The officers barely had time to turn.

Her hand swept up, magic surging to meet her fury—raw, untamed, too much. The first spell that left her lips wasn’t one she had practiced or polished. It simply was. A blast of force caught the nearest man full in the chest; ribs cracked audibly as he was hurled backward into the hearth, his skull striking the stone mantel with a wet, final sound.

Another officer lunged, but she was faster—too fast. Her second spell lashed out in a streak of silver flame, curling not merely around his limbs but through them, searing flesh from bone. His scream tore the air but ended abruptly as he collapsed in a smoking heap.

The others scrambled for weapons, shouting for order, but they had no order left to muster.

Her third spell tore free—a jagged, shrieking tendril of shadow that impaled a third man through the throat, blood gouting as he dropped his pistol and fell.

Three down.

The last two hesitated—and in that instant, she laughed. A terrible, mirthless laugh that startled them as much as her violence, “Did you think me tame?” she spat. “Did you think me docile?”

The fourth man drew steel—but too slowly. She swept the blade aside with a pulse of raw force and caught him with a burst of magic at close range: his chest burst open, blood splattering across the timbered walls, hot and thick

The fourth spell formed on her lips—a curse sharp as glass, meant for Locke’s fleeing back—but the Weave buckled beneath her. Magic surged—not as she commanded but as it willed—rushing too fast, too hot, overwhelming her fragile control.

The floor beneath her feet shimmered, the air crackling with invisible arcs, and suddenly the spell twisted—turned inward—before she could contain it. A pulse of energy burst from her chest, not outward but collapsing back upon her.

Her knees gave way at once, the room tilting wildly as her vision blurred. Her fingers, blood-slick and trembling, scrabbled at the stones but found no purchase. Her last thought, as darkness swept over her, was bitter, almost laughing, Not three spells… not even three…

Then she was down—limp amidst the wreckage she had wrought—just as the remaining officers’ shouted panic gave way to grim silence.

Locke’s voice—calm, cold, almost admiring, “Fetch her. She won’t fight again tonight.”

*****

The lamps of Dweomerheart had been lit one by one as twilight deepened, their soft golden glow spilling onto the gravel drive and casting gentle shadows along the carved stone lintels. The wide doors stood open now, and already the sound of laughter, silk, and polished boots drifted into the night air—polite society arriving precisely as summoned.

Inside, the drawing rooms had been transformed: garlands of ivy and lavender roses draped the balustrades; candlelight flickered in crystal sconces; and music, delicate and refined, floated from a string quartet stationed discreetly near the far hearth.

At the grand entry, Gale himself stood in dark formal dress, perfectly composed, his cravat immaculate, a silver pin glinting at his throat—a subtle token of Mystra’s favor.

The first guests came in pairs and clusters: magistrates in austere black velvet, merchant princes’ daughters whispering behind jeweled fans, minor lords and their sharp-eyed wives eager for gossip and spectacle alike.

And then, the ripple of true notice—a hush that swept the room even before his presence was formally announced.

The Prince Regent had arrived.

He crossed the threshold with unhurried ease, draped in deep wine-colored velvet, the gold embroidery at his cuffs and collar gleaming faintly even in the candlelight. His bearing was regal, composed to the point of arrogance, but there was a hollowness behind his smile—a shadowed stillness in the way his eyes swept the room.

At his side, an aide—a young officer with a narrow face and pale hair—kept close watch on the crowd, while another lackey followed behind bearing the Regent’s heavy cloak.

Gale inclined his head just enough to convey politeness but not deference. “Your Grace,” he murmured smoothly, “we are honored.”

The Regent’s lips curved faintly—a smile without warmth. “How could I refuse such an invitation, Master Dekarios,” he replied, his voice rich and easy. “A summons from Mystra’s own Chosen… and,” his gaze flicked beyond Gale toward the descending figures on the staircase, “from such distinguished hostesses as well.”

At the top of the grand staircase, Lily paused just long enough for every head to turn—a vision in pale silk shot with silver thread, her fan half-open at her side. Every gaze in the room followed them as they descended—scandal embodied, reputation both ruined and newly fascinating.

Seraphina followed, a study in quiet grace, her expression composed but shadowed beneath her careful smile. Gale had chosen her gown himself—a choice few would suspect, but one that spoke volumes.

Where Lily’s dress shimmered boldly with scandalous allure, Seraphina’s was a portrait of restraint and elegance: a gown of soft green velvet, rich  as moss in twilight. Its golden embellishments—delicate filigree embroidery at the sleeves and hem, with tiny gilded leaves curling along the bodice—caught the candlelight and echoed the warm flecks of amber in her hazel eyes. 

The neckline was modest but precise, edged in a fine border of tiny seed pearls, neither ostentatious nor plain. At her throat gleamed a slender gold clasp, shaped like a tiny, knotted star—the same star that adorned the lintel above Dweomerheart’s great door, a quiet, personal touch few would recognize but which Gale had chosen deliberately.

The effect was striking without demanding attention; dignified yet unmistakably thoughtful. Seraphina, clad thus, seemed to stand apart from the swirling tide of gossip and spectacle, a calm in the midst of carefully cultivated chaos.

For a fleeting instant, as she descended, the hum of conversation faltered—a ripple of silence acknowledging grace, not grandeur.

Gale’s gaze, though he did not rise from his place beside the hearth, followed her closely. He noted the careful placement of her gloved hand upon the balustrade, the almost imperceptible tightening of her fingers—proof that beneath her composed exterior, her heart beat fast and her nerves were taut.

And in that moment, beneath all the layers of calculation and responsibility, Gale felt something sharpen and ache in his chest: You are the one who belongs here, truly, he thought. Not as ornament, nor scandal, nor pawn—but as the mind and spirit this house was meant to shelter.

But the thought was fleeting. The evening demanded discipline; sentiment would serve no one.

He composed his expression and turned his attention outward just as the Regent himself—darkly imposing in tailored black, a silver pin at his throat flashing like a blade—stepped forward with a smooth bow.

“Miss Lily,” the Regent drawled, his voice languid but sharp-edged, “how… radiant you look this evening. It seems all of the Sword Coast gathers here tonight to admire the infamous Misses Demaris.”

The Regent’s gaze lingered on Lily, the faintest smirk curling at the corner of his mouth—a predator savoring a performance he believed was already his, but before Lily could respond, Gale stepped forward smoothly, his tone polite but edged with steel beneath its civility.

“Your Grace,” he said, inclining his head with impeccable formality, “it seemed only fitting to invite those who embody the liveliest subjects of conversation this season.” His gaze flicked—sharp, precise—to the Regent’s eyes, and though his smile remained, it no longer reached them.

“After all, your taste for… scandal,” Gale continued softly, “is well known to be impeccable. The Misses Demaris could hardly be omitted from an evening designed to please such refined appetites.” The words hung there a moment longer than necessary—perfectly balanced between flattery and accusation—before Gale turned just slightly, a host again, gesturing smoothly to the assembled crowd.

“Do enjoy the hospitality of Dweomerheart, Your Grace,” he finished, voice soft but unmistakably pointed. “I should hate for you to feel… overlooked.”

As the Regent drifted further into the crowd, receiving bows and simpering greetings with idle grace, Gale’s hand came to rest lightly on Astarion’s sleeve—a touch that would pass unnoticed by any casual observer, but one that halted the vampire-spawn neatly in his path.

“Ancunín,” Gale murmured, voice low but edged with quiet urgency, “walk with me a moment.”

They stepped aside into the shadowed recess near one of the tall windows, where the candlelight dimmed and the hum of conversation softened to a background murmur. Gale turned just slightly, angling his body so that he could observe both Astarion and the Regent across the room, without seeming to do so.

“Listen closely,” he said, his voice pitched for Astarion’s ears alone. “If the Regent means to complete this bargain tonight—as I strongly suspect—he or one of his confidants will carry written terms. A contract. Confirmation that the debt is discharged upon Celeste’s… delivery.”

Gale’s gaze sharpened, the candlelight catching the faintest glint of calculation in his eye, “Find it,” he said softly. “Before the night’s end. And if possible, before he knows it’s missing.”

He allowed the faintest curve of a sardonic smile to touch his lips then—a brief flash of humor beneath the gravity.

“You are so very good at slipping things from pockets when attention is elsewhere, are you not? I leave this to your discretion—quietly, Ancunín. Quietly… but thoroughly.” Then , already turning back toward the gathering, his parting words:

“The Regent will have prepared for public eyes. What matters will be kept close—on his person, or with a trusted aide. Watch carefully. We need that document if we are to understand the true shape of this night.”

Astarion reappeared at Lily’s elbow as if summoned by her very breath, his smile languid but his crimson eyes bright with purpose. He bowed low—just slightly extravagant—and murmured so that only she could hear:

“Miss Demaris… you are, if I may say so, utterly wasted upon mere admiration tonight.” He straightened, a playful gleam catching as his gaze flicked toward the Regent across the ballroom. “A thought occurred as I observed your… effortless command of every gaze in this room. Might you lend your considerable talents toward a minor service?”

His voice lowered—silken and conspiratorial. “I require… a distraction. Something subtle, of course—but sufficient to occupy His Grace’s wandering attention while I… liberate something from the care of his dreary aide.”

His smile sharpened, tilting into mischief. “You would not need to do much, darling. A whisper, a glance—a well-placed enchantment, perhaps? Your wit is already half a spell in this room. Why not… finish the work?”

He inclined his head, perfectly deferential but wickedly amused. “What say you, Miss Lily? Might you weave a little magic on my behalf? I dare say few things would give me more pleasure than knowing the Regent himself had fallen victim to your charms while I… worked.”

“How could I refuse such a request, Mr. Ancunín? Certainly pleasing you gives me equal pleasure.” As her fan snapped shut with delicate precision and a glimmer of real mischief danced in her eyes. “Though perhaps,” she murmured, leaning in just enough to let her breath brush his ear, “a mere flirtation will not suffice tonight.”

She straightened, serene and radiant as ever, glancing across the room to where Gale conversed with a knot of dignitaries, “A more… elaborate enchantment may be required. The Regent fancies himself a connoisseur of society’s finer entertainments, does he not?”

Her voice lowered further, almost a purr. “I think it time Mr. Dekarios invited me to the pianoforte—let me cast my spell in plain sight. A melody… an old, lilting tune, sweetened by magic and song, to lull the entire company into complacency. Even His Grace would not resist.”

Her fan tapped against her wrist, a playful flourish as she added, “You will know precisely when to act, Mr. Ancunín. The company’s breath itself will slow beneath my fingers on those keys.”

Lily moved through the crowd with practiced ease, a ripple of pale silk and silver thread among the darker velvets of society’s finest. When she reached Gale’s side, she did not immediately interrupt—she merely rested a gloved hand lightly on his sleeve, waiting until his conversation lulled, then murmured softly:

“Mr. Dekarios, might I beg a small indulgence?”

Gale turned toward her, one brow arching as he read the glimmer of mischief in her gaze. “You hardly seem the sort to beg, Miss Lily,” he replied dryly. “And I suspect whatever you ask will not be small.”

Her smile was dazzling. “Astute, as ever,” she purred, lowering her voice further so only he could hear. “Mr. Ancunin has asked that I… create a diversion—one sufficient to distract the Regent and his dear aide.”

She lifted her chin, affecting a look of innocent confidence. “I propose something elegant, tasteful, and entirely suited to your… aesthetic.” Her fan flicked open, as if to shield her next words. “Invite me to play your pianoforte, Mr. Dekarios. I shall enchant the melody itself—something lilting and soft, a spell woven beneath each note.”

Her smile curved into something sharp but playful. “The entire room will find their thoughts pleasantly dulled, their attentions wandering… all while I appear merely to provide polite entertainment for your guests.”

She paused, tilting her head. “You must admit… it is an inspired plan.”

Gale’s reply was immediate, his voice low but edged with that familiar, cool precision. “Inspired, yes… and dangerous.” His gaze slid past her, briefly noting the Regent across the room—composed, watchful, and radiating the oily confidence of one far too accustomed to power that could not be charmed away.

“The Regent,” Gale continued, dropping his tone further so that only Lily could hear, “is no common rake, Miss Lily. He is a warlock patron himself—his mind fortified by eldritch contracts, his will no doubt shielded by wards you cannot see and would not easily penetrate.”

His expression hardened, though a trace of wry humor remained in his eyes. “Were you to attempt an enchantment in this company, I fear the result would not be dulled attention, but disaster—spectacular, scandalous disaster.”

He allowed a pause, then softened the rebuke with a faint incline of his head, his lips just brushing a rueful smile. “Perhaps, for this evening, you might content yourself with simply playing the pianoforte… enchantment enough, I think, for a room already spellbound by your reputation.” His gaze held hers for just a heartbeat longer than politeness required, before he stepped back smoothly, recovering his perfect host’s poise.

Gale’s expression shifted smoothly, any hint of private counsel vanishing beneath the polished veneer of the perfect host. Without so much as a glance to betray their quiet exchange, he turned toward the assembled guests, his voice carrying with practiced ease, calm and urbane:

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he announced, his tone perfectly measured and gracious, “you honor Dweomerheart this evening with your presence—and what is such an occasion without a refinement of taste and art?”

His gaze swept the crowd, lingering just long enough for anticipation to gather before allowing a smile, warm and inscrutable, to curve at the corner of his mouth.

“I am delighted to present Miss Lily Demaris, whose talents extend beyond society’s mere admiration. She has graciously consented to favor us with music.”

A murmur rippled through the crowd—part surprise, part delighted curiosity—as all eyes turned toward Lily.

Without a single outward acknowledgement of their earlier conversation—no suggestion that the performance would be anything but an elegant gesture of entertainment—Gale dipped his head with impeccable poise.

“The pianoforte is yours, Miss Lily.”

As Lily swept forward, fan folding with a soft snap and a mischievous gleam in her eye, Seraphina lingered for a moment at Gale’s side. Her voice was low—meant only for him—but carried just enough wryness to betray a deep familial familiarity.

“I’m not certain that was a wise decision, Mr. Dekarios,” she murmured, her gaze following Lily’s graceful advance toward the polished instrument. “No one, after all, has ever accused my sister of being particularly inclined to… take instruction.”

A shadow of amusement flickered across Gale’s features then, quickly suppressed but no less genuine—a private acknowledgment of the truth in her remark, “Indeed,” he replied softly, almost absently, his attention already sharpening as the Regent’s gaze drifted lazily after Lily. “But I suspect the entire evening may be an exercise in unwise decisions.”

“Come, Miss Seraphina,” he murmured, his voice pitched low, touched by that undercurrent of dry amusement that always seemed to accompany his better intentions. “If this is to be a folly, at least allow me the privilege of escorting you to an excellent vantage from which to watch it unfold.”

Seraphina hesitated, but only for a heartbeat. Then her gloved hand slipped lightly into the crook of his arm, and her answering smile—quiet, precise—held just the barest hint of mischief.

“I shall hold you personally responsible, Mr. Dekarios,” she murmured as they moved together toward the music room, “should my sister turn this evening into a complete scandal.”

Gale’s mouth curved, not quite into a smile but into something slyer—a glint of amusement beneath all that polished restraint. His head dipped closer, just enough that his reply was pitched for her alone:

“My dear Miss Seraphina, it is precisely your family’s delicious capacity for scandal that has ensured this evening’s remarkable attendance. Indeed,” his gaze flicked toward Lily before returning to hers, “I would be rather disappointed were the night to conclude without a little chaos.”

Then, with an almost imperceptible smile, he added, “Though it may prove unwise, I find myself increasingly disposed to relish such disorder when it comes accompanied by such captivating company.”

The words were delivered with impeccable poise, his tone so perfectly mild that no passing guest could have faulted them—but the undercurrent was unmistakable: an invitation to share in the quiet mischief of it all.

Chapter Text

It is not the loudest chord, but the lingering note, that lingers in the mind.”

— Elamara Aumar, Collected Whispers, Vol. II

My cherished readers,

It is a truth universally acknowledged—though rarely admitted—that the most perilous games are not played at gaming tables, nor on the dueling green, but in the pauses between polite applause.

On a certain night at Dweomerheart, the pianoforte was not merely an instrument; it was a dueling blade, its chords bright as steel, its rests sharp as the intake of breath before the blow. The Regent sat enthroned by the hearth, his gaze fixed upon Miss Lily Demaris with the hunger of a man who believes himself both hunter and prize.

Yet while the room basked in candlelight and civility, quieter dramas unfolded: a scroll hidden beneath a cloak, its seal marked with magic older than the courts of man; a debt poised to come due; and, in another place entirely, a sister who waited in chains, listening for her captors to falter.

Such moments, my dears, are not announced with fanfare. They are woven—softly, invisibly—into the fabric of an evening, until one realizes too late that the whole cloth has been knotted into a noose.

The music room at Dweomerheart was a jewel-box of shadow and candlelight, its polished floors reflecting the flicker of dozens of tapers set in gilt sconces along the paneled walls.

At the far end of the room, the pianoforte stood waiting—its lacquered surface gleaming beneath a spray of white roses arranged just so, as if to imply spontaneity while betraying Gale’s meticulous hand in every detail.

Guests gathered along the edges, draped in velvet and silk, their conversation lowered now to that singular hush which precedes both performance and gossip.

The Regent reclined near the hearth, one long finger trailing the rim of his wine glass, his gaze sweeping lazily over the crowd—only to settle, again and again, upon Lily Demaris.

Gale’s gaze narrowed almost imperceptibly as he noted it—the weight of that attention, its calculation cloaked in casual arrogance.

A man such as the Regent rarely wasted such focus unless the prize was already decided in his mind.

His fingers brushed the edge of his cuff—a gesture that might have appeared no more than a reflex, a touch of sartorial precision—but beneath it, a whispered incantation threaded invisibly into the air, each syllable silent yet potent as he wove the spell with habitual care.

The Weave answered. Magic settled gently about his mind and sharpened his senses, turning his attention inward, toward the Regent’s thoughts—not the smile, nor the idle posture, but what lay behind them.

For a heartbeat, the Regent’s mind resisted—slippery, layered, the tang of infernal contracts and old, foul promises woven through the very fabric of his will—but Detect Thoughts required only patience and precision.

Gale pressed gently, and the surface thoughts unfurled like petals coaxed from a tight bloom.

“Soon… soon it shall be complete. Celeste delivered, the debt fulfilled at last… and then I shall be free. Free to marry as I choose. And Lily Demaris… so powerful, so exquisitely disgraced—she would be the perfect prize to complete my ascendance.”

The words echoed in Gale’s mind as if spoken aloud, cold and vile in their certainty.

His breath slowed, every outward aspect of his composure preserved—but within, calculation shifted rapidly.

Free to marry as he chose? The Regent was unmarried already—there was no political impediment, no obvious scandal to prevent him from wedding whom he pleased. Why then did he believe himself not free until this particular bargain was concluded?

The thought needled at Gale even as he preserved the easy grace of the host; something unseen bound the Regent’s will, something far darker and older than courtship or reputation. The hag’s mark was unmistakable, but the terms of the debt remained elusive—and dangerous.

His gaze flicked to Lily as she lowered herself before the pianoforte, the hush deepening into reverent expectation.

Her fingers poised above the keys, a smile curving at the corner of her mouth—a smile the room mistook for artifice. Only Gale understood its sharper intent.

But the Regent’s gaze… that gaze adhered to Lily with the air of a man who believed himself already entitled—a look that soured Gale’s stomach even as he masked his revulsion beneath perfect composure.

He shifted, taking a single smooth step back, careful not to disturb the watching crowd. Already Lily’s fingers brushed the keys, the first chords blooming soft and precise beneath her touch.

But the Regent’s thoughts still echoed in his mind, cold and bitter: Soon… soon I shall be free.

The question gnawed at him—what tether bound such a man’s freedom?

With effortless grace, Gale stepped back from the edge of the music room, moving silently until he found Astarion at the fringe of the gathering, his crimson gaze gleaming with quiet amusement, ever attuned to opportunity.

Gale’s voice, when he spoke, was low, precise—threaded with both urgency and confidence, pitched so no other could overhear.

“Seek out the Regent’s fair-haired aide,” he murmured, a flick of his gaze indicating the young man shadowing the Regent’s movements near the far hearth. “Charm him. Engage him—gossip, if you must.”

His smile, thin and knowing, flickered only briefly before vanishing beneath the weight of purpose.

“Find out what chains the Regent. Why does he believe himself not free to marry until this bargain is fulfilled? There is more to this than infernal debts and ambition.”

His tone softened a fraction as he added, with a trace of dry humor, “And do take care, Mr. Ancunín—choose your words wisely. No one is better suited to loosen tongues… when you put your mind to it.”

Then, as Lily’s first notes shimmered into the air—a melody of practiced grace and dangerous intent—Gale stepped back, his poise impeccable once more, his eyes never straying far from the Regent’s watchful expression.

Astarion’s smile widened, his expression languid but bright with mischief.

“Delicious,” he purred, tilting his head as if savoring a rare vintage. “The intrigue of it, Gale—the Regent in a private snare, our Lily at the keys, and scandal lurking beneath every lace hem in this room… It’s almost too rich.”

He gave a theatrical sigh of pleasure, already angling himself toward his target.

But before he could slip away, Seraphina spoke—her voice low but urgent, cutting through his amusement with a note of sober warning.

“This is not an amusement, ” she said quietly, her gaze fixed first on Astarion, then shifting to Gale. Her voice, though soft, carried an unshakable resolve—its edge honed not by scandal but by genuine fear.

“Mr. Ancunín… Mr. Dekarios… whatever my sister may be—however she delights in scandal and appears so perfectly careless—she does not deserve to be bartered to a hell-touched warlock, prince or no prince.”

Her breath caught, but she held her posture perfectly, her chin lifted as she added, “I entreat you both, do not mistake her frivolity for consent. If this Regent means to entangle her in whatever infernal snare he has woven, then we must act. Not idly watch as society murmurs over their wine glasses.”

Her gloved hand trembled faintly as it rested at her side, the only betrayal of the depth of her concern.

A delicate cascade of notes spilled from Lily’s fingers as she began to play, the soft hush of the crowd deepening into breathless attention—a perfect illusion of peace and refinement.

But beneath that cultivated veneer, Seraphina’s words lingered in Gale’s mind, sharp as a blade: do not mistake her frivolity for consent.

As Astarion slipped deftly into the crowd and Gale’s gaze remained fixed on the Regent’s inscrutable smile, the music swelled…

…and far away from candlelight and velvet, beyond the reach of soft scandal and polite conversation, the shadows closed once again around Celeste Demaris.

The lodge smelled of old timber, salt, and blood—the remnants of her violent struggle still clinging to the air. The wards shimmered faintly along the walls now, pulsing in rhythm with her ragged breaths.

She stirred, consciousness dragging her back from the dark. The ache in her limbs was deep and pervasive, but it was the restraint—the renewed bonds now lashed with silver-threaded cord—that bit deepest of all.

She was no longer simply a captive. She was a prize prepared for delivery.

Outside, a gull cried again—a sharp, lonely call against the rising wind—and somewhere beyond the battered shutters, waves crashed hard against the cliffs below.

Celeste’s fingers curled, her nails digging into the coarse fabric beneath her, the pulse of magic still simmering beneath her skin despite exhaustion.

She had paid dearly for her last rebellion.

But the dark urge coiled there still—patient, bitter, undefeated. She waited, listening not for footsteps now, but for the next moment her captors’ confidence would waver—because it would.

*****

The notes from Lily’s fingers trailed in the air like fine lace, falling gently across the assembled company and wrapping them in a cultivated quiet—equal parts admiration and calculation. All eyes, predictably, had turned to her; all ears, at least ostensibly, bent toward the melody that flowed with an elegance that seemed effortless but was anything but.

Gale stood beside Seraphina at the edge of the music room, hands loosely clasped behind his back, posture easy, voice pitched for her ear alone.

“She plays beautifully,” he said, though his gaze had wandered not to Lily but across the room—where Astarion stood in effortless conversation with the Regent’s aide, all charm and languid elegance. “But I worry your sister does not recognize the game she’s stepped into.”

Seraphina arched a brow, half amused. “If you mean the Regent, I assure you, Lily’s perfectly capable of managing the attentions of princes.”

Gale’s expression didn’t change, but his tone deepened. “I wasn’t speaking of the prince.”

At that, Seraphina followed his gaze. “He’s quite popular,” she offered, cautious. “A certain reputation, yes, but nothing outside the bounds of the usual gossip.”

“There are rumors, strange rumors—no mirrors at Duskmere Hollow,” Gale murmured. “No portraits of its master. And I’ve heard what becomes of those who believe themselves immune to his charm.”

Seraphina’s brow furrowed. “You think she’s in danger?”

“I think,” he said carefully, “that Mr. Ancunín is not entirely free. His inheritance is conditional—bound by terms he cannot name, enforced by forces he dares not defy. And I think Lily is precisely the kind of woman he would find… irresistible.”

Seraphina exhaled slowly, the flicker of worry reaching her eyes now.

“My sister is prideful,” she said at last, her voice like fine silk stretched taut. “She keeps no counsel but her own. Telling her he’s dangerous would serve as a temptation, not a warning.”

Gale’s gaze lingered on Astarion a moment longer before turning back to the music.

“Then let us hope,” he said softly, “that temptation does not prove ruinous.”

Across the room, Astarion’s laughter—a low, silken ripple of sound—slipped like perfume through the music’s delicate threads. The aide leaned in closer, posture relaxing, one hand trailing absently along the stem of his wine glass. His expression hovered between flattery and invitation, already softened by the ease with which Astarion drew him in.

“Tell me,” Astarion said with idle elegance, as though the question were merely an ornament to pass the time, “does His Grace always haunt the edges of music rooms like a ghost in velvet?” He touched the aide’s cuff, twirling his finger in the lace.

The aide flushed, slightly, at the scandalous intimacy of the gesture, and offered a nervous laugh. “.Tonight holds a certain weight. His grace has much on his mind.”

“Ah,” Astarion said, as if he’d just tasted something rare and unexpected in the air. “A night of consequence, then?” He let the silence stretch delicately, like a ribbon waiting to be tied.

The aide hesitated, eyes flicking toward the Regent, then back to Astarion. “There are—delicate matters. Longstanding arrangements. But they’re nearly concluded now. The worst of it behind us.”

“Delicate matters,” Astarion repeated, as if savoring the phrase. “I do so enjoy those. And when such matters are resolved… what then? Is His Grace to be restored to some freer condition?”

A flicker of unease danced across the aide’s face. “He has obligations. Some of them… binding. But when the contract is fulfilled—” He stopped himself, cheeks coloring. “Forgive me. I’ve said too much.”

Astarion’s gaze remained warm, undemanding. He did not press. Instead, he let the lull settle comfortably between them, sipping his wine with practiced indolence.

Then, as if remarking upon the weather, he murmured, “And I had thought only lovers and kings kept such secrets. But your Regent is both, I suppose—how splendidly complicated.”

The aide gave a faint, breathless laugh but said nothing further.

It was then, as Astarion leaned in with the faintest touch of conspiratorial mirth, that something beneath the aide’s cloak caught his eye, a curl of parchment, tucked hastily, its edge marked with an unfamiliar seal. Not noble. Not infernal. Something older. Wilder. Fey.

His smile did not change, but inwardly, Astarion sharpened. He had seen that sigil before—in cursed woods, in dead men’s keeps, in dreams that bled starlight. The scroll was not his to touch. Not yet. But his instincts had already shifted. Whatever bargain bound the Regent was not merely infernal. It reeked of deeper magic, twisted roots, masks behind masks.

He raised his glass again with effortless poise. “Well,” he said, his voice as smooth as silk on polished wood, “far be it from me to pry further. But I do hope, when all these obligations are swept away, your master remembers to reward such admirable discretion.”

At that moment, Lily’s playing shifted—a bright, sprightly variation on the theme she had begun, eliciting a polite ripple of laughter from those who fancied themselves connoisseurs of musical wit.

 The aide blushed again, pleased and flustered, and Astarion let the moment hang there, perfectly balanced, perfectly sweetened—before allowing his eyes to drift back across the room to Gale, catching his gaze for the briefest of instants.

As the aide prattled on about the music, some trite compliment about Miss Demaris’s delicate phrasing. Astarion let his gaze wander, not idly, but with precision masked as ease.

He had spent centuries mastering the art of being exactly what people expected—languid, lovely, a creature of appetite and wit. But inside, beneath the velvet and the polish, the calculations never ceased.

 Obligations. Contracts. A scroll marked with fey binding. How quaint, he thought, with a smile that never reached his eyes. Everyone at court danced with shadows, but some shadows had teeth.

And wasn’t that the real charm of it?

Astarion tilted his head, eyes half-lidded in apparent boredom, but in truth he was watching everything—the flutter of the aide’s lashes, the way his fingers twitched toward his cloak, the unconscious glance toward the Regent whenever Lily struck a particularly bold chord.

So much power, in things unsaid. He knew it intimately. He’d been schooled in silence, in obedience—in  the art of seduction as survival.

You’re doing it again, a dry voice whispered in the dark corner of his mind. Flirting your way into secrets. Smiling like you’re harmless. Are you? He ignored it.

Astarion Ancunín, darling of drawing rooms and scandal sheets, was not dangerous. Not tonight. Not here, but the truth was—he still wasn’t free. 

The Hollow estate came with its own leash: a quiet clause in an inheritance he hadn’t signed, a legacy he barely understood, and a name spoken only in nightmares.

The aide was still speaking—something about proximity, about privilege, but Astarion no longer heard him.  He cast another glance at Lily as her fingers rippled across the keys, white roses trembling in their vase beside the instrument.

Lily, he smiled to himself, not Miss Demaris, not Gale’s golden conquest or the Regent’s gleaming prize. Just Lily— in the rose garden under the veil of twilight at Dweomerheart, her hair the color of moonlight, the scent of crushed petals on her skin. She had turned to him with that reckless, impossible light in her eyes, the kind of look no one had given him in two hundred years without an ulterior motive.

When she had kissed him, not coyly, not as a game—but like she was drowning, and he was the breath she wasn’t supposed to need. It had stunned him. Shaken him. Not because of desire—he had known every shade of that, performed it like an aria—but because of what it woke in him:

Hope, hope that some fate he hadn’t dare dreamed of yet might await him. Ridiculous, that. He had no right to it. No use for it. And yet it lingered, stubborn as the dawn.

The memory pulled at something buried. Not grief, not yet—but its pale outline. He should never have let her kiss him. He should never have let himself care. There  would come a day, a day when the terms would be called in. When the old hunger would whisper that its patience had run out. He would be expected to give her up. To take what he never wanted to take.

To destroy what he almost—

He wouldn’t finish the thought. Instead, Astarion drew a breath so shallow it stirred not even the lace at his collar. He blinked once, slowly, letting the mask fall back into place. The eyes, the smile, the softness—they were tools, nothing more. Still, a whisper brushed the edge of his mind, You’ll regret it. Gods help you, Ancunín, you’ll regret the day you make her scream.

The aide laughed at something he hadn’t heard. Astarion returned the smile with unerring grace, eyes glinting like rubies under the candlelight,“And does His Grace often entrust his affairs to men as charmingly indiscreet as yourself?” he asked, voice a velvet ribbon laced with just enough flirtation to distract from the weight of the question.

Because he was not done yet. Not nearly.

Astarion’s eyes flicked once more to the scroll tucked beneath the aide’s cloak, its fey sigil still ghosting behind his vision like an afterimage burned by moonlight.

“Alas,” he sighed, touching the young man’s arm with feigned reluctance, “you are far too interesting, and I am far too curious—but I must be terribly rude and leave you to your wine. Do forgive me.” he said with a soft sigh, brushing imaginary lint from his cuff. “But, I must take my leave. A delightful conversation, truly—but there’s someone I simply must find before the next scandal begins.”

The aide blinked, clearly disappointed, but managed a gracious nod. “Of course. Another time, perhaps.”

Astarion’s smile returned, bright and unbothered. “Darling, I never forget a pretty face.”

With that, he glided away, the layers of charm falling from his shoulders like a discarded cloak the moment he was out of the aide’s line of sight. His steps, though unhurried, carried a taut precision—a dancer between masks, moving now not for pleasure but for necessity.

He found Gale standing beneath one of the tall arched windows, half-shadowed in candlelight and reflection. The wizard had not moved far from where Lily played, his attention still fixed on the Regent with that cold, polished stillness that always preceded action.

Astarion’s voice was quiet, urgent. “We need to speak.”

Gale turned just enough to acknowledge him, not breaking the appearance of ease. “You found something.”

Astarion didn’t waste words. “There’s a scroll,” he said, quiet but sharp. “In the aide’s cloak. Sealed with a sigil I’ve seen before—fae-marked. Wilder than Seelie, colder than Unseelie. The contract, the one referenced in the message I…liberated from the gallant officers at the Rose and Raven earlier.”

Gale’s breath caught, just briefly. “Fey. Not infernal?”

Gale stiffened. “Eidothea.”

“Yes,” Astarion said. “I couldn’t read the scroll, of course, but the aide mentioned obligations—binding ones, ones that would be lifted once the bargain is fulfilled.”

Gale’s fingers curled slightly at his side. “Just as the letter said. ‘The girl will be delivered… you will have your new vessel… the debt fulfilled.’” His voice was tight. “And Eidothea—whoever or whatever she is—is the one collecting.”

Astarion gave a slow nod. “And I’d wager that scroll is meant for her. A fey contract to be destroyed when fulfilled.”

They stood in a silence thick with unsaid things, the music drifting softly in the background, Lily’s playing still weaving a delicate veil over the gathering.

Gale’s voice was low, but clear. “The Regent’s debt is no longer just a whisper. It’s a blade being drawn.”

A faint rustle of silk stirred the air. Seraphina had stepped beside them, her posture composed, but her gaze was distant, trained not on Lily, nor the Regent, but on some memory long buried in the hush between notes.

“You’ve found something,” she said, her voice softer than before. Not suspicion. Not demand. Just the quiet acknowledgment of dread confirmed.

Astarion gave a slight tilt of the head, but said nothing. Gale answered for them both. “The Regent’s debt isn’t infernal—it’s fey. And Celeste is the final coin.”

Seraphina didn’t flinch. But her eyes remained on nothing, her thoughts tangled in shadow.

“I remember the day after. The barn burned.”

Astarion stilled. Gale said nothing.

“It shouldn’t have. There was no storm. No candle left burning. No spilled oil. Just fire. Lily’s pony, Selûne, was still inside. She’d braided her mane that morning. Left a ribbon in her tail.”

Her voice caught, briefly. “Lily screamed when she saw the smoke. She tore open the paddock doors, bare feet on gravel, shouting her name. I don’t think she even knew she was crying.”

The music in the room had shifted. A minor key, softly veiled behind ornament and arpeggio.

“Our mother said it was a terrible accident. But she locked the garden gate after that. She wouldn’t let us play near the woods anymore. And she never, ever said our father’s name in prayer again.” She sighed softly, “I think he made a bargain. I think it took his joy. His music. His warmth. And in return...”

Her fingers tightened in her gloves. “Whatever this is with the Regent—whatever bargain he’s bound to—it stinks of the same rot. And if Lily steps into it thinking she can manage him like a suitor or a scandal, it will eat her alive.”

Her voice dropped almost to a whisper, “We all thought we were safe in the light, once. Before the fire. I don’t want to lose her. Not to this.”

Gale’s hand curled slightly at his side. Astarion’s eyes, cold and sharp a moment ago, now held something quieter behind them.

“I’ll check the scrying pool again,” Seraphina murmured. “Maybe Halsin and Wyll have found Celeste, or some sign of her.”  She turned, the soft rustle of silk trailing her like the last note of Lily’s melody, haunting, unresolved, and already fading into silence.

*****

The wind knifed in off the sea, dragging salt and storm through the gnarled pines that clung to the cliffs. Below, the surf hammered the rocks in ceaseless rhythm, a drumbeat for the unease that had grown steadily with every mile.

Wyll paused at a rise in the path, squinting through the mist toward the half-hidden shape of the lodge. It crouched at the cliff’s edge like something waiting to leap—shutters askew, roofline sagging, its chimney trailing a lazy ribbon of black smoke into the churning sky.

“There,” he said quietly, lifting a hand. “Do you see it?”

Halsin joined him at the crest, eyes narrowed. The air was wrong here—thick with damp earth and something else beneath it, something iron-sharp and acrid. Then, faint but clear, a sound peeled through the fog. Not words. Not even a full cry. Just a brief, broken wail that rose, wavered, and vanished into the wind.

Wyll’s hand went instinctively to his blade. “Could’ve been the wind,” he muttered, but his voice lacked conviction.

Halsin said nothing for a moment. His eyes drifted closed, and he inhaled, slow and deliberate. The wind caught his cloak, flaring it behind him as he lifted his chin toward the storm. Then his brow furrowed, “Blood,” he said softly. “Fresh.”

Wyll was already moving, boots crunching over wet pine needles as he strode back toward the narrow path where they’d tethered the horses. “Then we’ve no time to spare.”

The gelding tossed its head as Wyll took the reins, nostrils flaring, catching the same scent on the wind. Halsin’s great roan stamped and whickered, ears flattening. 

Even the beasts could sense it now, something twisted in the air, a scent not just of blood, but of magic unspooling into violence. 

They mounted quickly, wordless, the ease of warriors who had ridden into darker places on thinner hope. The sky had begun to bruise with the oncoming storm, a low rumble of thunder threading the edges of the world.

“Ride wide,” Halsin said, his voice like flint striking steel. “From the east. We come on it like hunters—not guests.”

Wyll nodded once and spurred his horse forward. Hooves tore into the damp earth, sending sprays of mud behind them as they veered off the path and into the trees, skirting the ridge with speed and caution in equal measure.

Another cry rang out, not human this time, but the sharp screech of something startled. Then silence. Branches clawed at them as they rode, the mist thickening into a shroud, and the trees leaning in like silent sentinels. The wind had shifted—colder now, laced with salt and something acrid beneath it, like scorched herbs or spoiled wine.

“The forest doesn’t want us here. Not tonight.”

The two men exchanged a glance. The wind whispered again—just wind, perhaps—but it carried the faintest tang of iron and burnt wood.

They mounted again and urged their steeds into a careful canter. The trees thinned, the path widening to reveal a structure nestled into the snow-bound clearing.

The lodge.

It rose from the frost like something grown, not built—its timbers gnarled and twisted, shaped by an architecture older than sense. No candlelight showed in the windows, no smoke curled from the chimney. And yet, the place seemed… alert.

The horses would go no farther.

It was not the building that stopped them. It was the air.

Wyll reined in sharply, his horse half-rearing with a nervous cry. Halsin’s mount stamped once and would go no closer. The druid dismounted, landing softly on the loam, one hand extended—not in aggression, but in reverence, as if reaching for the edge of a holy place. He stopped inches from the threshold.

The wards shimmered—barely visible, like sunlight through water—but the pressure was unmistakable. They radiated outward in spiraling threads of glamour and menace, ancient and exacting. Every hair on Halsin’s arm rose in warning.

Wyll approached, his blade already drawn, though even he seemed uncertain what good it might do. “You feel it too?”

Halsin nodded slowly. “Fey. Not Seelie, not Unseelie. Wilder. Older. A boundary that does not recognize us as welcome.” He stepped back with deliberate care. “These are no hedge-witch charms. They were placed by something that does not mean to be undone.”

Wyll’s grip on his hilt tightened. “Can we break it?”

A pause. Then Halsin, grim: “Not without knowing the price. And if the wards are tied to a contract…”

They exchanged a look—frustration, fear, the helpless fury of men who had arrived too late, or perhaps just in time to do nothing. 

 From within the lodge, silence. But the blood was real. The scent of it still clung to the air like a bruise. Wyll stepped forward again, testing the shimmer with the edge of his boot. A ripple answered—gentle, almost affectionate, and then sharp. A crackle like frost forming on warm skin.

Halsin caught his arm before he could try again. “No,” he said quietly. “Whatever binds this place… wants an audience. Not an intrusion.”

Wyll’s jaw clenched. “Then what the hells do we do?”

The silence stretched between them—thick, bristling, as if the forest itself had paused to listen.

And then, from within the lodge, came the sound.

*****

Far away, in a different kind of snare, a softer sound held sway. A single note rang clear as crystal.Then another, threaded like breath through stillness. The pianoforte sang under Lily Demaris’s fingers, each chord a careful seduction, each pause a lure.

The room breathed as one, caught in the hush between tones, lulled by the illusion of safety spun from satin and sound. Only those who knew her well could hear it, that subtle tension beneath her grace, the blade just beneath the silk.

Gale watched her. Astarion, too, from a shadowed alcove. They had only just begun to piece together the nature of the trap. And the clock, though no one had spoken it aloud, had started ticking.

Lily’s fingers moved with practiced ease, but her mind wandered far from the polished ivories beneath them. She could feel him watching.

His attention clung like frost to glass, delicate in appearance, and yet it carried the weight of something ancient and waiting. Every note she played was a stone dropped into still water, testing the silence, searching for the monster that might stir beneath.

She shifted the tempo ever so slightly, letting a thread of dissonance slip into the melody like a whisper behind a closed door. A musician’s flourish, the onlookers might assume. But she watched the Regent’s eyes as she played it—and there, for just a moment, they flickered.

He heard it. He understood the message hidden in the music. Not a seduction, a warning.

She kept her expression serene, eyes half-lowered beneath her lashes. The room was a tableau—lace and wine, wit and whispers—but something darker pulsed beneath its floorboards. She could feel it humming in the soles of her feet. Something had shifted.

The seal on the air. The tension in her sister’s spine. The way Gale hadn’t returned to his seat. She knew the signs. She had grown up in drawing rooms like this—rooms that disguised power as politeness and blood bargains as courtly alliances.

And somewhere, someone was lying.

She played on, because it was all she could do. Because this, too, was a kind of spell. Because music was the only weapon she could wield in full view of every enemy, smiling as they listened. Her fingers arched into the next chord. The melody brightened, almost too bright.

Let them think I’m playing for them, she thought. Let them forget who taught me to lace poison into perfume.

But Gale would hear it. Seraphina might. And Astarion… he always did.

She did not look up. She did not break rhythm, but in her chest, her heart began to beat just a little faster.

She let the final note of the phrase linger—just long enough to brush the edge of discomfort before resolving with elegance. A flourish. A game.

She lifted her gaze—not to the Regent, not to her sister or the tittering courtiers pretending not to hang on every movement—but to the shadows along the wall. There he was. Astarion.

Still half-veiled in candlelight, his posture languid as always, but his eyes were alert—too alert. He was watching her, yes, but more than that… he understood.

She let a single breath escape between phrases, and in that pause, her gaze caught his.

His smile was small, crooked, private. Not the dazzling one he gave to fools and flirts, but something quieter. Knowing. Dangerous in its gentleness.

And in that moment, framed by lace and music, velvet and menace, Astarion Ancunín felt it again—that damnable shift. The one he tried so hard to mock away.

It wasn’t lust. Not exactly. He could name a thousand shades of that. No, this was something far more ruinous. Because when she looked at him, really looked, she wasn’t seeing a scandal. She wasn’t measuring his worth by bloodlines or rumor. She was seeing him. The part of him even he wasn’t brave enough to claim.

He had no words for it, only the curling ache of it in his ribs, like hunger turned inward. The realization unfurled slowly in him, a terrible sweetness, a crack forming beneath centuries of polished detachment.

He would ruin this, ruin her. He always ruined things that made him feel.

Still…when she turned her gaze back to the keys and the room exhaled its delight, Astarion remained motionless, spellbound.

The music resumed.

And he, foolish creature that he was, let his heart tip a little further toward hers.

Chapter Text

“One must always be careful when inviting a devil to a dance—for it is rarely one’s own steps he intends to follow.”

— Elamara Aumar, Collected Whispers, Vol. II

My dearest readers,

It is the peculiar genius of certain guests to arrive without invitation and leave with the keys to the house. Such was the scene at Dweomerheart, where the evening’s polite intrigues were interrupted by the entrance of a gentleman in crimson—radiant as a sunset and twice as fatal.

Raphael, son of Mephistopheles, did not come merely to admire the décor. No, my darlings—he came to test the stitching on old bargains, to remind the Regent that debts are rarely private affairs, and to place before the Misses Demaris a choice gilded in equal parts temptation and threat.

Beyond the chandeliers, another stage was set: a lonely lodge on the cliffs, its wards shimmering with fey craft, holding a song that did not wish to be sung. But whether in a music room or a prison of glamour, the rules are the same—every performance ends, and every audience must pay the price of admission.

The final chord lingered in the air like the perfume of lilies crushed underfoot—sweet, fading, almost mournful. Lily’s fingers hovered above the keys a moment longer than necessary, as if reluctant to let the illusion unravel.

Then she rose, silks and lace catching the candlelight as she stepped back from the instrument with a grace that required no affectation. A soft ripple of applause followed— tempered, refined, but tinged with awe. Then, behind it, the room stirred to life again, the spell of her playing dissolving into conversation, clinking glasses, and the rustle of velvet as guests resumed their courtly games.

Lily moved with practiced elegance toward the far end of the music room, where Gale and Seraphina stood half-shadowed beneath an arch of carved sycamore. Phina’s posture was tight, her expression controlled but drawn; Gale’s gaze flicked between Lily and the Regent like a man calculating the precise placement of each piece on a board already in motion.

“Was it too much?” Lily asked quietly as she approached, her smile a touch too bright, her breath not quite steady. “I thought perhaps something brisk at the end would cut the tension.”

Before Seraphina could answer, a hush fell like a velvet shroud across the room.

The doors at the far end of the hall had opened, though no herald had announced a name. No footman had stepped forward, and yet every head turned.

The new arrival needed no introduction.

Raphael, youngest son of Mephistopheles, stood in the doorway like a crimson punctuation mark at the end of an unspoken sentence— smiling, radiant, and impossibly overdressed. His coat was cut of exotic brocade so dark it shimmered with hints of midnight blue, embroidered at the lapels with gold-threaded sigils no one in the room dared translate. His waistcoat gleamed like poured garnet, each button a tiny ruby winking like an eye. His boots—polished to a heretical shine—clicked once on the marble threshold as he stepped forward unhurried, as though gracing the room with his presence were a favor he bestowed for sport.

He did not pause. Did not bow, with not so much as glance toward the Regent for permission.

He walked straight toward Gale.

The wizard’s spine straightened, his fingers drifting almost instinctively toward his cuff, though he did not complete the gesture—not yet.

Raphael smiled wider.

“My, my,” he drawled, his voice curling through the air like incense in a chapel, “what have we here ?”

He let his gaze sweep slowly, deliberately—from Gale, to Seraphina, and at last to Lily, who had turned in place beside the pianoforte, still half bathed in candlelight.

“Dekarios,” Raphael said, tasting the name like a vintage long denied. “And Miss… Seraphina Demaris, if I’m not mistaken.” He inclined his head just enough to be maddening, his courtesy theatrical and insincere. “How charming. How tremendously well-appointed.”

Then his gaze slid back to Gale.

“I’ll assume, of course, that the footman carrying my invitation tripped on the hem of your ambition and vanished entirely.” A flicker of amusement. “Or perhaps the Lady Mystra herself tucked it away. She’s always been so possessive with her favorites, hasn’t she?”

Gale’s eyes darkened, but he held his composure.

“Still beholden to the duchess of rules and riddles, begging for scraps of power, Dekarios?” Raphael sneered, soft and deadly.  He gestured, elegant and dismissive. “I suppose some men would rather drown in longing than drink deep of freedom—even when the chalice is carved from bone.”

“But I digress. I hate to interrupt a perfectly good waltz of secrets and sighs—but it’s so rare to find all the right pieces assembled in one room. It would be ungracious of me not to join the game.”

His eyes gleamed as they found Lily again. “Besides… I’ve always had a fondness for music. Especially when it masks such interesting conversations.”

Gale held Raphael’s gaze, “Might I inquire what inspired you to join us this evening, Raphael? Has Mephistopheles sent you sniffing about tempting maidens with advantageous matches?”

Raphael’s grin turned slow and serpentine, head cocked as if Gale had struck him not with words, but with a jeweled dagger.

Raphael sighed, hand fluttering briefly over his heart in mock injury. “The arrangement I proposed was to our mutual benefit—though I suppose you’d rather brave oblivion with your virtue intact.”

His tone dropped an octave, intimate as a breath against glass. “Tell me, does she still visit you in dreams? Whisper half-promises in the spaces between spells?”

Gale’s jaw tightened, but he said nothing.

Raphael chuckled softly, the sound too rich with teeth. “But, be that as it may,” he went on, with the languid air of a man brushing dust from velvet, “I believe there is a service I might offer the sisters Demaris.”

That caught Seraphina’s attention at once. Her eyes narrowed—not with interest, but with instinctive distrust.

Lily, half-turned beside the pianoforte, froze ever so slightly. Her expression did not falter, but her hand twitched at her side, the lace at her wrist trembling.

Raphael’s gaze flicked between them, savoring the tension.

“There are threads in this room,” he murmured, “fraying at the edges. Old debts, new dangers. And I do so loathe wasted potential.”

Then, with an easy smile, he looked toward the Regent—just as the man stepped forward, every inch of him radiating displeasure.

He stepped forward from the curve of the music room like a shadow carving itself into reality, expression carved from porcelain and disdain. Though he smiled, there was no softness in it—only teeth.

“Raphael,” he said, the name falling like ash. “How gracious of you to appear uninvited. Again.”

The devil turned, lazily, as if the Regent were a footnote he’d nearly overlooked.

“My lord,” he purred, with the faintest bow, just short enough to be insolent. “Forgive me, I thought your hospitality as boundless as your ambition.”

The Regent’s jaw flexed. “Your presence was neither requested nor desired.”

Raphael spread his hands. “And yet, so auspicious.”

At that moment, Lily felt movement beside her—not the rustle of velvet or the shifting of courtly bodies, but something quieter, more deliberate.

Astarion had appeared at her side without a whisper of warning, as if conjured from the flicker of candlelight and silence itself. His posture was casual—one hand folded behind his back, the other curled lightly around a half-empty wine glass—but his gaze was fixed unflinchingly on Raphael, and his smile… his smile said everything his lips did not.

He leaned, just slightly, close enough for Lily to hear him over the murmuring crowd.

“Well,” he whispered, dry as aged wine, “it seems the devils have outnumbered the dancers this evening.”

Lily didn’t answer, but her fingers brushed against his sleeve—grateful for the nearness, the shield of it, even if it was spun from silver wit and mischief.

Across the room, Raphael’s eyes flicked—catching the gesture, noting the proximity—but he said nothing. Not yet.

Instead, he turned his attention back to the Regent, voice oiled and easy.

“I’ve come to offer assistance, a bargain, of sorts,” he said lightly. “Something’s gone awry, hasn’t it? A stolen girl, perhaps. A broken promise. An inconvenient contract growing impatient.”

The Regent’s eyes darkened. “And you thought to mend it?” he asked, voice low.

Raphael gave a shrug, all charm and menace. “I thought to offer… alternatives. But I see the stage is already set, and the leading man grows testy.”

He glanced once more toward Lily, and then—slowly, deliberately—toward Seraphina.

“I do so admire a tragedy with sisters at its heart,” he murmured. “It lends a certain… poetry.”

Raphael’s smile was still coiling across his lips when Gale stepped forward—no longer the picture of detached composure, but something taut, sharpened by the pressure of too many riddles and not enough time.

“Speak plainly,” Gale said, his voice low but edged like a drawn blade. “If you know something of value—say it. If not, take your theatrics and your perfume of brimstone elsewhere.”

A few guests turned subtly at the shift in tone, ears sharpening behind their fans and flutes of champagne. A hush, not unlike the one Lily had conjured with her music, fell again—but this one tingled with tension.

Raphael’s head tilted, mock-wounded, though his eyes gleamed like garnets.

“You wound me, wizard,” he said smoothly. “But, be that as it may…” —he turned, his gaze landing with bright significance on both sisters— “I believe there is a service I might offer the ladies Demaris. One that could untangle certain… unfortunate entrapments.”

A flicker of something too knowing danced behind his smile.

The Regent stepped forward—too quickly. His veneer cracked like old lacquer. “You will not meddle in this,” he snapped. “This is my affair. My arrangement. You have no standing here—”

“Oh, but that’s where you’re wrong,” Raphael said, turning back toward him with all the grace of a spider descending on its thread. “You made a deal, dear boy. And you are not the only creature who heard it spoken. Nor, I daresay, the only one with a claim to what you promised.”

The Regent stepped forward, his voice low and seething. “You presume too much, Raphael. This is not your court, nor your concern.”

Raphael turned to face him, slow and unbothered, his coat flaring like a flourish of spilled wine. “And yet here I am. Uninvited, unannounced… and entirely within my rights.”

He smiled, all teeth and velvet menace. “This is Dweomerheart, Your Grace—Mystra’s little cloister of decorum and detachment. Her realm, not yours. Not mine. And as such, a haven of neutrality.” 

He cast a glance toward the watching crowd, his voice lowering slightly, though it carried with an uncanny clarity. “Which means that while your infernal entanglements might hold weight in the circles where contracts are sealed in blood and bone… here, they are little more than smoke.”

His eyes gleamed as they returned to Lily and Seraphina. “And since the hour draws close—so close—that even your mortal bindings begin to fray… I thought, perhaps, a touch of insight might be welcome.”

He turned to Seraphina now, his smile gentling by a hair’s breadth. “After all, it is your blood that stands collateral. And your sister’s name whispered in promises not of her making.”

Lily’s hands had gone still at her sides, her posture perfect but brittle as spun glass. Seraphina stood rooted beside her, every nerve in her frame stretched taut beneath the silk of her gown.

“You mean to bargain,” Gale said tightly.

Raphael spread his hands, angelic. “Not at all. Not yet. But information, my dear wizard—that, I offer freely.”

He tilted his head with mock-reflection. “Because one cannot play the game properly if one doesn’t know the rules. …And the Demaris sisters are, whether they know it or not, already on the board. And the clock is chiming its final note.”

*****

The ground was damp with melt and rot, that in-between season where winter’s corpse had not yet been buried and spring dared only whisper. Wet leaves clung to Wyll’s boots as he stepped closer to the lodge, every movement thick with tension. A crow called once, then fell abruptly silent.

The wards shimmered faintly—like heat rising from stone, like something exhaling from beneath the skin of the world. They smelled faintly of crushed violets and old iron.

“She was here,” Halsin said, crouching near a patch of churned earth. The grass had been torn, smeared with blood and boot prints half-filled with water. “There was a struggle.”

Wyll didn’t speak. He couldn’t. The silence of the place pressed against his ribs like armor made of glass.

The lodge itself sat slouched and waiting, its thatch heavy with last week’s rain, its shutters closed against nothing. A place that should have been abandoned, and wasn’t.

Then—faint, but unmistakable—a creak from within. Like a rocking chair pushed gently by an unseen hand.

Wyll’s fingers tightened around the hilt at his side. “We have to get in.”

“No,” Halsin said quietly, stepping closer to the barrier. “This is more than protection. This is a stage. The wards weren’t meant to keep danger out.” His eyes narrowed. “They were meant to hold an audience.”

“A performance,” Wyll said, voice low. “For whom?”

They didn’t have to wait long.

A sound came from within—a laugh. High and shrill, like a child imitating joy. Followed by the rustle of skirts. The soft drag of something heavy along a wooden floor. Then—silence again. Utter. Intentional.

The forest did not breathe. The trees did not sway. Even the insects had ceased their buzzing.

A second laugh floated through the lodge’s shuttered windows—this one softer, syrup-thick and low. Not joyful. Not human.

Halsin stepped forward, eyes narrowing, the lines of his brow deepening in concentration. He held one hand out, fingers splayed, and brushed the shimmer of the ward like a man testing the surface of still water.

For a moment, nothing. Then his breath caught.

“It’s wrong,” he murmured. “Foul. Unnatural.” His voice, so often solid as oak, had gone quiet—not uncertain, but uneasy. “The magic holding this place isn’t infernal. It isn’t even twisted nature. It’s older. Wilder.”

He stepped back, shaking his head. “I expected blood sigils. Hellfire. Something—something that reeked of Asmodeus’s ilk.” He glanced at Wyll, his jaw tight. “But this? This reeks of the Fey.”

Wyll stared at him. “You’re certain?”

“I’d stake my name on it.” Halsin’s eyes scanned the treetops, the doorframe, the damp, heavy soil beneath their feet. “Spring court illusions, perhaps. But it’s too dark. Too old. This feels like—” He stopped. “Like the Unseelie left something behind.”

The words landed like stones. The breeze stirred again, just once, and with it came the scent of damp moss and distant decay—like a bouquet left too long in water.

From somewhere within the lodge: another sound. Not laughter this time. A song. High. Wordless. And heartbreakingly sweet.

Wyll’s hand moved to his sword hilt again

Halsin stilled, his breath catching as the melody unfurled through the air—each note crystalline and aching, as if drawn from the marrow of memory. The ward around the lodge rippled in response, pulsing once with quiet recognition.

It was Wyll who moved first. “Gods,” he whispered, his voice hoarse. “That’s her.” He took a step closer to the threshold, eyes wide with disbelief. “That’s Celeste.”

The song wove through the branches above them, stirring the leaves without wind, brushing the edges of their minds with something bittersweet and beckoning. It wasn’t a cry for help. It wasn’t even meant to be heard.

It was… a lullaby, but  the tune twisted in places—fragments bent strangely, like a mirror just beginning to crack. The melody lingered in an unnatural key, caught between sorrow and enchantment, threaded through with power not her own.

“She’s singing,” Wyll said again, barely breathing. “But she wouldn’t—not like this. Not unless—”

Halsin’s face had gone pale beneath his sun-browned skin. “Unless she’s not entirely herself.”

They stood in silence for a long moment, the two of them, warriors and watchers, held still by that fragile, unearthly thread of song.

Then Halsin stepped back, his voice low. “This is a binding.”

Wyll looked at him, eyes sharp. “A spell?”

“A cage,” Halsin said grimly. “The lodge is holding her, and she is holding it in turn. Whoever set this magic… they’ve used her voice to seal the ward.”

“And her will?”

“That,” Halsin said, “may no longer be hers to offer.”

*****

Back at Dweomerheart, the music had long since faded, but the air remained thick with the scent of spellwork and schemes. The chandeliers glowed low and golden, casting halos over powdered brows and gleaming shoulders, yet the room’s brightness could not dispel the shadow coiling in its heart. Raphael stood at its center like a flame in still air—drawing gazes, stoking whispers, and smiling as if the entire evening had been orchestrated for his delight.

Raphael’s voice dropped as if to confide something intimate—though half the ballroom was now listening with held breath.

“It is not ambition that brings me here, dear ones,” he said, eyes gleaming. “Not this time. I merely thought the hour ripe for candor. After all, what host among us would want his guests caught unawares—especially with so many bindings coming due?”

He turned toward the Regent, as if offering him the floor. “Perhaps His Grace would care to explain the nature of the contract? The particulars of the clause in which he pledged blood not his own. Or shall I?”

The Regent’s voice cracked like a whip. “You are not party to those terms.”

Raphael’s smile was all indulgence. “Oh, I think you’ll find I am—by proxy, if not by parchment.” He turned slightly, addressing the space between the sisters. “One of the signatories is… unavailable. Unwilling. Unaware. That complicates the fulfillment in infernal terms. You know that quite well, my liege. You cannot bind a soul without their consent. When contracts fail—well, the fallout can be quite… dramatic.”

His gaze swept the assembled company, then landed again on Lily and Seraphina.

“Which brings me to my modest offering,” he said, almost offhandedly. “Information. A glimpse of the strings, before they tighten into chains. A gesture of goodwill, from one enthusiast of fine music and tragic theatrics to another.”

Seraphina’s chin lifted. “And the price?”

Raphael’s grin widened. “A conversation. That is all. A private one, after the festivities conclude.”

The Regent stepped forward, furious now, his composure breaking like stained glass beneath a thrown stone.

“You mean to see me discredited,” he snarled. “You came not to warn them, but to unseat me.”

Raphael turned, slowly, as if savoring the accusation. “Did I? How unkind of you to assume so.”

He leaned in, his voice a silken thread stretched taut. “But if, by some tragic turn, your little arrangement collapses and you are deemed unfit to serve… well. The Court will need a new hand to guide it.”

He let the pause hang—long enough for the implications to take root.

“And who better,” he added softly, “than one who understands both the cost of power and the pleasure of wielding it?”

As Raphael spoke, his words cloaked in velvet and smoke, Astarion slipped forward. The murmuring of the crowd provided cover, as did the Regent’s rising fury. All eyes were trained on the devils in dispute—none on the thief in their midst.

He passed behind the aide like a breeze, fingers brushing fabric in a practiced motion. The cloak’s inner fold parted, revealing a flash of parchment stamped with an unfamiliar seal—one not infernal, but fey. A delicate curling script marked the edge, but before he could decipher more, the aide stiffened.

Astarion was gone a heartbeat later, already retreating through a knot of gossiping courtiers, a ribbon of stolen knowledge now tucked behind the embroidered cuff of his sleeve.

In the center of the storm, Raphael’s smile had turned sharper, the serpent just barely leashed.

“You’ve bound yourself too tightly,” he said to the Regent, voice pitched low, intimate. “And should the contract fall due before its terms are fulfilled, the consequences… will not be confined to you.”

The Regent stepped forward, visibly struggling to maintain the sheen of control. “You presume knowledge you do not possess.”

“Oh, but I do.” Raphael turned, just enough to include Lily and Seraphina in the arc of his gaze. “And I suspect the sisters would be very curious to know what’s been promised in their name. Especially when the time left to dispute it is measured not in days… but hours.”

Seraphina’s breath caught, sharp as a snapped string. Lily’s hand reached instinctively for her sister’s.

“And what is it you want in return?” Gale asked, his voice like the first crack of thunder. “No devil offers insight without a price.”

Raphael looked at him, the smile gone now. What remained was colder, hungrier.

“I want balance,” he said softly. “The laws of Hell are meant to bind all who deal in blood and vow. The Regent… has tipped the scales. And should he fall—well—someone must rise.”

He turned back to the sisters with a flourish of his hand, as if presenting a well-timed flourish in a theatrical act.

“I offer not temptation, but choice. And knowledge, freely given. The bargain you think you’re bound to—may not be the only path ahead.”

Then, as if nothing at all had passed, he plucked a crystal flute of champagne from a passing tray and sipped it like a man with all the time in the world.

*****

The light inside the lodge was wrong.

It shimmered, not with candlefire or moonlight, but with something older—fey and fractured, like sunlight bent through water that had never known warmth. The furniture stood where it always had, but the walls seemed farther away than they should be, and the ceiling too low. Paintings blinked when you looked too long. The grandfather clock ticked backward.

Celeste sat in the center of it all, perfectly still. Her hair had come loose, one ribbon trailing like a bloodied slip of cloud from her shoulder. A shallow cut gleamed at her temple, drying now, but vivid. Her hands were clasped too tightly in her lap.

She did not weep. She didn’t move, but her breath came fast, too fast. Her lips moved, though no sound escaped. Not prayers, not names. Not even the desperate call of a frightened girl. Just… fragments. As if she were trying to speak through a mouth that no longer quite belonged to her.

From the corner of the room, a low creak. A wardrobe door shifting on its hinge. No wind.

Celeste’s eyes flicked to it—then away, squeezing shut. Her whole body shook once, as if warding off the weight of something invisible pressing against her chest.

One word escaped her lips, barely audible.

“No, “ and then again, softer. “No, not again.”

A thread of song, high and distant, laced through the floorboards. Not music. Not human, a lullaby, warped and wrong.

*****

The music had long since died, the candlelight guttering low in the sconces. Where once laughter had twined with harpstrings and flirtation fluttered like silk in the breeze, now only the scent of roses and the fading warmth of bodies remained. The ballroom—so recently radiant—looked suddenly hollow, as though it had exhaled.

The Regent was the first to leave. No fanfare, no flourish. Only a clipped word to his aide and a whirl of velvet as he strode through the corridor, faster than decorum allowed. One of the grooms was waiting outside with his coat already draped across an arm—so fast it must have been prearranged.

The last of the guests were ushered into carriages. The great doors shut with a hush that echoed. And then it was only them: Raphael, the sisters Demaris, Gale, Astarion, and the quiet thunder of what had not been said.

Raphael did not turn immediately. He stood at the window a moment longer, watching the Regent’s carriage vanish into the night.

Raphael turned from the window with a leisurely grace, brushing an imaginary fleck from his cuff. “Well,” he said brightly. “That clears the air, doesn’t it?”

Gale’s arms were crossed, his expression unreadable. Astarion stood just behind Lily now, quiet as moonlight—but his eyes gleamed with something sharper than amusement.

It was Seraphina who broke the silence. “You said you came to offer something.”

Raphael clasped his hands behind his back and smiled like a man about to sell the moon. “Indeed. I’ve no fondness for prolonged mysteries—well. Not after dessert, at least.”

But before he could continue, Astarion stepped forward with studied nonchalance. “I do believe,” he murmured, withdrawing something from the folds of his coat, “that I’ve already obtained a bit of what you’re here to bargain with.”

From between his fingers he produced a folded parchment—sealed in wax that shimmered faintly with threads of green and gold, alive with an almost breathing magic.

The room stilled. Raphael’s smile did not falter, but his gaze sharpened as the parchment changed hands.

“Ah,” he said, with pleased surprise. “You’ve been busy, darling.”

Gale’s voice was quiet, firm. “Don’t open it. Not yet.”

Astarion arched a brow. “You’re worried about the seal?”

Gale nodded. “A hag’s contract is not a mere document. It’s a living bond. Breaking the seal without preparation could bind whoever opens it… or unleash whatever terms it contains.”

A flicker of something passed across Raphael’s face—approval, perhaps. Or amusement. “Sage advice,” he said. “And very much in your interest to heed it. That parchment is no mere curio. It holds the shape of the bargain your charming Regent struck… and the price of its failure.”

Lily’s hand hovered near her side, not quite touching the table. “Then tell us. What do you want?”

Raphael turned fully toward her, and for the first time, there was no pretense. His smile cooled, honed down to something sharp enough to cut through silk and sentiment.

“I want the Regent bound to the hag. As he agreed. Or dead—truly, I’m not particular. The result is the same. He loses.”

Seraphina narrowed her eyes. “And in return?”

“Ah,” Raphael breathed. “In return, I offer something rather special. Something you, Master Dekarios, may find… liberating.”

He turned to Gale then, with the careful grace of a man revealing the ace he had no need to bluff with. “An artifact,” he said, voice velvet-wrapped iron. “Rare. Singular. Long kept under seal in the galleries beneath Dis. A relic of such magnitude it could, in the right hands, rival the favor of any goddess.”

His gaze sharpened, landing on Gale not with threat, but promise.

“Think of it, Dekarios. Enough power to tip the balance of any courtly scale. To render divine patronage a pleasant footnote rather than a necessity. To marry where you wish—not where you must.”

Lily inhaled, very softly.

Raphael’s smile was almost gentle. He stepped forward, just a pace, voice low and conspiratorial. “Imagine no longer living at the mercy of the Lady’s moods. No more whispered doubts about whether your affections are convenient. You would be—at last—unassailable.”

Then, lighter again, almost teasing, “And is that not the point of the season? Fortunate alliances, advantageous matches… happy marriages. If the only thing standing between you and yours is power—why not accept a little more?”

He turned his eyes briefly to Lily and added, almost as an afterthought, “Some bonds deserve to be made by choice, not by permission.”

His eyes gleamed.

Raphael’s words hung in the air like the final note of a requiem—sharp, resounding, and impossible to ignore. Then, with the slow indulgence of a man savoring his own cleverness, he turned—not to Lily, as half the room might have expected—but to Seraphina.

His gaze cooled into something calculating, thoughtful. Not tender. A jeweler’s eye measuring the flaw in a diamond already destined for a coronet.

“It’s the quiet ones who seal the fate of kingdoms,” he said smoothly, as though offering a compliment. “The sisters who hesitate, who weigh and watch… they are the ones who make the final move.”

He inclined his head, reverent and mocking all at once. “And your name, Miss Seraphina, is already inked in the margins. Whether you took the quill or not.”

Seraphina did not blink. But a pulse leapt at her temple, betraying what her voice did not. Raphael’s gaze flicked to Lily then, softer—but with a cruelty dressed in velvet.

“And you, brightest star—how you chafe at being offered like a diamond on velvet. But be honest with yourself. In this world, a favorable alliance may be your only chance at happiness. And your sister’s advantageous marriage…” He let the words linger, a slow circle of implication, “…might just unburden you.”

Lily’s spine remained straight, her expression unreadable. But her fingers curled ever so slightly in the folds of her gown, as if grasping for something solid beneath all the silk and expectation.

Raphael stepped back then, as if his work here were done.

“Twenty-four hours,” he said lightly, brushing a speck of imagined dust from his sleeve. “Secure the Regent’s fate—hag-bound or harrowed, I care not. And in return, the artifact will be yours.”

He glanced once, almost fondly, at Gale. “Enough power to unseat even the finest thrones of constraint.”

Then to Seraphina, a bow that just skirted insolence.

“And you’ll have your freedom, one way or another.”

He turned on his heel with theatrical flair, coat swirling like spilled ink behind him. And just before the doors closed behind him:

He took a final step back, the candlelight catching on the red of his waistcoat, deepening it to something almost arterial.

“But know this,” he added softly, “there are contracts older than ink and parchment… and some girls call their chains by gentler names.”

A beat passed, and  then, with a slight bow and a smile like a closing door: “Until tomorrow.”

He vanished like the last note of a dirge, leaving only silence—and the vague sense that someone, somewhere, had begun to count.

Chapter Text

“One may bind a heart with ribbon or with spellcraft—yet the cruelest bonds are those the captive does not see.”

Elamara Aumar, Collected Whispers, Vol. II

My most devoted readers,

It is not often that a debut season serves both music and murder, but then, our little circle has always been exceptional. While the chandeliers of Dweomerheart still gleamed with last night’s intrigues, in the snowbound woods a far crueler pageant was unfolding: a lodge wrapped in fey glamour, a girl singing spells she did not choose, and five gentlemen of the Regent’s service left quite—shall we say—indisposed.

Meanwhile, in parlors and curtained alcoves, choices were being made. Some whispered over maps and parchment, others written in the press of a hand or the stolen heat of a kiss. Yet every choice, my dears, narrows the path ahead, until the only step left is the one that cannot be undone.

And somewhere in the quiet between heartbeats, the clock continues to chime.

~ Elamara 

It was the morning after the fire. The barn still smoldered in places, sending up bitter tendrils of smoke that curled through the air like forgotten warnings. Snow had begun to fall again, gentle flakes dissolving against blackened beams.

Inside the manor, the quiet was not quite grief—it was the silence of something withheld, suspended, waiting to be named. Celeste sat on the carved bench beneath the tall windows in the study, her legs swinging just above the floor. Her soot-smudged boots had been scrubbed clean, but the smell of smoke still clung to her hair.

She was unusually still, fingers curled in the hem of her skirt, watching the door like she was waiting for a storm to return.

Alaric entered without knocking. He looked tired—his coat askew, boots muddied, face drawn in ways that seemed older than hours. But he smiled when he saw her, gently, and that smile alone seemed to soften the room.

He knelt before her and reached into the inner pocket of his coat. When his hand emerged, it held a delicate silver chain, fine as spider silk, and at its center: a tiny charm shaped like a hawthorn blossom. Enamel and pearl, with the faintest blush of rose in the petals’ heart.

He reached up and fastened it around her neck, hands careful, slow.

Celeste blinked down at it, confused. “Is it a spell?”

Alaric paused. “Yes.”

“But…” She frowned, looking up at him. “You said we don’t use spells in this house.”

There was no accusation in her voice—only curiosity, the earnest logic of a child who remembered her lessons. Magic was dangerous. Magic was unpredictable. Magic was not for her. 

Alaric exhaled slowly, brushing a loose strand of hair from her brow. “Some spells are wild things,” he said quietly. “Meant to bind or break. This one… this is different. It’s old. Gentle. Meant to protect.”

She looked down at the charm again, turning it between her fingers. “Like a ward?”

“Exactly like that,” he said, and smiled, though something about it wavered. “You must never take it off, Celeste. It keeps you safe. Do you understand?”

She nodded solemnly. “Will it keep you safe too?”

He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he pulled her into his arms and held her tight—one hand on the back of her head, the other curled protectively around her shoulders. When he spoke again, his voice was barely more than a whisper:

“It will keep us all safe.”

*****

The forest had gone still, as if listening. Frost limned the low branches, and the shimmer around the lodge was no longer subtle—a curtain of glamour, almost beautiful in its way. But beneath its luster, something darker pulsed. Something hungry.

Wyll stepped forward cautiously, hand on the hilt at his hip. “It’s too quiet.”

Then, like dew condensing on the edge of sound, a voice rose from within the lodge. It was singing. Not quite melody, not quite spell, and yet it seeped into the clearing like mist through a graveyard gate—a lullaby, soft and strange, threaded with longing so tender it ached behind the eyes.

Wyll froze mid-step.

Halsin’s eyes went wide. “Wait—no—”

Too late. Wyll swayed slightly on his feet, breath leaving him in a soft sigh as the voice wound around his thoughts. The edge of his grip loosened on his sword. His eyes went glassy.

“Wyll,” Halsin said sharply, shaking him. “Look at me.”

Wyll blinked, like someone surfacing from a dream. “I… I was just—”

“That’s Celeste,” Halsin said. “She’s the one singing.”

Wyll turned, expression clouded with dread. “That’s not her. Not like this.”

“She’s casting,” Halsin murmured. “Or something is casting through her.”

The voice rose again—high and crystalline, like wind through hollow reeds. And in its wake, a prickle of danger traced down Halsin’s spine. He glanced to the roots of a gnarled ash nearby—something silver caught his eye, half-buried in a cradle of moss and frost.

He knelt— a broken chain. Its links were delicate and fine, unmistakably crafted by careful hands. At the center, a charm shaped like a hawthorn blossom. Its pearl heart was dull now, no longer gleaming.

Wyll knelt beside him. “Her necklace.”

“She never took it off,” Halsin said quietly. “Not even to bathe.”

“It was a ward,or looks like one.” Wyll said, his voice tightening. “Her father gave it to her.”

The chain had been severed—not pulled or torn, but burned straight through. The metal was blackened at the break.

“She’s vulnerable,” Halsin murmured. “Whatever was holding the magic at bay—it’s gone.”

Another note rose, Celeste’s voice again, impossibly sweet, impossibly far from what it had once been.

Wyll stood. “We have to get to her. We have to get in there, Halsin, NOW!”

*****

Astarion flipped the sealed parchment between two fingers, its wax glinting faintly in the low light. The Fey sigil seemed to shimmer and shift as though it disliked being observed.

“Whatever game Raphael is playing,” he murmured, “I daresay we’ve just been invited to the table.”

Gale’s voice followed, low and deliberate. “Mephistopheles’  heir does not play games,” he said quietly. “He wagers. And he never places a bet without weighing its cost in blood and legacy.”

Seraphina remained still beside him. She had not spoken since Raphael’s departure, nor reacted when her name had been invoked, when her future had been discussed like a pawn on a board too vast to see. But now, her hands folded at her waist, her voice came soft and composed.

His gaze lingered on the empty space Raphael had left, the air still faintly charred by his departure. Seraphina stood a breath removed from the others, her posture demure, her hands clasped just so—but her stillness was the kind that followed a blow not yet felt. She had said nothing during Raphael’s address, nor when her name was offered up like a card in some infernal hand. She had simply endured.

Now, her voice—when it came—was quiet, composed, and exquisitely polite.

“If the artifact is genuine,” she said, her eyes fixed on a point just beyond the hearth’s dying light, “then you would no longer be subject to the will of Mystra. Nor to the opinions of those who presume to guide her Chosen. You might… be free.”

The word hung there, delicate as frost, before dissolving into the hush that followed.

Gale turned toward her, slowly. He did not speak at once, as though weighing the safety of silence against the peril of honesty. “There was a time,” he said at last, “when I believed there could be no joy beyond her favour. That to stand outside her grace was to dwell in shadow.” His smile flickered, a pale ghost of humour. “But one grows older. Wiser, or perhaps merely lonelier, and begins to imagine other kinds of light.”

Seraphina’s breath caught, though she masked it swiftly. Her expression did not change, save for the slight tightening of her hands upon one another. She lowered her gaze. “It is not wicked,” she said softly, “to wish that choice might be possible.”

Lily, who had said little through the exchange, shifted just enough for the candlelight to catch the sheen of her lashes. “Still,” she said, her voice like silk pulled taut, “there’s something to be said for having more than one offer on the table.”

From the corner, she gave a brittle laugh. “How refreshing,” she said, “to speak of choices, when so few are truly offered. One might almost forget that a favorable alliance is considered the only acceptable aspiration for a woman of our standing.” She looked to her sister, then to Gale. “But of course—freedom, like affection, is often the province of men.”

Her tone was light, but there was steel beneath it—an edge honed sharp from too many masked evenings and perfumed expectations.

A moment passed, long and unbroken. Then the fire crackled in the grate, as if to punctuate the silence.

Seraphina lifted her eyes. The flicker of firelight gilded her lashes, lent a fragile luster to the pale curve of her cheek. Her expression remained composed, yet her gaze—when it met his—was disarmingly steady.

Gale had the presence of mind to look away. He did not. For a long moment, nothing passed between them but silence, charged and delicate as a drawn breath. The others were near, yet distant; the world itself had receded to the hush between their two hearts.

“If you were free,” Seraphina said, barely above a whisper, “what would you choose?”

The question hovered like a feather on the air—not daring to fall, lest it be broken by the weight of its answer.

Gale’s hand, resting lightly on the edge of the mantel, shifted. Not to reach for her. Not quite. But his fingers twitched, betraying the thought.

“I am not in the habit of imagining the impossible,” he said softly.

“Then let us call it… improbable,” she replied. A beat, then a ghost of a smile. “That is still some distance from unthinkable.”

His answering smile was brief. Pained. “And yet still far too dangerous.”

Another silence followed—but it was a different silence now. No longer the careful stillness of the ballroom, but something more intimate. The hush of things unsaid, of a future not quite imagined.

Astarion, watching from the periphery, tilted his head—sharp-eyed, unreadable.

Lily, too, observed, but her glance was more complex: not jealous, not surprised… only thoughtful.

The fire crackled again. Somewhere, a clock began to chime the hour.

The spell broke.

Seraphina lowered her gaze and stepped back, folding her hands once more in perfect composure. “It is growing late,” she said, addressing no one in particular.

But Gale watched her still, a question lingering behind his eyes that he did not know how to ask. Not yet.

*****

The last chimes of the clock had not yet faded when Lily felt her wrist caught—not harshly, but with quiet intent.

“A moment,” Astarion said, his voice velvet-wrapped steel. Before she could reply, he was guiding her—not dragging, not pleading, but drawing her with the practiced ease of a man who knew the rhythm of shadows. They slipped behind a half-drawn curtain and vanished into the narrow alcove beyond, where only the golden flicker of candlelight kept the dark at bay.

No one followed. No one dared. Astarion released her with the faintest graze of fingers, his smile already waiting in the gloom.

“Well,” he murmured, “wasn’t that illuminating.”

Lily turned to him, the corners of her mouth carefully composed. “If you’re referring to Raphael’s little offer, yes. Quite the performance.”

“You’re thinking about it,” he said, not accusing—merely amused.

“So are you,” she returned, tilting her head. “I saw your face when he spoke of power. Of freedom. Of not being bound to someone else’s will.”

“Mm. You wound me,” he said, hand to heart, though his eyes gleamed in the half-light. “I was far too captivated by Gale’s tragic sighing and Seraphina’s trembling resolve. We should bottle it and sell it to the romantically afflicted.”

She gave a soft scoff. “They mean well.”

“They mean to hesitate,” he corrected, stepping closer. “To hesitate, and hope someone else makes the difficult choice. But you and I—we know better, don’t we?”

She held his gaze, her breath caught somewhere between defiance and agreement.

“You’re not here to talk about Raphael,” she said.

“No,” he said, and smiled again—this time without amusement. “I’m not.”

Another step, and he was close enough to touch, though he didn’t. Not yet.

“You stood there,” he said, voice lower now, “in that room of clever men and careful women, and spoke of choices with iron in your spine. And I thought—it should be us, who claim the prize of freedom to do as we choose. It will certainly be us who bear the burden of securing it. ”

“Do you mean…?” she murmured.

“I do,” he said, “be wicked, be selfish with me, Lily.”

The alcove pressed close around them—stone and velvet, candlelight and tension. The world beyond the curtain felt thinner now, like something half-remembered. Here, there were no titles, no suitors, no pacts inked in secrets. Just them.

“You brought me in here for a reason,” she said at last.

Astarion tilted his head. “Do I need one?”

“Yes,” she whispered. “Because if you kiss me and mean nothing by it, I will never forgive you.”

He stilled. Then—very gently—his hand came to rest against her cheek. “And if I kiss you and mean everything?”

She pressed a hand against his chest, just above his heart. “You are impossible,” she said.

“And you,” he whispered, lips still close, “are inevitable.”

Lily didn’t step back. She didn’t speak. Her breath came in shallow draws,” her lashes low—not coy, but cautious, as if she were standing at the very edge of something vast and terrible and long-desired.  Then, she stepped forward.

Astarion’s back met the stone wall with a soft thud, though he scarcely noticed. She was in his arms before he could draw breath to speak, her hands already at the buttons of his waistcoat, her mouth seeking his again—not delicate this time, but deliberate, hungry. 

He groaned low in his throat—surprised, delighted—and his hands found her waist, sliding beneath the fall of embroidered silk to where her stays kissed the curve of her spine. This was not the kiss of a debutante, nor a duchess-in-waiting. It was the kiss of a woman who knew her own mind and meant to use it. Her warmth, her pulse, the weight of her body pressed against him—he wanted all of it, every trembling inch.

The curtain behind them swayed as her back arched, the alcove suddenly too small to contain the magnitude of want. His lips left hers only to trace the line of her jaw, the delicate place beneath her ear where her breath hitched and her fingers tightened in his cravat.

“I should stop,” he murmured, voice rough against her skin.

“But you won’t,” she answered.

“No,” he agreed, with something like reverence. “No, I won’t.”

She was tugging him down now, her back against the velvet-draped wall, one leg sliding between his. Her bodice had slipped slightly off one shoulder, and the candlelight caught on her skin like gold leaf. He bent to kiss the newly bared curve, and her sigh was all the permission he needed.

There was no haste in his touch, only hunger wrapped in velvet gloves. His fingers slid beneath the delicate laces of her gown, tracing the whalebone seams as though memorizing a map no other man would be allowed to read. She trembled, not from fear, but from the unbearable pressure of holding still while the world shifted beneath her.

He kissed her again—deep and slow this time, savoring the taste of her, the press of her palm against his throat, the way her breath stuttered when his teeth grazed her bottom lip.

His mouth found the hollow of her collarbone, then lower, a slow descent marked by worship and ruin. One hand slipped behind her thigh, drawing her leg up to wrap around his waist as he pressed her against the wall—not pinning, but holding, steady and sure. The space between them dissolved; there was only heat and pressure, the slow grind of longing no longer restrained.

Her head fell back against the wall with a soft sound—half-moan, half-laugh—as he kissed a path down her chest, reverent even in his hunger. She was silk and fire beneath his hands, arching into his touch, unmade by the smallest kindnesses: a fingertip tracing the edge of a stocking, a kiss pressed to the hollow beneath her ribs, a breath drawn in tandem with hers.

“You’re not supposed to do this,” he whispered, voice caught between awe and breathlessness. “You’re meant to deflect, to evade, to keep me chasing shadows.”

Lily looked up at him through lowered lashes, her voice low and deliberate.

“I’m tired of a life lived to please others,” she said. “Tonight, I please only myself. And you.”

Astarion blinked, undone not by her nearness but by the sheer gravity of her intention. No performance. No artifice. Just a woman claiming the one thing this world rarely allows: her own desire.

He might have said something—something clever, something coy—but the words died the moment her hand slid to his throat and pulled him down into a kiss that was neither chaste nor tentative.

It was command, and he obeyed.

Still—somewhere between pulse and pause—
there lingered an unspoken truth, like wine on their tongues.

This was not love but  it was very, very close.

*****

Wyll stood, his breath coming in tight puffs, sword drawn but unsteady in his hand. “We have to get to her. We have to get in there, Halsin. Now.”

Halsin didn’t argue. He stepped forward, spreading his hands wide, fingers crackling faintly with druidic energy. The air thickened as he summoned the strength of root and sky, of bark and stone. His voice rumbled low—not a chant, but a calling, the ancient words of Sylvan spinning from his lips like leaves in a storm.

“I warned Alaric this day would come,” he muttered. “I only pray we are not too late.”

The air in front of him shimmered. The glamour resisted at first—slick, fey, coiled like a serpent. But Halsin growled deep in his throat and shoved, parting the illusion like a curtain. A portal tore open, jagged at the edges, glowing green and gold like moss lit from beneath.

“Go,” he said. “Before she sings again.”

The portal flared open with a breath of cold air and crushed lavender.

Wyll stepped through first, sword drawn. Halsin followed, hand aglow with soft druidic light. The spell behind them sealed like a curtain pulled tight.

Inside the lodge, the air was thick—sweet with enchantment, warm as summer wine, laced with the copper tang of blood.

At the center of it all stood Celeste, in her torn dress. Her hair wild, he gaze distant. Her hair spilled in dark waves down her back. Her arms hung loosely at her sides. And from her lips flowed a lullaby—slow, crystalline, haunting.

Around her lay five bodies.

Men in the Regent’s livery, arranged like broken toys. One slumped against the hearth, head turned at an unnatural angle. Another lay sprawled beneath an overturned table, silver flame scorched across his chest. A third still clutched his pistol—half-drawn—his throat blackened where shadow-magic had pierced him through. 

“Gods,” Wyll breathed. “She—”

“She did,” Halsin said grimly. “And not with control.”

They stepped forward slowly, every sense strained. The enchantment lingered in the air—soft, lulling, almost seductive. It made Wyll’s grip falter, his vision blur at the edges. His sword dipped slightly.

Halsin gritted his teeth. “Don’t listen. Shut her out. The spell isn’t aimed, it’s ambient—leaking from her like steam from a boiling pot.”

“She’s not casting,” Wyll murmured. “She’s bleeding magic.”

Celeste turned her head then, slowly, as if drawn by the sound of their voices. Her eyes were open. Distant. Still caught in some dream the spell wove just for her.

Her song never paused but a single tear slid down her cheek.

Halsin lowered his voice to a murmur. “She’s not lost. Not entirely. If she were, she wouldn’t cry.”

He stepped forward, speaking not as a druid, not as a rescuer, but as something, someone rather dearer.

“Celeste,” he said, voice deep and anchoring. “It’s Halsin. You know me. You’re safe now.”

She swayed slightly, lips parting to reach a higher note—a pure tone, heartbreakingly sweet. The wood of the lodge trembled.

“She has to be,” Wyll said, his voice tight with conviction. “She has to be in there.”

Halsin didn’t move for a long breath. His hands hovered just above the stone dais, not quite touching it, sensing the magic that pulsed beneath it like a buried heartbeat. His brow furrowed.

“She is,” he said at last. “But something’s wrong.”

He rose slowly, his face drawn with concentration, his voice low and grim. “She’s here—but not whole. Part of her… part of her is missing.”

Wyll turned sharply. “Missing? What do you mean?”

Halsin didn’t answer at once. He crouched low, one hand just above the stone dais, his other brushing against the weft of magic that shimmered faintly in the air. His brow furrowed, mouth set in a grim line.

“She is,” he said at last. “But… I’m not sure she’s whole.”

Wyll turned to him sharply. “What do you mean?”

Halsin exhaled slowly. “I mean… something’s been taken. Or sealed. Or—gods help her—bound. Her mind feels… laced with silk. Like a voice wrapped in too many veils.”

He rose slowly, eyes fixed on Celeste as her song spiraled higher, unnaturally sweet. “This isn’t just wild magic. It’s layered. Woven. Deliberate.”

“Fey?” Wyll asked, though he already knew the answer.

Halsin’s jaw tightened. “Or worse. Something using Fey patterns but with deeper intent. I don’t know yet. But I know this—she’s not safe here. And neither are we.” He sighed, “Whatever took part of her—whatever did this—may not be done,” 

The lodge creaked softly, as though the walls themselves listened. 

Halsin stepped back from the dais, urgency sharpening his voice. “We have to leave. Now. Whatever carved out part of her mind—whatever holds it—may come looking for the rest.”

And still Celeste sang, each note trailing like mist through the ruin.

He moved before she could falter again—three strides, swift and sure. He caught her in his arms with the ease of someone used to carrying the wounded. She didn’t resist. Her body folded into his chest like something brittle and bird-boned, much too light for the weight of what she had done.

“Wyll,” Halsin said, already turning toward the portal. “Ready the horses. Now.”

Wyll gave one last, lingering look at the blood-streaked floor, the eerily peaceful dead, the girl held like a fading flame between worlds. Then he vanished through the shimmer of the spell, boots striking earth beyond.

The portal pulsed behind him.

Celeste stirred faintly in Halsin’s arms. Her fingers twitched against his shoulder. Her breath was thready. Her lips parted as if to sing again—but no sound came.

No spell.

No melody.

Just silence.

Halsin adjusted his hold, cradling her closer. “You held on,” he whispered, voice rough and reverent. “Even when they tried to take you. Even when the darkness tried to swallow you whole.”

He brushed a soot-streaked curl from her brow, fingers trembling just slightly. “I’ve got you now, starling,” he murmured. “No one else gets to cage you.”

Then, without another word, he stepped through the portal—carrying her home.

*****

The last embers in the hearth glowed low, their light long past warmth. A clock chimed somewhere far down the hall—five soft bells. The hour of shadows just before the city stirs.

The guests had gone. The finery had dulled. And in the drawing room at the heart of Dweomerheart, four figures stood like pieces on a board, the game reset and the stakes higher than ever.

Astarion leaned against the hearth’s edge, coat unfastened, hair slightly mussed. Lily stood just behind him, half-wrapped in a velvet shawl she hadn’t worn earlier in the evening. A pin was missing from her hair. Both looked like they hadn’t slept—or like sleep had been the last thing on their minds.

Seraphina, by contrast, was immaculate still, though her shoulders bore the weight of too many sleepless hours. She sat stiff-backed on the chaise, gloves tucked into her lap. Gale stood beside her, arms crossed, face pale in the firelight.

“We have more leverage now than we did yesterday,” Lily said, her voice quiet but firm. “And we’re fools not to use it.”

Astarion gave a soft, wry hum. “I’d say the fools are the ones who still think we can play this clean.”

Seraphina did not rise. “You’re referring to Raphael’s artifact.”

“I’m referring to opportunity,” Lily said. “And to the fact that the Regent doesn’t operate alone. Whatever this is—whatever he’s entangled in—it’s bigger than any one deal. That artifact may be the only leverage we ever get.”

“And what will you trade for it?” Seraphina asked softly. “Which piece of yourself are you prepared to forfeit?”

“If it saves her—” Lily began.

“You don’t know she needs saving,” Gale interrupted. “Not yet.”

“And that’s the problem,” Astarion said, stepping forward. “You’re content to wait. To analyze. To be precise.” His voice dropped, sharp as cut crystal. “But while we debate the risk, the enemy isn’t sleeping.”

Gale’s jaw tensed. “We can’t afford recklessness. If this is hagcraft, it must be unraveled carefully. One thread at a time.”

Seraphina stood now, her voice calm but edged with exhaustion. “If we act without understanding the shape of the bargain, we could destroy whatever fragile balance is keeping her safe.”

“She may not be safe at all,” Lily murmured.

But before another word could be spoken, the sound of hurried footsteps echoed in the corridor beyond—then a knock, quick and urgent.

Gale turned toward the door. “Enter.”

A footman in Silverbough livery stepped in, pale with exertion and still dusted with snow.

“Forgive the hour,” he said, bowing quickly. “But I was told to come at once. The girl—Miss Celeste—has been found.”

All four went still.

The footman straightened, breath misting in the cold air that clung to his coat. He held out a parchment sealed with green wax—Halsin’s sigil pressed cleanly into the crest.

“I was told to place this directly into your hands, Miss Seraphina,” he said, bowing low. “Lord Halsin bade me ride without delay. He said only that… the girl has been found.”

Seraphina’s gloved fingers trembled slightly as she took the letter.

“She is at Silverbough Hall,” the footman added, quieter now. “Under his care.”

He bowed once more and withdrew without another word, leaving the heavy silence behind him.

Seraphina broke the seal with careful hands. Her eyes scanned the page once—then again, slower. Her lips moved soundlessly as she read, her breath catching at the bottom of the page.

“Well?” Gale asked, his voice low.

“She’s alive,” Seraphina said, her voice barely above a whisper. “Halsin found her in a forest lodge. There were bodies—men in the Regent’s colors, slain by spellwork. He says the magic was… raw. Unstable. Not all of it hers.”

Gale stepped closer. “What does he mean?”

Seraphina shook her head. “He doesn’t know. Only that she was singing when they arrived, and that the spell around her was… not one of her own making.”

She swallowed. “He fears she’s been used. That part of her may still be bound. He says she’s resting now, but whatever holds her—whatever’s left of it—has not let go.”

Lily moved forward, expression tight. “Does he name the bargain?”

“No.” Seraphina folded the letter slowly, hands careful, reverent. “Only that we must act quickly. And that he dares not disturb the spell further without our counsel.”

There was a long pause.

Astarion’s voice was the first to cut the silence. “So. Now we know where she is. And we know what’s hunting her may not be done.”

His gaze fell to the sealed artifact still resting on the side table. “The question is…  how do we strike back?”

*****

The wind had turned cold again by the time the carriage departed Dweomerheart, lanterns casting soft gold against the velvet blue of pre-dawn. Within the polished wood interior, Gale sat opposite Seraphina, his hands resting lightly on his knees, his expression as unreadable as the stars behind the window glass.

They had not spoken since the letter was read.

Seraphina watched the city slip past in fragmented glimpses—spires and still-shuttered shops, snow-muted streets. Her gloves were folded in her lap, untouched. She had not asked why he insisted on coming, nor did she bristle when he had told her it must be him. He had not said why Mystra’s favor mattered here, only that if the hag’s magic lingered, he would sense it.

And she had understood. Or at least, she had not argued.

At last, he broke the silence.

“You don’t have to come,” he said gently, though his gaze remained on the passing dark. “She’ll need time. And whatever was done to her… it may not be safe.”

“I’m her sister,” Seraphina replied, her voice low, steady—but the kind of steady one must work to hold. “I would rather walk into the fire than wait to hear of the ashes.”

For a moment, Gale said nothing. The lantern light trembled across the carved interior of the carriage, gilding the silence between them.

Then he shifted—slowly, deliberately—and reached for her hand.

Not to grasp it, not to anchor her. Just to touch, as though asking permission. His fingers brushed hers with the reverence of someone who still believed in spells made by skin and pulse alone.

“Then I am glad I’m not alone,” he said, and his voice was different now—quieter, nearer. There was something vulnerable in it, something raw and unvarnished. “It is easier, sometimes, to brave danger than to share it.”

Her fingers turned beneath his, curling slowly around the line of his palm. She did not look at him—could not. But she didn’t let go.

Outside, the world blurred in motion and frost. Inside, something warm had settled in the stillness.

After a moment, she exhaled softly. “Gale,” she murmured, her voice barely more than breath, “if you see something in her that you cannot unsee… will you tell me the truth?”

He looked at her, truly looked—his brow furrowed not in calculation, but in something far more fragile. Care. Perhaps even fear.

“I swear it,” he said.  Then, almost before he knew what he was doing, he leaned forward and kissed her.

It wasn’t planned. It wasn’t proper. It wasn’t the kind of kiss one gives to someone else’s daughter, someone else’s sister, someone whose sorrow he did not yet have the right to touch.

His hand rose to her cheek, gentle, tentative, as if half-afraid the moment would shatter. And when their lips met—hesitant, breathless—he tasted not certainty, but something sweeter still: permission.

Seraphina didn’t startle. She didn’t retreat. She stilled, just for a beat—and, then leaned in with the faintest press of her hand against his chest, as though to steady them both. It was not a kiss meant to consume, but to promise. To say: I see you. I trust you. For this moment, I choose you.

When they parted, barely a breath between them, the carriage rocked gently on the road.

Gale let his forehead rest lightly against hers, eyes closed, a soft exhale escaping his lips like a spell just cast.

“Forgive me,” he murmured. “I shouldn’t have—”

“You should have,” Seraphina whispered, her hand still resting over his heart. “And I’m glad you did.”

Outside, the horses moved at a brisk, enchanted pace. Inside, the weight of unspoken dread pressed close, like fog against the glass.