Chapter Text
“Appreciate it, Henri. Gonna go drain the ocean, if you know what I mean.”
The bearded dock worker was already turning away as he spoke, flashing a yellow-toothed grin like it was worth something. All bones and bluster, the kind of bastard who’d made it this far on timing and luck, not muscle. As he stretched with an overdone groan and slapped Henri on the shoulder hard enough to sting, Henri managed not to flinch.
“Don’t fall in,” he muttered.
The man just laughed like he owned the deck. “Try not to fuck up anything while I’m gone, new guy.”
He swaggered off down the length of the ship, whistling some half-remembered tavern tune, cocky as hell for someone walking off the job to take a piss. Or worse.
Henri turned to the only other man left on deck. He didn’t know his name, didn’t care. Taller, meaner. Gnawed at his cigarette like it owed him mora and squinted at Henri with a gaze that made it clear: this one wasn’t going anywhere unless forced.
Henri stayed still for a breath, then another.
He could lie. Say a crate fell in the lower hold. Claim the foreman called for a last-minute manifest check. Something dumb, something fast. But this guy didn’t look like the type to budge for a few words. He looked like the type who made a habit of resisting orders.
Figures he was stuck on deck all night while everyone else slept. Probably mouthed off one too many times and had the captain send him topside to shut him up.
He’d dealt with this kind of deadweight plenty. Henri could already feel the minutes slipping away. He didn’t have the time, energy, or creativity to dance through whatever pissing contest this would turn into.
He was tired. The search was still ahead of him. The air stank like rust and bilge. His uniform itched. And if this idiot wanted to be a problem… Then fine by him.
Henri punched him in the back of the head. The man crumpled with a loud thunk, sprawled halfway between two crates. Having had the honour of being made an example.
Henri flexed his fingers. Half to put on a show, half because he’d probably gotten dandruff all over them. Not exactly the cleanest approach, in either sense of the word, but cleaner than a conversation. He adjusted his sleeve. The uniform was so itchy. And scratchy. The standard dockworker fare of coarse fabric that clung to sweat. Probably unwashed since the last poor bastard wore it. Still, it beat dragging a heavy cloak over his shoulders. The air in the Fortress was always cold, deep beneath the ocean's surface. A bone-deep chill that never went away. You needed a heavy cloak for that, not for the midnight wind of the Liffey Region.
The vessel was built for short-range trade. Crates were packed along the deck in half organized stacks, most roped loosely to steel lashing points bolted to the hull. A winch system hunched near the stern for hoisting cargo from dock to hold, and an oil drum lashed to a cracked pallet was leaking something thick that smelled like turpentine. The rails were dented, the decking warped in places where years of weight had grooved into the planks. A hydraulic lift platform was wedged near the bow, probably meant to ferry cargo down into the hold. Now it just crouched there, whispering like a threat: “Go on. Try me. See if you don’t lose an arm.”
Even the emergency lifeboats were missing two paddles, repurposed for something no doubt stupider than surviving. Still, everything on this ship had a use, even if it was improvisational. Crates stacked along the stern loomed in the dark. Henri moved quickly now, mindful of the time. He wasn’t a Garde, didn’t have any formal training in search protocols or contraband classification. But he knew what looked wrong. And he knew that if a civilian vessel got too close to the blockade tonight, hell, if one passed it, this entire operation would fall apart.
Maybe someone would end up complicating the situation further. But there was no time to be wasted in his situation. He had left a busybody nurse in charge for the time being. If her authoritative capabilities were anything like her cooking ones, he really needed to get back soon.
He opened the first crate. Just silk. Legitimate. The second: leather. Still damp. Also real. Third: food. Rotting. Gross, but not unexpected for such a barebones operation. Fourth—
He paused.
More silk, but too tightly packed for these lazy new colleagues of his. They packed the other crates about as carefully as a paper boy would throw a newspaper onto a lawn. So the neatness he found in the fourth was uncomfortable.
Henri dug deeper. Cold metal. He pulled out a set of manacles, small enough to fit around a child’s wrists. A muscle in his jaw twitched. He set them down carefully on the silk and reached in again. Another pair. And then another.
Finally, beneath a torn flap of cloth, something glinted silver. He tugged it free. It was a Garde insignia. Relatively clean. Hidden like it was meant to be found only by the right—or wrong—person. Henri was definitely the wrong person.
He still pocketed it. His fingers closed around the badge, and in the space of a breath, a memory surged. That place, stinking of old wine and rotting newspapers.
The yelling.
The backhand that left his ears ringing.
The knife from the drawer. His hands, his fists coated in blood, his breath curling in the air even though it was summer. The look in his former caretaker’s eyes before it went glassy and still. Trembling in a kitchen of shattered glass and broken bones, clutching onto the remains of a life he hadn’t asked for.
The memory faded, and the stars returned. Henri looked up at the sky overhead, what little he could see of Teyvat. He didn’t get to see the surface often. Maybe once every few months, when the schedule allowed a day off.
He exhaled through his nose. Maybe it was getting a little chilly. Time to wrap this up.
The whistle that left his lips was low and sharp. A sailor’s tune. Nothing out of place. But the response was immediate. Small boats cut through the dark like blades, surrounding the vessel without a sound. One, two, five, nine, each of them carrying Gardes, their rifles already raised. Triggers half-pulled.
He tensed. The feeling of barrels trained on his chest never got comfortable, even all these years later.
Then, footsteps came. Heavy ones.
“What the bloody hell is going on up here!?”
The ship’s captain appeared from below, a squat, hideous man with a pockmarked face and jowls that flapped when he barked. Two sailors trailed behind, still tying their boots, rubbing sleep from their eyes.
“By Focalors' flying fanny, you’ll get us all hauled off!” He looked at Henri, caught red handed. “Who the hell are you to bring the Garde down on us, you little—!” The captain shrieked, noticing the voyeurs. He stomped forward.
Henri blinked. Then his hand shifted.
The second signal. All eyes from the blockade fell on his fist, clasped shut in the air. Stand down. I’ll handle him on my own.
He stepped to the left, drawing the captain forward into the narrowing aisle between two crate stacks. He ducked as the first wild swing came. Too slow.
Then Henri slammed his elbow up under the captain’s chin, catching him just beneath the jowl. It was a clean upward drive of all hips and shoulders. The kind that cracked molars while an audience cheered. Pankration experience.
Before he could recover, Henri grabbed a loose tension hook hanging from the cargo netting and swung it down hard against the captain’s temple. The hook made a sick, dull clack. The man dropped.
One sailor lunged, faster than expected. Henri pivoted on his lead foot and caught the motion in his periphery. Elbow wide. He turned with him, grabbed a coil of half-knotted mooring rope from the deck, and yanked it up between the man’s legs, pulling hard. He staggered. Henri looped it around the sailor’s throat and dragged him backward into the rusted lift platform’s support struts. One sharp crack against metal, and the man went limp.
The last one hesitated. Henri did not. He shot forward off his back foot. A short, downward sweep with the strap, like a low hook turned horizontal, took the sailor’s legs out clean. Before the man could yell, Henri used the free end to bind his wrists behind his back and shoved him face-down near the leaky oil drum. The scent of fish oil soaked the side of his cheek.
That was when the Garde made their move. Ropes hit the rails. Boots on metal. Shouts. Barked commands. In under a minute, they swept the deck, weapons drawn. Every conscious crew member was pressed to the floor, arms bound. The rest were dragged out from wherever they’d hidden, yelling or cursing or crying.
One of the commanders approached Henri at a jog, pausing just long enough to give him a nod. “Duke,” he said, low but clear. “Apologies, again. We didn’t anticipate the takedown would end up right outside the Fortress territory.” He caught sight of the insignia pinned to the commander’s chest. Gold-inlaid, properly fastened, edge polished enough to catch the low deck light. A badge made to be seen, not tossed away in the nearest crate. It was being displayed by someone who believed in the meaning behind it. That was still possible, in theory. Even now.
Fontaine had been plastered with headlines lately. Column after column about Furina’s latest displays, her divine monologues in the Opera Epiclese, that duel she staged with Clorinde and the most recent tragic criminal. He always read the paper and drank his morning coffee. Where was it? Page six? Crime section, back half, just above the editorial arguing over what counted as “public decency.”
Wriothesley rubbed his thumb over the insignia in his palm. Official. He had too many of these. Not the badges, the memories. Sentencing men who reminded him of himself. Passing approval because the books said so.
He remembered his own arrival in the Fortress. Not as a duke. As a boy. Just another file with a number. Small fists. Cold cuffs. And no one to speak for him. He’d kept his Vision in his pocket when he first found it. Anyone could’ve snatched the thing. It was something you shouldn’t carry into a place like that.
He kept it hidden the same way he kept the badge hidden now, buried deep in the same kind of coat, same stitched lining. Different weight. Same logic.
He wanted to laugh. Even now, as a so-called free man, the habits stuck. Tucking proof into pockets. Changing his name. The law had titled him a Duke. Given him keys, privileges, authority to intervene on operations taking place over his jurisdiction. But reality didn’t bend just because the law said it should. It had to be boxed into shape. Daily, with both hands.
‘Henri’ handed the manacles over to the commander, and hesitated when his fingers brushed the insignia. “I’m just glad I know what I know,” he muttered, electing to keep it.
The commander took the evidence, eyes darkening. “We will be on our way shortly.”
The duke turned to go. “Next time I won’t be so lenient on you folks using the waters around my territory. I don’t have time to survey every mission. And leave me out of the report,” he said over his shoulder. A beat. He looked out at the sky again. “But make it a tight one.”
Rain had been falling since before dawn, thin and steady, enough to slick the mossy stones of the courtyard and turn the broken flagstones near the ruins into traps of wet moss and loose gravel.
Freminet’s breath came ragged through chapped lips, his shoulders rising and falling in quiet rhythm. He stood in the center of the open courtyard, feet braced, arms tensed, the padded dummy in front of him untouched. The air stank faintly of rust and damp, of blood from the last session that hadn’t been fully scrubbed out of the cracks.
Across the courtyard, the Knave watched him from beneath the overhang of a ruined archway. Her coat clung to her frame, spare droplets of water dripping from her fingers, but her stance didn’t shift. She hadn’t spoken for a while now. She didn’t often need to. She knew silence was worse than most obvious corrections.
The dummy swayed slightly in the wind. Freminet’s fists were still at his sides. “You hesitated,” she said at last.
He stiffened just a fraction. Didn’t look up.
She stepped forward. The courtyard was theirs. Emptied for this, cleared of the others for today. They were training near the outer edge of the old estate, somewhere between what had once been a noble villa and a gutted memory. Overgrown walls curled with black ivy behind her. A collapsed balcony sagged above them like a fallen jawbone of stone. The House of the Hearth had many previous homes. This one barely remembered what it used to be.
“Empathy,” she said, “drowns orphans.”
Freminet flinched like the sound hit somewhere he hadn’t prepared for. He was a good child. Scared, sometimes, but loyal to the Hearth. He could be trained into something worthwhile, someone truly formidable.
Arlecchino reached the dummy and nudged it with the back of her hand. It swung forward and struck Freminet in the ribs before he could react. He stumbled, more from guilt than pain.
“Again.”
He reset. Jaw tight, fists trembling.
She turned from him, the air behind her colder now.
That line… it hadn’t always belonged to her.
The previous Knave had wielded it like a whip, their merciless mother. Each repetition was a demand for perfection, each word a reminder of how far her children had yet to go.
And Clervie had said it once, long ago, with a dagger between her ribs and a laugh caught on her teeth. They’d gone for each other in the crumbled room, blades drawn, breathless and young and desperate to make someone proud. The order had been clear: only one of them was supposed to walk out of that room.
“You will be… a great “King.”
Arlecchino remembered the glint of Clervie’s knife, the warm slide of blood down her own side, the way the floor seemed to spin as she twisted and brought her blade up. Not fast enough, not clean enough.
They’d both been scuffed up. But Clervie had bled faster. It was no secret to the children that Peruere had something of a unique constitution.
She remembered standing over Clervie’s body, the look in her friend’s eyes not angry, not afraid, just resigned. Like she knew what was owed.
“Was my freedom worth your life?” The murderer had whispered, not sure which of them the question was for.
Clervie hadn’t answered past the smile. Her mouth twitched, but the only thing that came out was blood. And on that day, too, it started to rain.
Freminet focused back on the dummy, as droplets trickled past the edge of Arlecchino’s collar and slid down her spine. She turned slightly as footsteps approached from the archway.
It was Iosif. Fourteen, sharp as glass, always in a coat half a size too big at his own insistence. His dark hair stuck to his temples, and his boots squelched as he stepped onto the soaked courtyard stone. One hand was tucked in his coat pocket; the other held a folded sheet of paper already curling at the edges from the damp.
“Father. You said to bring you anything that looked off,” he said without preamble. All of her children learned brevity foremost.
She nodded once. He handed it over.
No headlines. No context. Just a clipped string of notes, written in a firm, angular hand. One of the older children had compiled it, probably Mylène. One bullet point caught her eye:
Civilian vessel seized near Liffey region, cargo unregistered. Nine crew listed at arrest, only three processed.
Further down, another:
Boy missing from the Canal Tier tenement housing, age twelve. No reports filed.
Then:
Garde badge recovered behind a textile warehouse in Beryl, partially scorched. No corresponding loss reported.
None of it definitive. All of it ugly. A few rain droplets stained the ink.
She folded the paper carefully, then glanced back at the training circle. Freminet had reset again. He struck at an angle this time, albeit too soft.
The wind shifted. The courtyard smelled like rusted chain and wet stone. “You did well,” she said to Iosif. He hesitated like he wanted to ask something. And then he thought better of it. “I will investigate personally, but I expect another report. You’ll pen it yourself.” The Knave added, her voice final.
Iosif nodded and stepped away, coat flapping behind him like a ghost.
The Knave tucked the page into her inner coat pocket and turned back to Freminet. The boy hadn’t improved at all.
“Again,” she said.
Clorinde struck first. The disgraced politician barely had time to raise his sword before she parried it, pivoted, and drove the pommel across his ribs with surgical precision. The crowd roared. No one noticed the desperation behind his grip or the smear of sweat soaking through his powdered collar. They weren’t here to see a duel. They were here to see someone lose.
Furina sat atop her dais like a bored empress playing dress-up, chin resting in her palm. Her court sprawled around her in chaotic finery, too occupied with bloodsport and beauty to notice the world bleeding beneath them. The Opera Epiclese pulsed with delight at another spectacle, a new champion duelist, another lost life. And far beneath their applause, beneath the golden stage and perfumed galleries, there were tunnels.
Passages so old they’d been forgotten even by those who built them. Cataclysm relief efforts. Dry now, mostly, except for the sweat and breath of the people moving cargo through the dark like livestock. Somewhere above them, Clorinde cut the man’s glove open and sent him staggering, bleeding over the tile. The viewers screamed in pleasure. Lady Furina yawned.
The end of the tunnel stank of flowery bleach and pungent perfume. The kind of scents used to cover worse ones. It led to a bizarre and oddly fresh-looking trapdoor in the ceiling. Upon climbing through, you’d find yourself in the rear vestibule of a countryside chäteau in the Erinnyes region. If you followed the staff through the servant’s corridors, you’d reach a very wholesome gathering.
Wriothesley stood near the back wall of the estate's underground chamber, surrounded by men who wore their wealth like armour. They each wore gold-plated cufflinks and masks with gilded edges that didn’t hide the filth in their mouths.
The room was bright, offensively so. Gaslights on iron sconces burned with steady hissing flames, casting every surface into harsh definition. It looked like a ballroom stripped of dignity. Stucco ceiling, imported Inazuman tapestries, floors that had been waxed so many times you could perceive the ghost of whoever last cleaned them. It was vulgar in the way only rich things trying to be richer could be.
“She’s a touch too pale. Pretty, but I find they bruise so easily.”
“You should’ve come to the Cours weekend showing. Far more refined. None of this portside haste.”
Wriothesley adjusted the strap on his gauntlet. He didn’t speak. The guards at the door had already bought into his forged Snezhnayan paperwork, and his silence only deepened their illusion of power. Let them believe he was the kind of buyer who didn’t need words. Let them wonder if he’d kill them for fun.
“Still no eastern stock tonight? Hm.”
“Well, that one’s got the posture. I do admire when they’re trained to stand still without prompting.”
The man running tonight’s wondrous party, a blonde with a lopsided tie and the kind of dead eyes that came with generational money and no consequences, was laughing about something that wasn’t funny. “Technically,” he said, swirling a glass of Kaisertropfen red, “we're relocating unregistered assets.”
A girl had been led onto the small platform in the center of the room. She couldn’t have been more than fifteen. Her eyes were hollow.
Wriothesley’s knuckles cracked as he folded his arms behind his back. His gaze drifted across the room, taking in the figures milling around under the pale, shifting light. He wanted to commit all these faces to memory, even though masks obscured each one.
At first, the crowd seemed composed of the usual. Well-dressed nobles draped in finery, their faces half-hidden beneath delicate lace or plain black veils. Servants darted between them, whispering curt instructions. The muted strains of The Smallest Church in Saint-Saëns played from somewhere in another room, because, of course, it wouldn’t do to sell a child without a live orchestra providing ambiance, what sort of decent event would this be otherwise?
Then, under the far column, Wriothesley almost missed the figure leaning back against the stone. Security, by all appearances. A man tall and broad-shouldered, dressed in a crisp black suit that looked new enough to catch the light, with a wide-brimmed hat pulled low to shadow his face.
Wriothesley’s trained eye caught something in the small things. The boots gleamed, spotless as if never worn beyond a polished floor. A loose strand of long hair slipped out from beneath the collar, tucked hurriedly under the cravat. His gloved hands flexed briefly, the leather stretched taut over unnaturally long nails that caught the light just so. When the sleeve shifted, a flash of pitch black, tattooed skin showed at the wrist.
A few times already, Wriothesley had thwarted escape attempts. The most notable was four months ago, when a few toffee-nosed noble-born prisoners stole guard uniforms. It was never hard to tell. The easy giveaways: an unfamiliar gait, eyes darting with uncertainty, hands twitching like they wanted to reach for a weapon they didn’t have. This man passed most of those tests, but there was a deeper unease that settled like ice in Wriothesley’s gut.
What interested him wasn’t what the man was doing but what he wasn’t. He didn’t belong here. This wasn’t the posture of a guard waiting for a check to clear to get the hell out of this party.
The man shifted slightly, and Wriothesley’s eyes caught the edge of the mask, a subtle glint of silver woven into the fabric, a delicate flourish hidden among the matte black. Then the mask turned toward him.
And beneath the shadow of the wide brim, a sharp, calculating gaze met his. Recognition flared through him like cold iron in water. He hadn’t seen her face, but he didn’t need to.
Only one person could look at him like that and make him feel like the floor might vanish beneath him. Like he’d just been caught stepping into a trap that wasn’t meant for him but still might close.
The glare deepened. The mask didn’t move. But she’d seen him adjust the gauntlet strap earlier. That had been his tell.
No one else would notice. No one else should. Nobody knows who the new Duke of the Fortress is, and they certainly don’t know which weapon he prefers.
She straightened slightly, gaze lingering on him for half a breath more. Then back to scanning the room.
Those eyes. Everyone in the upper tiers of the Palais knew them. The way they literally pinned you in place. The kind of look that could follow you down a hallway, across a courtroom, out of a country. That was the Knave’s gift. Allegedly, she didn’t need to speak to make you confess. And somehow, not one powdered idiot in this room had noticed. Nobles shuffled past her like she was another bored security detail, not the woman who once made a Tribunal prosecutor wet himself on the record.
Apparently no one cared who they were hiring. Or they did, and this was exactly the kind of security they wanted. Who’d have thought times were tough enough for the Knave to pick up a side gig.
Wriothesley’s mouth tightened. She hadn’t moved, not really, but something in her presence rang off-key.
Why is she here?
The leader of the House of the Hearth, standing twenty paces from a girl in chains. Was this a fucked up recruiting trip? Was she here to take the girl? To sell her? To watch and see who else bid?
And then the real problem clicked into place. His pulse picked up, drumming a warning in his chest. If she had seen through his guise—and there was no way she hadn’t—what had she made of him? He hadn’t said a word. He hadn’t moved toward the stage. But he still stood in the room, masked like the rest.
Does she think I came here to buy one of them?
Beautiful. Absolutely flawless work, Wriothesley. What a resume moment.
A slow burn of dread crept through his veins. How the hell did she even know who he was? His appointment hadn’t been public. His face wasn’t printed on anything. As far as most of Fontaine was concerned, the Fortress of Meropide ran itself on jellyfish and haunted air.
But she had looked at him like she had read his personnel file, written the margin notes, then passed it along to the Tsaritsa for safekeeping.
So now he had two problems. One, she was here. Two, she thought he was exactly the kind of man this room expected.
Possibly three. That look she gave him wasn’t casual. She had clocked his gauntlet. She knew his stance. Which meant she had been watching him for longer than he’d realized. Wriothesley kept his arms folded. Nothing to do now but wait and hope she didn’t test whether he was armed.
She probably knew that too.
The bidding started with a joke. The auctioneer… that same man with the crooked tie… tapped a tuning fork against the edge of a glass and called for silence. The girl on the platform didn’t flinch. She didn’t move at all. “Ten thousand mora for the one with the sea-blue eyes!” he announced, like he was selling a rare bottle of wine. Laughter. Smirking nods. A woman in pink gloves lifted her hand and added five.
Wriothesley didn’t look at the Knave. He didn’t need to. She shifted just enough for him to see the edge of her boot, turning half a degree toward the stage.
Not leaving. Staying.
He watched the bidding climb: twelve, then sixteen, then nineteen. He blinked once, slowly. The signal wasn’t anything so formal, but in this kind of room, it didn’t take much. The kind of people who’d survived this long never moved until they were sure.
Her hand twitched, barely. Not toward a weapon. Toward her sleeve, where something hidden pressed a faint outline against the fabric. She tilted her head as the auctioneer began describing “pedigree” and “docility.”
She was listening. Not to him. To the room.
Wriothesley counted the guards. Real ones, not her. Three by the exits. One near the platform. Another upstairs near the balcony rail.
“Twenty-four thousand for the little mermaid,” the auctioneer crooned.
Her chin lifted. Half a second. Her eyes flicked toward the girl, then to the platform guard. Then to the chandelier above them. One blink. Wriothesley shifted his weight, adjusting the gauntlet strap. No one noticed. But she did.
The bidding continued behind the silence. A man in silver raised it to thirty. Someone else clapped.
Her heel slid back an inch.
He flexed his fingers once.
She touched her mask.
Three seconds.
Two.
The girl on the platform turned her head for the first time.
One.
The lights shattered before the crowd had time to scream.
It was that moment the Knave moved. One step forward, quick as breath, then her hand was at the nearest guard’s neck, twisting, sharp and silent. Each flicker of her flame revealed a different scene: someone scrambling for the exit, a hand reaching for a pistol and getting knocked sideways by a wine bottle.
The first flash of Pyro caught the chandelier as it fell, illuminating the room in a stuttered red. Wriothesley turned with the light, caught the shape of the auctioneer backing toward the stage with both hands up. One hand was still clutching that stupid tuning fork.
He didn’t get to use it again. Wriothesley shoved him to the floor with one hand like brushing a curtain aside. With the other, he cracked a guard’s ribs. The guard wheezed and folded, forgotten before he hit the ground.
The world spun in and out of light. The Knave’s Pyro threaded through her movements like punctuation. She was driving the room into panic.
Wriothesley’s eyes adjusted. He slipped between guests who were no longer esteemed, just bodies like any other, trying to flee. He made for the platform. The girl hadn’t moved. Still frozen, her knees drawn in, her arms tight around herself like she could shrink into the seams of hardwood.
He slowed, approached without reaching. “Hey,” he said quietly, peeling off his mask. “You can breathe now. I’m here to help you. I promise.”
She didn’t answer, just blinked at him. Not moving.
He crouched down to her level, taking off his mask. “I know it’s loud. But you’re safe. You’re not alone anymore, alright?” She stared at him for a second longer, then nodded. He stood and offered his side. “I was going to carry you out, but that’s not… Can you walk?” No answer, but she reached out and touched the fabric of his sleeve. That was enough confirmation when the room was about to be burnt down.
He cautiously led her away from the platform, through the wreckage. Room by room, he guided her around the chaos, using the slivered moonlight through stained glass and the glow of wall sconces to see. A smashed bottle glinted on the floor. Someone sobbed behind a curtain. Somewhere above, a gun misfired.
“Were there others?” he asked, low and steady. “Do you know where they kept the others?”
She opened her mouth. A shadow peeled off the hallway wall beside them. Wriothesley prepared to swing.
But The Knave stepped into view, not winded, not scratched. Her mask and hat long gone now, eyes catching the light like the edge of a polished blade. She didn’t speak, just looked at the girl, then nodded once, silently. Turned and started walking.
Wriothesley and the girl followed. Through a gaudy little study with lion-clawed furniture and walls lined with imported scrolls, she stopped in front of a shelf. Ran one gloved finger along the edge. A soft click. The whole case creaked inward.
The trapdoor revealed a narrow staircase wrapped in velvet.
Inside, the glow of a flickering screen lit up a small basement room. Four children sat huddled in silence, watching a washed-out Fonta commercial play. No one was digesting it. Their eyes were distant. Blank. Faces slack in the way Wriothesley remembered wearing as a child, when your body was still present but the part that felt had gone quiet to survive.
He looked around for signs of restraint, for any weapons. None. Just the screen. And the silence. If there were guards before, they were dealt with during the panic.
He turned to the desk near the door. Papers scattered carelessly. Contracts. Ledgers. He rolled up the top stack and shoved it into his coat without a second glance.
The Knave glanced at him, and walked down the stairs.
The bridge wasn’t far from the Opéra Épiclèse, arched over still water that glinted faintly with moonlight. The city across the lake had quieted.
Wriothesley leaned against the railing, arms crossed, watching her. “You’re planning on treating these kids right?” he asked.
The Harbinger looked at him, tired but unreadable. He noticed now how she’d pinned her long hair up. Her gloves were gone, tucked into her belt, and her coat was unfastened at the throat. Like she’d just stepped offstage. “You’re making a lot of demands for our first conversation, Duke Wriothesley.”
Was she trying to keep him perpetually on alert? Didn’t she know he was already like that?
“I’m no Duke.” He muttered, knowing the charade was pointless. It didn’t impress her. Maybe she valued the grandeur of her title more than he did.
“I know what happens in Fontaine, be it above or below the surface. So I know that you’ve held the title for over a year now. Rest assured. I will treat these children as my own. They are in the safe, capable hands of the Hearth.”
He glanced at her, skeptical. In his youth, the Hearth was not known for its kindness. “The safe hands of the Fatui?” He asked.
She didn’t flinch. Just smiled. Thin, faintly amused. “Safer still than the hands of a man who cannot even take a dog as a pet in his workplace.”
He exhaled through his nose, not quite laughing. He was tired. And worried. And angry at so many people. “I tried,” he said, lying. “I shouldn’t be here right now.”
The Garde insignia in his coat pocket still stung. He wondered why he ever bothered to change his name if he was always going to act like he did as a child.
The wind off the lake pulled faintly at his coat. It carried the after smell of ash and old velvet, the party’s perfume still clinging to the back of his throat. The girl, safe now, fed, asleep in a quiet room somewhere, should’ve made him feel better.
It didn’t. Neither of them said it, but they were both still here because neither trusted the other enough to leave first.
Wriothesley stayed leaning on the railing. She stayed leaning on nothing, but somehow stood straighter than him. The silence was not comfortable. It was an audit. If he moved, would she call in the Fatui? If she turned her back, would he report everything to Neuvillette?
He didn’t want to. But wanting had so little to do with anything lately. His fingers tapped against the old metal rail. Her eyes flicked to it and then away again.
She noticed everything. He didn’t need to ask if she’d taken her own copies of the auction’s guest list. Of course she had.
Above them, the opera’s stained glass glowed faintly with leftover firelight. Wriothesley rolled his shoulder. He felt a sore spot where someone had grazed him earlier during the chaos.
“So, you killed them,” he said, like he was still trying to work out how many.
Her gaze stayed on the lake. “I dispatched threats,” she said eventually. “Quickly. Cleanly. Not children. Not innocent civilians. You watched.”
“You don’t even hesitate, do you?” he muttered.
“I don’t stall,” she corrected. He wondered again why she was humouring him.
He turned to face her more directly. “That’s not a rule for you? Don’t kill unless you have to?”
“It is the rule,” she said, meeting his eyes again. He hated when she did that. “I always have to.”
He let the silence stretch again. He didn’t like the answer. But he understood it. “I don’t kill,” he said finally, quieter. “Not unless they leave me no choice. I don’t think I get to decide what justice is. But I can choose not to be another executioner in a uniform.”
Her eyes narrowed, not unkindly. “Your choice. A respectable one. One you’re very proud of.”
He didn’t rise to it. Just sighed. “I don’t think that word means what it used to.”
For a while, neither of them spoke.
Then, as if remembering they had to return to being people with responsibilities and foul shadows to manage, Arlecchino straightened her coat and adjusted the pin at her collar. Her face was sharp and still lit faintly by the sconces behind them.
“I’ll be in contact,” she said.
He raised an eyebrow. “Since when do we do that?”
“Since now.”
And then she turned, her heels clicking softly against the bridge stone as she walked.
He watched her go, her figure receding into the misty dark that hugged the path. For one moment, just before she passed beneath the broken arc of a gas lamp, he could’ve sworn her form flickered. Like heat off pavement. Like she was barely tethered to the ground.
Or maybe it was just the tiredness.