Page 101 of Maksym

It struck me harder than it should have. For one suspended beat, the room retreated.

The music, the blood, the purple light, my father’s throne, the politics below, Lucian’s name waiting like rot beneath every future plan—all of it moved to the edges. Grace laughed beside me, alive in a way death had failed to prevent, and something in my chest answered with such force that I went still.

She looked at me, laughter fading but not gone. “What?”

I had ruled territories, broken rebellions, negotiated with demons, watched witches gamble years of spell work beneath casino lights. I had no prepared defense against the sound of Grace Marlow amused by my brother’s public failure at subtlety.

“Nothing,” I said.

Her eyes narrowed. “That was a suspicious nothing.”

“It was a private nothing.”

“Those are worse.”

“Usually.”

Before she could interrogate me further, the lights dropped.

All across Obsidian, conversation shifted but did not cease. The music thinned into a low, expectant pulse. Purple twilight deepened until the main floor became shadow and gleam, glass and skin and waiting breath. Servers moved toward the edges with practiced ease. Patrons turned toward the stage.

Grace’s posture changed. Not fear. Alertness.

I leaned slightly toward her. “Remember what I said.”

“If I want to leave, we leave.”

“Yes.”

She did not take her eyes from the stage. “I remember.”

A single spotlight cut through the darkness.

It found Bohdan.

My youngest brother stood at center stage. Dark suit, subtle pattern visible only when the light caught it, hair styled with effortless calculation that had likely required intolerable attention. His angular face held that practiced half-smile that made patrons lean closer and enemies underestimate him just long enough to regret it.

The room focused. Bohdan lifted one hand. Grace inhaled beside me. I watched her face, not the stage.

Whatever my brother was about to demonstrate would either send her out of the room or open a door I had been waiting, with more hope than wisdom, to walk through.

Chapter 14

Grace

The stage light did not merely find Bohdan; it accepted him. Silver poured over his dark suit, caught the sharp cut of his cheekbones, and turned the rest of Obsidian into a violet dusk full of watching eyes.

Around me, the VIP lounge went still by degrees. Not silent. Obsidian did not seem built for silence. Music kept pulsing beneath the floor, low enough to feel in the bones rather than hear properly, and the air held sandalwood, amber, warmed skin, expensive liquor, and the faint iron-sweet awareness of blood. Below us, bodies shifted in leather seats and shadowed booths. Glasses caught purple light. A witch near the bar leaned forward with both elbows on the table, her expression as intent as any juror who had decided the next witness mattered.

Bohdan lifted one hand. He did not raise his voice. He did not need to.

“Good evening.”

I had met judges with less command.

“Tonight,” he continued, “we return to one of the most misunderstood arts practiced within these walls.”

His amber eyes swept the crowd. Not lasciviously. Not greedily. He knew how to look at a room and make each person believe he had seen exactly enough of them. I understood, immediately and unwillingly, why people told him things.