Page 121 of Demon’s Snack

His eyes sharpen with a flash of real temper. “By dawn, your wardship will be amended. You had opportunities to remain useful voluntarily.”

“I remain useful.”

“To whom?”

I look directly at him. “That seems to be upsetting you.”

For several seconds, the only sound is the faint hum of the ward circle under my feet.

Then Vaerith smiles.

“You believe he will come.”

The bond burns beneath my ribs, so fiercely I have to keep my hands relaxed by force.

“I believe many things,” I say.

“He will feel your distress, yes? That is the theory. The bond, the stabilizer response, the little bloodline convergence my archives tried so hard to make poetic. He will come, and when he does, I will finally learn whether restraint survives confinement pressure.”

Fear moves through me, cold and clean.

Not for myself.

For Corin.

Vaerith wants the spike. He wants me frightened enough to call Corin through the bond. He wants Corin arriving at the tower hot with rage, horns visible, hunger primed, ready to tear down walls in front of witnesses Vaerith will arrange before the dust settles.

So I breathe.

Slowly.

Evenly.

The way I made Corin breathe in the courtyard.

Vaerith sees the choice and seems delighted. “There she is. Always calculating.”

“Always,” I say.

He gestures once.

The door closes.

Locks engage in sequence, each one heavy and final.

The guards’ footsteps retreat.

I stand alone in the iron-tasting dark and count three breaths before I move.

The ward circle under my boots is old Sylmorne work: concentric restraint bands, speech dampening near the threshold, motion delay along the outer rim, and a nasty little compliance hook aimed at the spine if the confined subject tries to cross the line without authorization. It is elegant enough to flatter itself. That means it has decorative inefficiencies.

I reach into my hair and withdraw the pin hidden beneath the braid.

It looks like bone, plain and harmless, which is why no guard ever takes it. Along one side, etched so small I had to make it under magnifying glass, is a tiny rune built from archive exception script and maintenance breach notation. It is not powerful. It is not meant to break a ward. It is meant to make a ward hiccup.

I kneel beside the circle.

The silver line hums beneath my fingers, cold enough to sting. I place the hairpin against the inner rim and scrape once, carefully, lightly, just enough to interrupt the continuity of the confinement band without triggering the compliance hook.