Page 137 of Demon’s Snack

Outside, rain continues tapping against the shutters while practical wards hum steadily through the walls. Somewhere beyond the safe house, Vaerith is tightening his grip on a story already beginning to fracture.

Let him.

19

CORIN

By noon, Vaerith’s polished little world has begun making noise in all the wrong places.

Reports reach the safe house in pieces: a laundry runner with mud up to his knees, a chimney sweep too young to look that tired, Bren himself stomping through the back entrance with rain on his shoulders and enough satisfaction in his face to frighten anyone sensible. The kitchen table fills with scraps, whispers, names, and half-confirmed consequences. Lord Kairven’s people have requested an emergency review of ward expenditure. Lady Othrel has accused an unnamed district authority of “creative siphoning practices” in a room full of clerks who adore phrases that sound dull enough to survive repetition. Syrenya has said very little in public, which Sable insists means she is either sharpening a knife or choosing which ribs to slide it between.

The safe house radiates the scent of bitter herbal paste Sable refuses to put away because she says “people keep arriving with problems.” Practical wards hum through the walls in a steady rhythm, no noble elegance to them, no glittering threat hidden beneath decorative script. They feel like Sable: stubborn, functional, and more dangerous than they look.

Bren drops into a chair with a groan and slaps a folded notice onto the table. “There. Another one.”

Sable snatches it before I can touch it. “If that’s from Othrel’s clerk, I already told you to stop folding wet papers like fish.”

“It’s from Kairven’s outer office,” Bren says. “And I fold things how I please.”

“You fold things like a man who hates evidence.”

“I hate carrying evidence. Difference.”

Isolde sits opposite me with three ledgers open in front of her, hair pinned back severely and one sleeve rolled to keep ink off the cuff. She looks exhausted in the way people look when they are powered by spite and arithmetic. Her eyes move over the notice, and her mouth curves faintly.

“Kairven is asking for a neutral inquiry,” she says.

Sable leans over her shoulder. “That’s good?”

“That is predatory.”

“So good.”

“In this instance, yes.”

Bren makes a pleased sound and reaches for the bread.

Sable slaps his hand away. “Wash first.”

“I carried your treason.”

“You also carried chimney soot.”

“Snob.”

“Alive snob.”

He grumbles all the way to the basin.

I stand near the back door because sitting still makes the hunger restless. The bond has been steady since last night, warmer whenever Isolde glances up from her ledgers, sharper whenever someone says Vaerith’s name. Every time the reports come in, I feel the same thing move through the room: relief cut with dread. Vaerith’s alliances are fracturing, but broken men with power do not fall quietly. They reach for bigger weapons.

Isolde looks up from the notice. “Two minor nobles questioned him openly?”

“Three if you count Lord Peskan,” Bren says from the basin, scrubbing his hands with theatrical misery.

Sable snorts. “Nobody counts Peskan.”

“His mother does.”