Page 21 of Demon’s Snack

“I know.”

The admission softens her frustration, though not by much. She reaches into the laundry basket and pulls out a plain gray cloak folded beneath a sheet. “Wear this. Your usual cloak says estate analyst from fifty paces away.”

“And this says?”

“Woman with errands and no money worth stealing.”

“Useful.”

“That was the goal.”

I take it from her and fasten it over my shoulders. The wool is rougher than my own, smelling faintly of lye soap and sun-dried linen. It scratches lightly at my neck, and that small discomfort steadies me better than any polished garment would have.

At the side passage, I pass two guards who barely look at me until one notices the folio.

“Registry business?” he asks.

“Witness notation error in the eastern copy.”

His expression goes blank in the manner of men who have discovered they regret asking. “Right.”

“The master wants the discrepancy corrected before supper.”

That gives him something he understands. Lord Vaerith’s wants have gravity in this house.

“Don’t dawdle,” the second guard says.

I lower my eyes just enough to satisfy him, not enough to feel like surrender. “Of course.”

The estate releases me through the servants’ gate with less resistance than my own nerves do.

Outside, the city presses in with wet stone, horse sweat, chimney smoke, and the living murmur of people who are not arranged according to Vaerith’s preferences. The air tastes freer even with mud splashed against my hem and the distant stink of the canal threading through the lower district. I walk steadily, folio tucked close, each step carrying me farther from polished cruelty and closer to the pull I have spent the morning pretending not to feel.

It strengthens as I approach the public courtyard near the old registry.

The place sits between three intersecting streets, bordered by worn stone benches, a dry fountain, and a row of crooked trees that have survived decades of poor pruning out of sheer spite. Vendors cluster near the edges, selling hot lentil cakes, cheap ink, ribbon, and roasted nuts wrapped in paper cones. A pair of dark elf clerks stands beneath the registry awning, arguing over a slate. Humans move around them with practiced caution, giving their tempers a wide berth.

I see Corin before he sees me.

He stands near the dry fountain with his hands in the pockets of his coat, posture deliberately loose, head lowered beneath the shadow of a weathered hood. Anyone else might call him ordinary. I cannot. Even muted by glamour and distance, his aura presses against my senses like heat behind a closed door. The infernal current in him is brighter than it was through the glass, not louder exactly, but more textured, threaded through with a mortal rhythm that keeps refusing to collapse beneath it.

He looks up.

The bond answers.

Warmth rolls through me, low and deep, so sudden that I have to slow my step to keep my balance from betraying me. My fingers tighten around the folio strap. The crowded courtyard blurs at the edges, not vanishing, but becoming secondary to the man by the fountain whose eyes flare gold for half a breath before he forces them dimmer.

His mouth curves faintly. “You came.”

I stop at a careful distance, close enough to speak without raising my voice, far enough that no one watching can accuse us of intimacy without working for it. “You sound surprised.”

“I’m trying not to sound relieved. Apparently I missed.”

“Badly.”

“Good to know. I’ll add it to the list of things I’m doing badly today.”

His voice is rougher than I expected, threaded with humor that feels like a rope thrown across a chasm. He keeps his hands visible when he removes them from his pockets, and I notice the deliberate nature of the movement. He is showing me he is not reaching. He is also showing himself.