Page 210 of Demon’s Snack

The air lifts.

The watching city, gathered through open doors, broken windows, and crowded steps beyond the entrance, sees him escorted out under guard. Whispers move through the street. Then the whispers become voices, and voices become the first rough shape of a new public truth.

Vaerith summoned the devourer.

The hybrid stopped it.

Isolde Dareth renounced wardship.

The bond held.

The district lived.

Corin looks down at me. “Stability returns?”

I glance around at the shattered floor, cracked pillars, injured nobles, soaking clerks, smoking ward scars, and Sable arguing with a guard about whether a table leg can be repurposed as an emergency splint.

“Eventually,” I say.

His mouth curves. “Very diplomatic.”

“I am adjusting to freedom. Allow me imprecision.”

“Never.”

I laugh, and the sound surprises me by coming easily.

The hall remains broken around us, but the emergency wards glow brighter now, knitting blue-white order through the damaged stone. The district outside breathes through the open doors. Corin stands beside me with horns visible, eyes gold, hand warm around mine, and no one lunges for a spear.

For now, that is stability enough.

35

CORIN

Weeks after Vaerith is escorted out of the district under guard, the estate still smells like rain-damp stone, sawdust, scorched silver, and embarrassed nobility.

That last one is not technically a scent, according to Isolde, but I know what I know.

The old Sylmorne hall stands open to the morning, its broken windows replaced by practical warded glass and its cracked marble floor stripped down to the bones. Work crews move through the ruins with hammers, chalk lines, rolled plans, and the particular confidence of people who know the worst thing in the building has already been dragged out by his pride. Minor nobles cluster near temporary tables under canvas awnings, arguing over jurisdiction, funding, preservation rules, and whether the central summoning scar should be sealed, studied, or left visible as a warning.

I vote warning.

Isolde votes documented warning with properly indexed evidence plaques.

Naturally, she is winning.

Lady Othrel stands near the old dais with her cane tucked beneath one arm while she reviews a structural plan upside down and intimidates three ward engineers into competence. Lord Kairven’s nephew is trying very hard to look seasoned while a clerk twice his age corrects his math. Syrenya has claimed a chair that does not belong to her and is somehow supervising people who never agreed to be supervised.

The district has not become kind overnight.

It has become watchful, which is better than obedient.

I stand at the center of the old summoning circle with both hands lowered over the exposed wardlines while Rhazek watches from six feet away like a disappointed statue who expects progress but distrusts comfort. The new civic lattice hums beneath my palms, clean blue-white power flowing through channels stripped of Vaerith’s siphons and broker marks. Every pulse tastes of iron, rainwater, oath-seals, and the stubborn public trust of people who would rather rebuild badly than let another noble hide a monster under the floor.

“Absorb,” Rhazek says.

“I know the drill.”