Page 216 of Demon’s Snack

“Our roof is missing,” she says.

“Temporary.”

“One wall is leaning.”

“Character.”

“The kitchen plans have become a territorial dispute.”

“Mira will win.”

“Yes.”

I press a kiss to the top of her hair. “Still like it?”

She looks at the unfinished frame, the stream below, the open land around us, and the sky burning orange beyond the trees.

“Yes,” she says quietly. “I like what it will become.”

I hold her closer and feel the hunger hum deep inside me, steady as a hearth banked for the night.

“So do I.”\

36

ISOLDE

The final ledger of House Sylmorne weighs less than I expected.

That realization unsettles me more than the contents.

For years, those archives felt enormous. Endless shelves. Endless obligations. Endless signatures binding people to debts, favors, wardships, bloodline classifications, civic obligations, hidden siphons, and carefully disguised coercion. Vaerith built power through accumulation until the paperwork itself felt immortal. Sitting at the long cedar table in the temporary district office weeks later, with sunlight spilling through clean glass and ordinary civic clerks arguing over tax routes in the hallway, I discover the truth every empire hates most:

Eventually, someone closes the book.

I sit beneath a hanging ward lamp with three stacks of finalized transfer documents around me. Fresh ink dries beside my elbow. Late afternoon rain drifting through the open window above the filing shelves. Outside, reconstruction crews hammer along the former estate district, their rhythm carrying faintly through the street like a heartbeat learning steadiness after injury.

Lady Syrenya lounges across from me with her boots propped shamelessly on a chair that technically belongs to the civic review board.

“You know,” she says, examining her nails while I review the final property allocation sheet, “most people celebrate dismantling corrupt noble infrastructure with wine and regrettable decisions.”

“I am celebrating with asset redistribution.”

“That is profoundly unsexy.”

I sign the transfer order for the last of the Sylmorne ward reserves. “I strongly disagree.”

“You would.”

I sand the page carefully, then close the ledger.

The sound echoes softly through the office.

Finished.

The remaining Sylmorne holdings have been fractured into supervised district management, civic reserve control, neutral council oversight, and reparations accounts. The hidden siphon channels are gone. The bloodline archives have been sealed under public review with three witness houses holding keys. The old wardship clauses have been struck from enforceable law pending reform vote.

And me?