Page 74 of Demon’s Snack

She looks away first, and the movement feels more intimate than another kiss would have. “Tomorrow first.”

“Tomorrow first,” I agree.

Footsteps sound faintly in the upper arcade, distant but approaching.

Isolde turns toward the gate. “Wait ten minutes after I leave. Use the covered arcade westward. Avoid water troughs, shop glass, polished metal, and anyone selling mirrors.”

“That last one feels oddly specific.”

“This city has three mirror vendors within six streets.”

“Of course it does.”

“And Corin?”

“Yeah?”

Her hand rests on the gate latch, and she looks back at me with rain-damp hair framing her face and danger already gathering around tomorrow’s edges.

“If Vaerith tries to make you prove you are a monster, make him work harder than he expects.”

The hunger stirs at that, not wild now, but focused enough to make my pulse slow instead of race. I feel the shape of it inside me, quieter since her touch, sharper around threat, and no longer flooding every direction at once.

“I can do that,” I say.

Her mouth curves faintly. “Good.”

Then she slips out through the gate and vanishes into the damp corridor beyond.

I stand alone in the archive chamber with the taste of her still on my mouth, the echo of her pulse still steadying mine, and Vaerith’s public invitation burning inside my thoughts like a fuse.

Tomorrow, he wants a demonstration.

Fine.

He can have one.

10

ISOLDE

By the time I return to the estate, Lord Vaerith’s public demonstration has already begun to change the shape of the house.

Servants move faster through the corridors, though none of them look as if they know why. Guards speak in low clusters near archways and fall silent when I pass. The lamps along the eastern hall burn brighter than usual, their blue-white spellflame scraping every shadow thin, and the air carries that particular pre-event scent of polished stone, hot wax, new ink, and fear disguised as efficiency. Noble houses always smell cleanest when they are preparing to do something ugly in public.

I keep my folio tucked beneath one arm and my face arranged into the same composed expression I wore in the mirror gallery, because visible worry is a luxury this house charges for in blood. The bond remains warm and steadier than it has any right to be after what happened in the archive chamber. Corin’s pulse is not literally inside me, but my body keeps remembering the rhythm of it anyway, the way his breathing settled when mine matched it, the way the infernal heat stopped tearing through him and began moving with direction.

I do not let myself think about the kiss in the corridor.

That decision lasts until I reach the archive door, where my fingers pause on the key and my mouth remembers his.

“Terrible timing,” I mutter.

The lock clicks open.

Inside, the archive waits in dry darkness, all dust, old parchment, sealed sins, and the brittle patience of records no one intended a human woman to understand so well. I close the door behind me, set my folio on the nearest table, and light the desk lamp with a touch to the runestone. Amber light spreads over the shelves, softer than the estate’s public lamps, kinder to ink and less kind to secrets.

Mira emerges from behind the third row with a ledger under one arm and a dust cloth over her shoulder like a soldier returning from a deeply disappointing war.