Page 9 of Demon’s Snack

“I know you are thinking about it. Thinking is free.”

“Thinking is taxed heavily in this estate.”

“Then think quieter.”

The man outside looks back at me.

The courtyard lies between us, manicured and guarded and full of all the reasons I should let him go. The glass reflects part of my face over his, layering my controlled expression over his barely contained power, and the sight does something strange to me. It makes the bond feel less like an intrusion and more like a question asked in a language my body knew before I did.

I lift my hand to the latch.

Mira sucks in a breath. “Absolutely not.”

“I am not opening it.”

“You are touching the latch like a woman about to commit a scholarly crime.”

“A scholarly crime is still scholarship.”

“A scholarly crime gets ordinary people buried in shallow ground.”

That lands hard enough to still my hand.

I let go of the latch, but I do not step away from the window.

Outside, the man’s expression changes. He saw the movement. He saw me stop, and frustration cuts through whatever fear is holding him in place. Not at me, I think. At himself. At the pull. At the impossible inconvenience of wanting something inside a house designed to own whatever it touches.

“Find out who he is,” I say.

Mira stares at me. “You cannot be serious.”

“I am rarely unserious.”

“You are often reckless with excellent posture.”

“Ask Bren. Ask the gate boys without seeming to ask. If he came in with a delivery, there will be a name attached somewhere.”

“And if there isn’t?”

“Then that is information too.”

Mira folds her arms, and for a moment she looks less like a maid and more like the woman who once smuggled three kitchen girls out of a punishment cellar by convincing a drunk guard that rats had learned to unlock doors. “Tell me why.”

I could lie. I am good at it when necessary, and necessary is most of my life. I could say he is a ward anomaly, a contract concern, a possible security risk. All of those are true enough to stand upright if questioned.

Instead, I keep my voice low. “Because when he looked at me, the infernal residue in the west-wall wards changed direction.”

Her face loses a shade of color. “Changed how?”

“Toward me.”

“That is bad.”

“It may be significant.”

“Stop dressing bad things in nicer coats.”

I finally turn from the window. “Mira, if Lord Vaerith notices before I understand what this is, he will not ask careful questions. He will cut the matter open and call whatever bleeds from it proof.”