Page 82 of Demon’s Snack

“That will tell Vaerith exactly what you are.”

“Perhaps.”

“That will tell everyone.”

“Only if the demonstration unfolds as Vaerith intends.”

“And if it does not?”

I draw the hidden copies from my folio and press them into her hands. “Then you get these to Bren, and Bren gets them to whoever will spread them fastest if I do not come back.”

Mira looks down at the pages.

Her face loses its color. “Iso.”

“Public exposure as proof mechanism. Dareth harmonic stabilizer. Ardyn collateral line. Vaerith’s own memorandum.”

“You copied his hand.”

“Yes.”

“He’ll kill you.”

“Only if he has no reason not to.”

Her eyes fill, though she blinks the tears back angrily as if they have insulted her. “You are making jokes with your eyebrows, and I am not amused.”

“I was not aware my eyebrows had become involved.”

“They always do when you are about to ruin my life.”

I take her hand, folding her fingers around the pages. “Mira, listen to me. If tomorrow becomes spectacle, the story cannot belong only to Vaerith.”

She shakes her head. “And what about you?”

“I will be in the circle.”

“That is not an answer.”

“It is the only position from which I can change the outcome.”

Her eyes dance with anger, fear, and love all tangled too tightly for any of them to separate. “He had better be worth it.”

I think of Corin standing in a wet passage, shaking with hunger and still choosing not to kill. I think of him in the archive chamber, terrified of taking from me even when every instinct in him wanted closeness. I think of the old records naming our bloodlines like dead men had a right to decide the shape of our wanting.

“He is not the point,” I say softly.

Mira’s expression says she does not believe me.

I let the silence sit for a moment.

Then I add, “He is not the only point.”

That she believes.

A bell rings from the courtyard, long and low, signaling the formal announcement being posted at the estate gates.

Act I closes not with a declaration, but with the estate doors opening to tomorrow’s spectacle. Outside, criers will carry Vaerith’s polished words through the district. Witnesses will be invited. Guards will be arranged. A frightened debtor will be dressed as evidence, a crowd will be dressed as legitimacy, and Corin will feel the hook in it from wherever he is.