Page 10 of Demon’s Snack

Her mouth tightens because she knows it is true. “And if you understand it first?”

“Then perhaps I get to decide what happens with the knife.”

For several seconds, the room holds both of us in a silence full of fire-hiss, paper rustle, and distant footfalls beyond the door. Mira looks at me as though she would very much like to shake sense into me but has known me long enough to understand the poor return on that investment.

At last, she curses under her breath. “You owe me.”

“I usually do.”

“You owe me something better than the terrible tea you call gratitude.”

“I will steal Vaerith’s spiced chocolate.”

“You say the sweetest criminal things.”

Despite myself, I smile.

She points at me. “Do not go near him alone.”

“I have no intention of doing anything foolish before I have more information.”

“That sentence has too many escape hatches.”

“It is a carefully constructed sentence.”

“It is a trap with grammar.”

Before I can answer, movement beyond the glass pulls my attention back.

The man is leaving.

Not willingly, if the tension in his body means anything. He steps backward first, as though distance requires negotiation, then turns toward the side path leading out of the courtyard. The bond stretches with him, drawing a sharp ache through my chest that I have to swallow down before it becomes visible.

He pauses once beneath the arch.

He looks back.

His eyes catch the morning light, and the hunger there should send me running to Vaerith’s guards with every warning bell in my head ringing itself to death. Instead, I see the restraint holding it in check. I see the effort. I see the horror beneath the need.

He is afraid of what he wants.

That, more than anything, makes my decision for me.

I return to the desk before he disappears completely, seize a blank scrap of parchment, and dip my quill into the unsettled ink. My hand remains steady as I write a single instruction in the coded shorthand Vaerith believes only his senior accountants use.

Unidentified hybrid entered courtyard during morning delivery traffic. Infernal resonance compatible with adaptive contract theory. Observe discreetly. Do not report upward.

Mira reads it over my shoulder and lets out a low whistle. “That is the sort of note that gets people disappeared.”

“Then fold it small.”

She takes the parchment, tucks it into her sleeve, and moves toward the door with the grim efficiency of someone who has decided loyalty is going to be inconvenient today.

“Mira,” I say before she leaves.

She stops.

“If anyone asks, I was working the west accounts.”