My Creator.
The title hung in the scented air of the penthouse, heavy and suffocating. It wasn't spoken with reverence. It was spoken with the terrifying intimacy of a knife sliding between ribs.
Alexander Morgan stood too close. He smelled of amber, expensive whiskey, and something metallic, like the taste of blood on a split lip. His ice-blue eyes, rimmed with the exhaustion of a thousand sleepless nights, bore into Gazelle's. He wasn't blinking. It was as if he were trying to inhale her existence to fill the vacuum inside himself.
Gazelle couldn't breathe. Her heart, already straining against the potion's waning effects, fluttered like a trapped bird. She was acutely aware of the gun Vermont had trained on her chest, and the lethal stillness of Raven behind her.
"You're trembling," Alexander whispered, his voice a low purr. He reached out, his hand adorned with silver rings that glinted under the chandelier light. His cold fingertips grazed her jawline, tilting her chin up. "Are you afraid of your own masterpiece?"
"Don't touch her," Raven snarled.
The sound was low, guttural, a warning from a beast that had been chained but not broken. Raven hadn't moved, his hands held open in surrender to keep Vermont from firing, but every muscle in his body was coiled tight.
Alexander didn't even look at him. He kept his eyes locked on Gazelle, a cruel amusement dancing on his lips.
"Your dog is noisy," Alexander murmured to Gazelle. He snapped his fingers without looking away. "Sebastian. Silence him."
The white-haired twin, Sebastian, moved with a blur of motion. He didn't use a weapon. He simply spun and drove a heavy boot into Raven's stomach.
Raven grunted, doubling over, but he didn't fall. He absorbed the blow with the grim fortitude of a man who had been hit harder by life itself.
"Raven!" Gazelle cried out, instinctively reaching for him.
Alexander caught her wrist. His grip was iron.
"Eyes on me, Creator," he commanded, his voice dropping an octave, losing its playfulness. "We have much to discuss. And I don't like sharing attention."
He pulled her toward the velvet throne in the center of the room, forcing her to sit. The fabric was soft, but the chair felt like an electric chair. Alexander turned and walked to the massive window overlooking the rain-soaked city, his back to them.
"Vermont, keep the gun on the girl," Alexander ordered. "Twins, if the fighter moves, break his legs. But don't kill him. Yet."
He stared out at the neon sprawl of the city, the jagged skyline Gazelle had dreamed into existence.
"Look at it," Alexander said softly. "A city of glass and bone. A city built on pain. Why did you make it so ugly?"
Gazelle rubbed her wrist where he had grabbed her. She looked at Raven, who was recovering his breath, glaring at Julian, the black-haired twin, with lethal intent.
She turned back to the Prince. "I didn't make it ugly on purpose," she whispered. "It's a reflection. Of me."
Alexander turned slowly. The lights from the city below cast long, skeletal shadows across his sharp face. "And me?" he asked. "Am I a reflection too?"
He walked back toward her, his movements fluid and predatory. He stopped a few feet away, spreading his arms. "Everyone else has something, don't they? Raven has his rage. My father has his power. Even the rats in the sewers have their survival instinct. But me?"
He tapped his chest, right over his heart.
"I feel nothing. I wake up, and there is a static noise in my head. I look in the mirror, and I see a costume. No soul. No purpose. Just... hunger."
Gazelle felt a tear slip down her cheek. She knew exactly what he was talking about. She felt it every time she looked in the mirror and saw the "little girl" instead of herself. She had projected her deepest, darkest dissociation onto him.
"I dreamed you to be empty," Gazelle admitted, her voice trembling but gaining strength. "Because I wanted someone to understand what it felt like to be a ghost in your own life."
The room went deadly silent. Even Sebastian stopped twirling his butterfly knife.
Alexander stared at her. His mask of boredom cracked, revealing a raw, gaping wound of vulnerability underneath.
"You made me... to be lonely?" he whispered. The betrayal in his voice was palpable.
"I made you to have room," Gazelle corrected him, leaning forward. Her heart gave a painful throb, but she ignored it. "I left you blank. Not to torture you, Alexander. But because the blank page is the only one that has a choice."
Alexander froze. He looked at his hands, watching the way the rings caught the light. "A choice?"
"Your father wants to control this world," Gazelle said, pushing her advantage. "He wants to dictate every line of dialogue, every tragedy. If you help him, you stay a character. You stay a puppet."
She stood up, her legs shaking. Vermont tensed, raising the gun, but Alexander waved him down.
Gazelle took a step toward the Prince of Hollow Things.
"But if you help us... If you help us break the story... You can choose what fills that void. You can write your own name."
Alexander looked at her. For a long, agonizing minute, the only sound in the room was the rain drumming against the glass. The hunger in his eyes shifted, morphing into something else. Ambition.
Suddenly, he laughed.
It wasn't the manic giggle of Sebastian or the dry chuckle of a villain. It was a genuine, surprised sound.
"You are a dangerous little thing, aren't you?" Alexander mused.
He walked over to the small bar cart in the corner and poured himself another drink. He didn't offer one to anyone else.
"My father," Alexander said, taking a sip, "thinks he is God. He sits in that manor, hoarding the Sword, thinking he can script the apocalypse."
He turned back to them, his expression hardening into cold steel.
"He promised me that if I obeyed him, he would give me a soul. He lied."
Raven straightened up, sensing the shift in the room's atmosphere. "Reagan lies to everyone. That's his power."
Alexander looked at Raven, really looked at him for the first time.
"The Cheater," Alexander acknowledged. "You fought in my pits for years. I made a lot of money betting on you to die. You never did."
"I'm hard to kill," Raven said flatly.
"Evidently." Alexander swirled his drink. "If we do this... if I let you live... what is the plan? You cannot simply knock on the front door of Morgan Manor. The Labyrinth is guarded by things that don't have names."
"We don't knock," Raven said, his tactical mind taking over. "We bleed."
Raven stepped forward, ignoring the Twins who tensed at his movement. He pointed to the window, toward the distant, looming shadow of the estate.
"Reagan expects an attack from the outside. He expects an army. He doesn't expect his own son to walk in the front door with a gift."
Alexander raised an eyebrow. "A gift?"
Raven nodded toward Gazelle.
"Her."
Gazelle felt the blood drain from her face. "Raven?"
"It's a bait," Raven explained, his voice void of emotion, though his eyes flickered toward her with a brief, apologetic glint. "Reagan wants the Creator. He wants to control her to solidify his rule. If you bring her to him, Alexander, claiming you captured her... he will let you into the inner sanctum. He will let you into the Labyrinth."
"And then?" Alexander asked, intrigued.
"And then," Raven said, his hand drifting to where his knife lay on the floor, "we kill everyone in the room and take the Sword."
Alexander swirled the amber liquid in his glass, considering. A slow, cruel smile spread across his face.
"I like it," he murmured. "It's dramatic. It's violent. It's... poetic."
He finished his drink in one swallow and smashed the glass into the fireplace.
"Sebastian. Julian. Get the car."
The Twins looked at each other, shrugged, and moved toward the elevator.
"Shotgun!" Sebastian yelled.
"You drove last time," Julian grumbled, following him.
Vermont lowered his gun but didn't holster it. He looked at Alexander with concern. "Sir. This is treason. The King will—"
"The King is dead," Alexander interrupted, his voice icy. "He just doesn't know it yet."
He looked at Vermont. "Are you with me, Vermont? Or do I leave you here with the rest of the trash?"
Vermont hesitated, looking at his green hair in the reflection of the glass. Then, he bowed his head slightly. "I am with you, Prince."
Alexander turned to Gazelle. He extended his hand.
"Come, Creator. Let's go meet your worst nightmare."