Six heartbeats. That was all I allowed myself, six slow, indulgent beats to savor the taste of the moment before I let the world forget I existed.
And then I was gone, slipping sideways into that black, whispering nowhere that always felt like falling through spider silk and starlight.
I moved, launching myself in three leaping bounds that would've looked like a glitch in reality to anyone who'd been stupid enough to blink. I streaked past the first guard's elbow, slid under the second's legs, skimmed between the third and fourth like they were ornamental statues carved from entitlement and cheap cologne.
I snapped back into existence with all the subtlety of a cannonball wrapped in spite, slamming straight into Elvina's smug, startled body at full sprint.
We went airborne for one glorious, slow-motion second—her twin-tails flapping like flags of surrender, my skirt riding up in the least dignified way possible—before we crashed down in a tangle of limbs, lace, and pure, unfiltered chaos.
The knife spun out of her hand and clattered across the marble floor with the dramatic flair of a stage prop.
I landed on top, knees pinning her ribs, hair in my mouth, teeth bared like something that had crawled out of a nightmare wearing stolen lipstick.
Elvina, in turn, let out a shaky, high-pitched giggle that sounded like a tea kettle experiencing a nervous breakdown.
For a girl who'd spent her entire life projecting bratty confidence, that flicker of terror in her eyes was delicious. It flashed across her face so quickly most people would've missed it, like a shadow behind a curtain. But I saw it, savored it, pinned it to the metaphorical corkboard in my mind labeled "Worth it."
Her breath hitched, her pupils widened, and then—in the most Elvina way possible—she rolled her eyes. As if I were merely inconveniencing her. As if my rage were just another peasant knocking on the palace gates asking for bread when she'd clearly posted the "no soliciting" sign in three languages and decorative calligraphy.
She opened her mouth to say something snide, and I was fully prepared to stuff the nearest rug into it, but unfortunately, fate intervened.
Her bodyguards finally snapped out from their stupor and descended upon me like rabid dogs. They lunged, grabbing at my shoulders, my arms, my chest—wherever they could find leverage—and for a moment I was lifted off Elvina like an angry cat being removed from a countertop.
One of them made the foolish mistake of believing he was strong enough to restrain me, which was adorable in the same way watching a toddler try to lift a sofa was adorable. His fingers tried to snatch at my wrist.
Mine moved faster.
There was a wet, sickening crack—and his scream followed a split second later. His wrist didn't just break; it crumpled inward with a wet, splintering crunch, like someone had taken a fistful of fresh kindling and snapped it over their knee.
He staggered back, clutching the mangled limb to his chest with the wide-eyed expression of a man rethinking every life decision that led him to this very moment.
The other guards froze, eyes bugging, spines stiffening like someone had replaced their vertebrae with fear-flavored popsicles. For seasoned brutes, they looked remarkably like children caught cheating on a test.
My gaze snapped back to Elvina, who was in the middle of scooting backward across the floor in an attempt to put distance between us.
"Fine," she said, with all the annoyance of someone being told they couldn't bring their emotional support snake into a restaurant. "Fine, you feral little gremlin, you've made your point. Now let's discuss this."
A compromise. She tried to compromise with me. In that moment I genuinely admired her commitment to the bit.
Then I pounced again, because of course I did, straddling her chest and raising a fist that suddenly felt very eager to redecorate her face.
"Tell me," I hissed, savoring each syllable like fine wine, "what's stopping me from bashing your teeth so far down your throat you'll be spitting enamel for a week?"
Her mouth opened. Nothing came out. Her eyes darted sideways. Her breath hitched. I saw the moment her courage curdled into fear.
Then a hand closed around my wrist. Not soft. Not hesitant. Firm, steady, confident. I didn't need to look to know who it was.
"I am," Quentin said behind me.
For a single heartbeat I froze. Not because I was intimidated—but because his timing was so obnoxiously perfect I briefly considered punching him on principle.
I whipped around so fast the world blurred, breaking his grip with a twist and fisting his pristine shirt with one hand until the buttons there strained like they were filing for divorce.
The man looked like he'd just escaped from the world's most chaotic slumber party. His hair, normally styled with effortless aristocratic perfection, was sticking out at every angle like he'd been electrocuted by an argument. His cheeks were smeared with the unmistakable mark of lipstick.
Behind him stood Elvina's pack of women—six of them—giggling, whispering, and adjusting their hair like they'd just completed a team-building exercise they were very proud of.
I stared at him. He stared at me.
Then I snapped.
Every ounce of rage I'd been swallowing since the moment that knife touched Mia's throat detonated like a powder keg someone had stuffed with four years of humiliation and lit with a grin.
"Oh perfect, the cavalry arrives fashionably late and looking like he lost a fight with a cosmetics counter! Tell me, did they tie you up with your own authority or did you just hand them the rope and beg them to gag you with the rulebook you love shoving down everyone's throats?"
He tried to pry my fingers off his shirt, expression frosting over into something that vaguely resembled authority. "Unhand me this instant, you forget your place!"
I barked a laugh so sharp it scraped my throat raw. "Oh I know my place. My place is cleaning up your disasters while you let your psychotic lap-dog traumatise people for sport because you're too spineless to leash her properly!"
His eyes blew wide when he realized he couldn't budge my grip. He hissed under his breath, "I'll have you thrown out of the Spire for this indecency, do you hear me?!"
In my head I murdered him seventeen different ways before breakfast, then resurrected him just so I could do it again with more flair.
And then, with all the ceremony of flicking lint off my coat, I let go. He stumbled back two full steps, arms windmilling like a debutante who'd discovered gravity was real, and the giggles from Elvina's posse hit a new octave.
"You know what?" I said. "Fuck all of you."
Elvina let out a delighted little snort and then folded in half laughing, kicking her feet in the air like a child who'd just been told bedtime was cancelled forever.
I turned my back on the glittering disaster and walked—no, stalked—to where Mia still knelt half-naked and shaking, tears cutting channels through the blood on her face.
She leaned into me so hard I nearly toppled, breath hitching in tiny, wounded sputters that clawed at my heart worse than any knife ever could.
Brutus loomed behind her like a mountain range, one hand settling on Freya's shoulder before she could launch herself at Elvina and earn us all a one-way trip to the latrines.
Her eyes were molten gold and murder, teeth bared in a snarl I hadn't seen since the Boss's death.
"It's not worth it," Brutus said, and Freya deflated in that very instant. Brutus turned his head to nod at me. I nodded back—short, sharp, and grateful—like we'd just signed a blood pact in silence.
"Let's go," I said, voice flat and dangerous. My little crew fell in around me like ducklings who'd decided the pond was full of piranhas.
We swept out from the golden chamber in a storm of muttered curses and rustling fabric, Mia's bare feet slapping softly against the marble beside mine, the wet imprint of her shame left behind like a signature she'd never meant to sign.
After stumbling through the corridors for what felt like an hour, we arrived back at the dining hall. Lunch was a quiet affair of picking at food nobody tasted and passing Mia waterskins.
Freya sat by Mia's side, vibrating with barely-contained homicide, knuckles white around a bread roll she was slowly pulverising into crumbs of pure rage.
Brutus kept one gentle hand on Freya's back and the other on Mia's shoulder, anchoring them both.
Through the chaos, I told them about Iskanda, well, the heavily edited version where I definitely hadn't spent the night screaming into her rug and begging for mercy in three different languages.
"Private training," I said around a mouthful of chicken that tasted like cardboard and betrayal, "For the remainder of the week, combat focus, maybe a little… extracurricular stamina work."
Freya raised an eyebrow so high it nearly took flight. "Stamina work," she repeated flatly. "Should I be concerned?"
"Concerned?" I said, leaning back on the couch until it creaked in protest. "Freya, darling, if I ever start doing anything respectable enough to worry you, that's when you should panic."
She merely sighed at that.
From then, the afternoon crawled by in a haze of drills and tension thick enough to chew as we tried, very hard mind you, to pretend that everything was fine.
By the time dusk arrived, I was ready to mash nails and spit bullets.
I found myself trailing through the halls alone before ending up at the elevator exactly where I'd left it, all polished brass and quiet menace.
Iskanda's attendant bowed low enough to polish my shoes with his hair, then ushered me inside with the kind of silence that suggested he'd seen things that would make lesser men cry.
Up we went, until we landed on the second floor. We made our way through those dark hallways, the ones that always felt a shade too narrow and a degree too cold.
However, instead of going to Iskanda's room, the attendant lead me elsewhere, into a space that sang with danger.
He stopped before a pair of doors so tall they looked carved for giants who'd taken etiquette lessons from avalanches.
He placed his hand flat against the surface, whispered something too low to catch, and the doors swung inward on silent hinges.
I stepped through without a second thought.
My soles met warm, shifting sand the instant I crossed the threshold. The air smelled of sweat, ozone, and something faintly metallic that might've been blood.
The hall, covered in shadows, stretched vast, lit by floating orbs of witch-light that bobbed like drunken fireflies.
Velvet-ranked slaves moved through the gloom like living weapons, one girl carving glowing runes in the air that exploded into frost, another flipping end-over-end thirty feet up before landing without a sound, a boy with eyes like molten silver punching a straw dummy so hard the sand around it turned to glass.
Organized chaos, beautiful and terrifying, every motion precise enough to cut your soul if you stared long enough.
And in the center of it all stood Iskanda, arms bound tight behind her back, hair loose and wild. She was barefoot in the sand, smiling like a cat who'd eaten the canary, the cage, and the entire aviary for dessert.
She tilted her head as I approached, eyes catching the light and throwing it back sharper than any blade.
"Took you long enough." she purred. "Let's get to training, shall we?"