He was alone again, still seated, fingers smudged with ink and tension. His eyes stared through the flickering lamplight toward the door, as if it might open again.
But it didn't.
Sabine and the Shadow Man had left him with thoughts too heavy for the room. Their voices lingered like perfume and smoke. He leaned back slightly, breathing in silence and shame.
What would his father have done?
Or his mother?
They weren't answers—only echoes. Nobles, yes. But their relationship had been strange. Formal on the outside, fractured underneath. Love wrapped in ceremony, never trust. Control disguised as tradition. Viktor had spent years trying to define them, only to realize they were no model for this.
And dragons? Their myths told of loyalty so fierce it curled into obsession. Bonds that never loosened. He knew too well that the instinct to keep was written in his blood.
Across centuries in Russia, nobles had made similar bargains—marrying for alliance, not love. Some crossed race lines, but even then it was rare, and almost always between those who still "looked the part." The few mixed unions that survived scrutiny did so under silence or scandal. His family, at least, hadn't leaned into incestuous traditions. Small mercies. He still remembered meeting a certain European cousin at a diplomatic function—skin pale as wax, eyes glassy with inbreeding, bloodline so tangled it was practically a spell gone wrong. It stuck with him. That face. That legacy. People called it nobility, but he knew rot when he saw it, even when it wore medals. Dragons could be just as foolish, mistaking purity for preservation. His family had avoided that trap—barely.
Power was easy to hold and hard to wield kindly. He'd learned that much. His parents had taught him that, even if they never meant to. Their love wasn't real—not the kind that grew roots. They had lovers on the side, tangled across borders and bloodlines. He wished he hadn't known it, but he did.
And Sasha? He was conceived during a fear dearg, red-haired and far moodier than any leprechaun orgy his father once hosted for foreign delegates. Viktor only learned the truth when a drunken leprechaun tried to claim his mother's gold, and his father tried to claim the leprechaun's soul. It had all been terribly magical and deeply embarrassing.
Legacy was messy, twisted, and often ridiculous. The power they wrapped around it was nothing more than theater most days. After all, Russian nobility itself had a long history of reinvention. Entire bloodlines rose and vanished as politics shifted and empires clawed at themselves. Nothing about it had ever been peaceful.
Viktor's family line had lost a large chunk of its influence during the Great Famine of 1891–92. While others starved, his people didn't need to eat the same way—dragon-blooded and realm-bound as they were—but survival wasn't comfort. Their magic didn't shield them from loss. Crops failed, villages turned desperate, and nobles who once held entire districts in their palm found themselves begging foreign embassies for loans.
You'd think living in their hidden realm would've protected them. It didn't. The hunger got in. The bitterness. The rot.
And Viktor? He was left with the bill and the ink-stained silence that followed.
That famine changed everything. After the nobility lines were shuffled again—as they always were in Russia, a country addicted to remaking its ruling class—his family lost more than lands. They lost leverage. Sasha, trying to prove himself, had traveled to visit Genevieve's father's mother-in-law: Baba Yaga, bound to them through twisted bloodlines and old pacts. One thing led to another, and like some tragic folklore hero, he saved a village during a shadow winter and got trapped in indentured servitude instead. His debt bound him to the New World through Genevieve's father.
Viktor had been working for years to break that debt.
Sasha hadn't reached the age yet where that kind of bargain would pass on its own. By human standards, sure—he was old enough to drink, to vote, to swear oaths and march into war. But by immortal reckoning? He was still young. Still soft around the edges. A dragon in his teenage years, full of fire and impulse but none of the patience that survival demanded. If he'd just waited—waited like the others did for the Dryads to come and cleanse the chains—they would've lost a nice chunk of money, yes, but not his brother. Not to that damned family.
Gods above, fae. Viktor had dealt with enough of them to know better. Noble, cursed, moss-draped or powdered up like carnival performers—they all had a way of turning favors into lifelong debt. 'Fae' didn't mean one thing. It meant too many. Things too old, too pretty, too tricky to trust. Sasha might've had a bit of fae in his blood, but he was dragon first. Fire, hunger, impulse.
He could've made a deal with anyone. Djinn. Dryads. Hell, even a moon-beast. But no—he went and chose the fae. Their mother raised them, not their father. She taught them better. But maybe Sasha had always felt out of step. When a dragon doesn't know their hoard yet, it leaves a hole. Some are late bloomers. The ache turns reckless. Viktor figured that was it—Sasha trying to fill the void with something glittering and cursed. Typical dragon youth: loud, bright, and catastrophically magical.
When a dragon hasn't found their hoard type yet, things get restless. Reckless. Some are late bloomers, and not knowing what you're meant to protect can turn into chaos real quick.
Viktor once met an old dragon who hoarded spices—thousands of them. The dragon claimed, with a completely straight face, that he collected every spice three times: once to sell, once to store, and once to actually flavor his food.
But whenever Viktor came by for a meal, the cooking was always bland. Took him years to realize the dragon was doing it on purpose—hoarding even the taste in his own food. The spices weren't just for shelves or markets—they were hoarded mid-meal. That old lizard seasoned like he was budgeting magic. And honestly? Viktor respected the commitment.
Viktor often found himself wondering how that spice-hoarding dragon was doing, which somehow always led him back to the first time he met the Shadow Man. Back then, he hadn't known who he was feeding stories to. It had just seemed like a strange night outside Saint Petersburg—sharing fire and bread with a beggar who had perfect teeth, a lopsided grin, and a voice like chilled velvet. They traded tales, and one of Viktor's slipped out without much thought.
Only later did he realize that feeding stories was the price. And the man he'd spoken to wasn't hungry for food—he was collecting something far older.
It wasn't until much later—deep in the swamps of Louisiana, long after the worst of winter had left his bones—that he recognized that grin again. The same teeth. The same smoke-thick voice. That so-called beggar was the Shadow Man.
When Viktor officially arrived in America, chasing word of Sasha's magical debt, someone whispered a name. Said if anyone could help him, it was the Shadow Man. Viktor hadn't believed it at first—just another myth with too many names. But the closer he got to New Orleans, the more that myth felt real. Felt familiar. Like smoke curling around an old memory. And when he saw that smile again, everything snapped into place.
The Shadow Man wasn't just a mystery. He was patient. He was shadow and memory wrapped in a silk coat and a smirk. Viktor had to wonder how long he'd been watching before the real story even started.
He'd lucked out running into him again—just as Genevieve's father was about to cause a scene. Viktor stepped in, defusing it, maybe even saving the Shadow Man from a public mess. Though truthfully, did the Shadow Man ever really need saving? He acted like he didn't. He always did.
Still, he made Viktor pay a price. Always something small. Manageable. A story here. A favor there. And in return, the Shadow Man helped pull Sasha out of his debt.
But that left the question Viktor still hadn't shaken: if the price was always easy, what was the Shadow Man's real goal?
Not that he had time to dwell on it. If he didn't process the paperwork soon, it would take weeks longer—maybe months. Whatever game the Shadow Man was playing, Viktor couldn't afford to pause long enough to figure it out.