Lunaria's breathing began to slow.
Her hands fell from his waist as she stepped back. Quiet, steady, but still watching him like she needed to see him standing. Needed to see him still here.
Nikolai didn't look at her.
He turned to Leona and tossed the ruined corpse to the ground. The body hit the floor with a wet thud — limbs splayed at unnatural angles, blackened veins still twitching.
What was left of the boy barely resembled a person. The illusion had peeled back just enough to show the truth: seams. Stitching. A spine not entirely human. Nosferatu's work.
Precise. Controlled. Designed to pass.
To speak like a man. To smile. To lie.
"It almost passed," Nikolai said flatly. "Too clean. Too well made."
He glanced down at the heart in his hand, the last bit of it still pulsing faintly before it crumbled into ash.
A puppet with a soul borrowed for one purpose: manipulation.
"Leona," he said. "Are the girls still asleep?"
