There was a silence that followed the reading of Willow's name.
The attendant's voice had barely faded, her crimson robes catching the low light as the envelope fell limp at her side—and in the next moment, every head in the throne room turned as if wrenched by invisible strings. Eyes locked. Jaws dropped. Even Vincent's breath caught in his throat with an audible hitch. And there, standing dead center like a martyr at the altar of absurdity, was Willow.
Willow, who flushed a furious, bewildered red the moment her name was spoken aloud. Willow, whose first instinct wasn't to step forward or bow, but to throw up her hands as if physically trying to swat the very concept of destiny out of the air.
"Absolutely not," she said, voice cracking with the unmistakable panic of someone being asked to take responsibility for a very large, very flammable building they had only ever set foot in to use the bathroom. "No. Nope! That is not—I didn't even—this is a mistake! Clearly. Some other Willow. Probably?"
Her arms flailed. I watched her fingers slice the air like she was trying to erase her own name from the universe by sheer kinetic denial. Behind her, Aria blinked slowly. Miko's lips parted. Leo made a sound that might have been a suppressed laugh or the beginning of a panic attack. Possibly both.
And me? I just stared. Not at her—but at the sheer ridiculousness of it all.
This was ludicrous. This was Tower-level insanity. This was gods-hate-us, fate-is-drunk, blood-and-lace-on-the-throne lunacy.
Willow, The Red Mistress?
I mean—yes, sure, she had the presence. The charisma. The devastating eyebrows. But still. She spent half her time hurling fireballs at enemies and the other half straddling danger like it owed her dinner, wielding her sexuality the way most people wielded weapons. She was chaos in heels. She was the sound you hear right before something important explodes. And now? Now she was Ventri's most sacred protector, the divine matron of sin and diplomacy.
It would've been funny if I weren't so horrified by the prospects.
Vincent looked stunned. And for a man whose default state was smug detachment, the sharp jolt in his expression felt like seeing a statue blink. His eyes flicked between Willow and the attendant like he was trying to locate the punchline in a joke that had somehow ended with blood on the floor and one very accidental coronation.
Willow stepped back, visibly trembling, her voice rising into something shrill and imploring.
"This is insane!" she said. "I can't—I'm not! Gods, I used to rob spice merchants and curse noblemen for fun! I once blackmailed a mayor with an enchanted corset! How can I, of all people, be The Red Mistress?!"
The attendant only watched her, unmoved.
"There must be a way to decline," Willow pressed, desperation bleeding into every syllable. "Right? There's a form? A disqualification? A loophole where if I say 'absolutely the fuck not' three times, it passes to the next candidate?"
The woman shook her head. Once. Slowly. Like the gravity of her bones wouldn't allow a second motion.
"There is no refusal," she said, voice a stillness wrapped in steel. "To bear the title is not to accept it. It is to be chosen. Your will has no bearing. You are now The Red Mistress."
Willow reeled back like the words had slapped her.
And then came the knife.
"If you run," the attendant said, "you will be hunted."
The words echoed.
Hunted.
The term hung in the air like ash over a battlefield, thick, choking, and unbearably final.
The woman continued, stepping forward as if she could carve her truth into stone. "The city will not allow vacancy. The Tower will not permit it. The Red Mistress is the fulcrum upon which the city's underground rests—politics, power, commerce, and control. Her absence isn't merely a disruption; it is a cataclysm in motion. When The Red Mistress falls, the city moves swiftly to name her successor—because without the presence of her will, chaos reigns unchecked."
My breath caught deep in my throat at this.
It was like a lock turning. Like the sudden realization that the screams had always been there—you just hadn't noticed them until they lined up into a chorus.
The Tower had been crumbling ever since the third floor, pressure mounting like some great, invisible vein that was about to burst.
Of course.
It was Helena. Or rather, it was her absence. The moment she died, the Tower began to unravel. Not from neglect. But from grief. Because the Tower wasn't just a structure—it was a system, a mechanism, a living spell built around her authority as the ruler of the city it inhabited.
It was her heartbeat.
And now it was Willow's.
She was breathing faster now, fingers curled against her thighs as if to ground herself before she floating away into panic. But then—slowly—she took a breath. A real one. Deep, long, and trembling.
"I'm going to need a minute," she said, taking a step back.
I turned from her as she did so, only because the silence behind me had started to move.
Vincent.
I whirled around and found him already looking at me. And in that instant, I knew. He hadn't said a word. But his posture, his eyes, the way his hand slipped to his belt without drawing anything—it was all clear.
"Vincent," I began, warily.
He smiled—not kindly, not cruelly, but with a quiet sense of inevitability.
"Well," he said, voice like a drink I didn't want to finish, "I suppose that ends our little affair, doesn't it?"
The attendant stepped forward before Vincent could speak again, her voice calm, measured, almost painfully composed—as though she were explaining the terms of a will to a room full of grieving inheritors too proud to weep.
"You mistake yourself," she said, confirming my thoughts with the finality of a locked tomb. "The current Red Mistress is unable to override the contract. Her authority is absolute… but only in the present tense."
Willow stiffened beside me. The others looked on, silent.
The woman folded her hands in front of her, robes whispering against the stone floor. "Helena's decree was made while she yet lived. Her will was sealed with her blood. That command carries the full weight of the office at the moment it was issued. And now that she is dead—her decision is fossilized. Untouchable. Immutable, but still eligible to be carried out if the next Mistress so wishes. Since she does not, the city recognizes both Mistresses as valid in their claims—one in legacy, one in life. But their powers, in this, are equal. The result is stasis."
She tilted her head slightly, the expression on her face unreadable. "The contract cannot be broken by authority alone. It must be resolved."
"Resolved how?" Willow asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
Vincent stepped forward, expression sharpening like a blade coming free of its sheath.
"Do I even need to say it?" he said.
I nodded. "A duel then."
The words tasted ancient. Like something pulled from the bone marrow of stories long forgotten. My fingers curled into fists, blood prickling beneath the skin like lightning waiting for permission. My instinct howled against it—every thread of muscle and memory pulling tight with warning. But I didn't turn away. Didn't flinch. Because in the end, it made sense.
We'd danced through politics. Through betrayal. Through illusion, blood, and memory. But we had never once fought fairly in a show of raw combat.
Not once since this nightmare began.
Every encounter had been cloaked in shadow, tilted by circumstance, or waged in the theater of war. But now—finally—we had a clean line. One man against another. Power against power. Fate against fire.
Vincent turned to the attendant.
"I would like to alter the contract," he said, voice crisp. "One clause only. If I win this duel—"
He paused, glancing at Willow.
"—then the new Red Mistress will honor the original terms and the network of assassins will be mine."
His eyes returned to me. Steady. Absolute.
"And in exchange," he said quietly, "I swear to never set foot in Ventri again. I will neither write nor whisper—I will vanish from The Red Mistress's life entirely upon completion of my mission."
A heartbeat.
Then Willow turned to me. I didn't need her to speak. Her eyes asked the question.
And then I gave the nod.
"If I win," I said slowly, "Vincent forfeits the contract. He abolishes it completely. No assassins. No silent strike on the Graywatch City Council. Alongside this, Vincent will return to his homeland of Dulmor and swear never to interfere in the city's affairs again—no back channels, no secret alliances, no whispered threats. He erases his presence from the city completely."
Vincent nodded without hesitation.
We stood like statues carved from separate elements—him, all sharp geometry and broken marble. And me, fire smoldering beneath steel.
Then the attendant moved.
Wordlessly. Reverently.
She stepped forward, her hands folding beneath Helena's lifeless form. She lifted her gently, robes swirling like blood around her feet, and carried her down the steps of the throne, away from the velvet, away from the shattered weight of what she'd once been.
No one spoke. No one stopped her.
I turned my back to Vincent.
My boots carried me a few slow steps across the cold stone, each tap echoing back at me like the countdown to something irreversible. My hands sank into the deep folds of my coat, fingers brushing past silk and hidden metal until they curled, slow and deliberate, around the familiar weight of the revolver.
The cold of it met my skin like an old lover's bite—sharp, possessive, and unrelenting. It felt like power. It felt like control. And for one beautiful, reckless moment, I imagined spinning on my heel and ending this here and now. Raising the barrel. Taking the shot. Ending the mystery, the contract, the history that bloomed like rot between us. But I didn't. Because I was no longer that foolish. Not anymore.
The fantasy bled away almost as soon as it arrived, dissolving beneath the far crueler weight of logic.
If I missed—even by a fraction—it would be over. Not just the duel. Not just our fragile, bitter truce. But everything. Vincent would never forgive that kind of betrayal, not even with all his velvet talk of mercy. And while he might be bound—by some unseen curse, a divine restriction from that mysterious figure he called The Maker, which prevented him from killing me—my friends were not included. Leo. Miko. Aria. Willow. None of them carried the same protection I did, and I knew deep in my gut that Vincent's revenge wouldn't be directed at me. It would rain sideways. It would bleed outward. And the world would burn for it.
I was tired of the games.
Tired of riddles, cryptic warnings, and dancing around consequences like a snake trying not to eat its own tail. I wanted something real. Something fair. Not out of pride—though that certainly hummed beneath my skin like a second heartbeat—but out of respect.
If I was to end this, I wanted it clean. I wanted it sacred. I wanted to look him in the eyes and break whatever tether had kept us locked together since we first met on the train.
So I pulled both the revolver and my dagger free.
And dropped them.
The sound was sharper than it should've been, steel singing against stone in a way that made the entire room flinch. Even Vincent twitched, barely perceptible, as the weapons clattered to rest at my feet. I didn't even bother to glance at them. Didn't look to see the way the metal gleamed like discarded fate. I stepped forward instead, coat swaying behind me in steady rhythm, and walked toward Miko.
He looked at me with eyes like razors dulled by grief, confusion still flickering behind them, but when I held out my hand, he understood. Wordlessly, he reached into his pocket and pressed the stopwatch into my palm. It was heavier than I remembered. Or maybe I was just beginning to understand the true weight of its power. I held it for a breath—then another—before tossing it across the space between us.
Vincent caught it with his good hand.
Even with a ruined leg and missing fingers, he caught it like it belonged to him. Like it had always belonged to him. His hand curled around it with slow reverence, thumb brushing over its face like he was soothing a sleeping creature. For a moment, he said nothing. Just stared at it. As if the weight of it in his palm told a story only he could read.
And then I felt it—that familiar hum between us. That low, unspoken current that had nothing to do with magic and everything to do with memory. Our past. Our bond. That phantom thread tugging at something half-dead in my chest.
I pulled out my pen next.
I hadn't used it since marking Aria. Hadn't dared to draw on its power with anything less than full intention. My fingers tightened around the feathered edge.
Vincent glanced up, expression unreadable.
I took a slow step forward, tilting my head just enough to let the weight of the moment settle. "I want to do this differently. Your stopwatch. My pen. No distractions. No allies waiting in the wings. No tricks, no shortcuts—just you and me, face to face, armed with nothing but the relics that made us who we are… who we've become."
He chuckled softly, lips curling into that familiar smile of his.
"You always did like to make things poetic," he said.
"And you always liked to ruin good poetry with blood," I replied.
He turned the stopwatch over in his hand again, his thumb pressing gently against its crown like he was trying to coax it open without losing control.
"I accept," he said. "A battle of equality. A battle between fate. As it should be."
And then he looked up again, eyes gleaming.
"But, before we begin… I have a question."
My stance remained still, unflinching, but my heart gave a single, jarring beat—sharp and uncertain.
"Tell me, Cecil," he said, tilting his head. "How far along are you in your system's progression?"
The words hit me like a splash of freezing water. System? Progression? I blinked, caught off-guard by the phrasing, unsure whether I'd misheard or misinterpreted. "My… what?"
Vincent's smile deepened, but it wasn't cruel. Not quite. It was thoughtful. Almost curious.
"You've been using it for how long now?" he asked. "The pen. Your relic. How many abilities has it granted you? How many forms has it taken?"
"I—" I started, then stopped.
Suddenly, every moment I'd spent with my pen came roaring back. Every transformation. Every mark. Every whisper of power in the back of my mind. The ability to manipulate identity itself. Just then, my mind flickered—unbidden—back to the hidden chamber in the Southern Cathedral.
The notes.
The parchment Salem and I had read in whispers, candlelight flickering over the mad, brilliant scrawl of the previous high priest who had once spoken of The Maker's System.
The Maker.
Whoever—whatever—that was.
"Your pen," Vincent said quietly, "is one of them. Like my stopwatch. A relic that binds us. A shard of the same divine system. To hold a relic like that," he continued, his voice low, almost reverent, "isn't just to wield power. It's to become something greater. A vessel. A symbol. A representative of sin." He paused, letting the words settle into the quiet air between us. "Each relic is anchored to one of the seven. Not just conceptually, but spiritually—metaphysically. It changes you. Shapes you. Whether you know it or not, it molds your path around the core of that sin."
"You called it The Maker's Gift," I murmured, the words barely a breath as the memory sharpened in my mind—flashing back to when we fought on the train. I remembered how casually he'd said it then, like it was common knowledge, as if we both should've known what we were. Back then, I'd chalked it up to theatrics, to Vincent being Vincent. But now... Now the pieces were clicking together in ways that made my skin prickle.
I let out a breath and lifted my pen slightly, letting the shimmer of its feather catch the light between us. "I've developed a few new powers here and there," I admitted, keeping my voice even, though I felt suddenly—and unpleasantly—like a student confessing he'd skimmed all the readings before a final exam. "But nothing beyond that..."
Vincent let out a quiet sigh—not derisive, but something adjacent to disappointment. Like I'd just confirmed something he'd already feared. He nodded once.
"Ah, I see," he said quietly. "So you've yet to develop second stage progression."
My brow furrowed. "Second stage what?"
He looked at me for a moment, lips pressed thin, then simply shook his head. "It's not important right now."
I shrugged, brushing it off, and just like that, we stepped back into position.
I watched him move—careful, favoring the leg I'd shot through on the previous floor. And his hand, still missing its fingers, began trembling with the effort of steadiness.
I wasn't fooled. He was still Vincent. Still dangerous. Still the only person in this world who could make me hesitate—not from fear, but from recognition.
I went over the plan again in my head. Slowly. Cleanly.
I didn't need to kill him. I just needed to win. And to do that, I needed the pen to register victory. It had to believe that the enemy had been defeated, subdued, undone. That was the only condition under which it allowed a mark. If I could do that—if I could break him, disarm him, beat him down just enough—then I could finish this with ink instead of blood. And gods, I wanted that more than anything.
Vincent might've had more knowledge of our relics. He might've been further along in this so-called "progression." But I had something else. Something just as potent.
He was hurt. Not just emotionally—though gods knew that wound was still bleeding beneath his charm—but physically as well.
I, on the other hand, stood whole. Bruised, maybe. Bloodied, definitely. But intact. So at least, in some twisted, poetic sense, this fight was still based upon equality.
I flexed my fingers once around the pen before hooking it into my belt, drawing in a long breath as my companions quietly moved to the edges of the room. None of them spoke. Not even Willow. There was nothing left to say. The only thing left to do was to witness.
Vincent tilted his head, eyes meeting mine one last time.
And then the air split open between us.