I swear, if the gods have any sense of humor left—and I know they do, because they've been laughing at me since the day I was born—then this was their punchline.
Because there she was, the Lady of Fangs herself, stepping onto the lacquered stage with all the subtlety of a comet crashing into a tea party. She moved like she owned the world and had already mortgaged the heavens as collateral.
And in her gloved hands, freshly delivered by some trembling attendant who clearly wanted to throw himself into the nearest canal and be done with it, was my pen.
It gleamed under the chandelier light, mocking me, taunting me, the little silver nib flashing like a knife. She held it up between two fingers as though she had plucked it from a pile of trinkets, tilting it back and forth with a languid amusement that made bile crawl up my throat. Then—because the gods really do enjoy making me suffer—she suddenly whipped her head around and locked eyes with me.
