There's a peculiar stillness that settles after violence—a hush too sharp to be peace, too breathless to be relief.
Not the immediate kind—those came with breathless awe, like an applause being held for just a beat too long. No, I mean the silence after everything has been said, done, and bled. The kind of silence that presses cold fingers against the base of your spine and whispers, Now what?
Julius and I stared at each other for a long, tremulous moment across the wreckage of the once-glamorous pleasure suite. My hair was matted with sweat and Verrin's blood. Julius looked like a candy shop crime scene in lilac and wine. And between us, sprawled across the cracked mosaic floor with all the dignity of a pork roast left out in the rain, was Lord Verrin, the Highblood with a new neckhole where his pride used to be.
I tilted my head. Julius tilted his. Somewhere in the distance, I swear I heard a violin string snap. Then Julius screamed. Or rather—he yelped, like a debutante whose petticoat had caught fire and she wasn't sure whether to call for help or just politely combust.
"Oh dear mother of all fuck—He's dead!. He's—He's dead, Loona! He's—Oh gods—he's leaking!"
I blinked. "Technically he was leaking before I punched his nose into retirement. And he's not dead, just unconscious."
He didn't hear me. He was too busy flailing across the room in a storm of limbs, sobs, and exaggerated footfalls, like a statuette possessed by a squirrel with anxiety. He knocked over a stool, tripped over Verrin's leg, shrieked like a goat in drag, and began pacing the room in clumsy figure-eights while pulling at his hair.
"You've killed a Highblood! Do you know what they do to people who kill Highbloods?! They flay them, Loona! They garnish their genitals! They—"
I darted forward and clapped a hand over his mouth before he could say anything else that would make the universe want to prove him right. He squeaked. I stared him down with the calm, parental intensity of someone babysitting a feral cat during a thunderstorm.
"We're getting out of this," I hissed. "But only if you stop screaming like a Virgin Mary who'd just discovered her holy son's been whoring behind stables with a choirboy and a sack of incense."
He made a muffled wheeze against my palm. Then—gently, dramatically—he tapped my thigh twice with one silk-gloved finger.
I let go.
He stumbled back a step, eyes glassy with horror, and then collapsed to his knees like a socialite fainting at the sight of poor people.
"I'm not made for this," he whimpered, clutching at my bloodstained hands like they were relics from a saint. "I was born to host brunches, not bury nobles! I can't even change a bedsheet without supervision!"
I sighed, squeezing his hands and giving his knuckles a pat. "I get it, darling. Truly. No one dreams of dragging a noble corpse across a prison masquerade. But sometimes life doesn't give you brunch. Sometimes life gives you a bloated pig in silk pajamas."
He sobbed again. I gave his cheek a loving slap.
Then I stood and began pacing.
I paced the room like a man possessed. Like a widow in a courtroom. Like a whore who'd just found a tick on her customers skin. My bare feet slapped across stone. My tunic clung to my hips with blood, sweat, and the fading scent of arousal. The boy—bless his heart—was curled in the corner, watching me with enormous, shell-shocked eyes, like he wasn't sure if I was a miracle or something too good to trust.
I was trying not to panic. Really. But here was the situation: Verrin was out cold. The suite was just one door away from the main ballroom, and beyond that lay a fortress full of guards, drunk nobles, and political vultures ready to pluck our eyeballs out for the crime of inconvenience, let alone attempted murder. Somehow, we had to smuggle a mangled corpse across all of that—past the arena, through the prison, and into Julius's private quarters like a wayward bottle of champagne.
I was halfway through imagining a wheelbarrow made of wigs when my boot struck something solid.
I looked down.
It was Verrin's mask. A pig's snout. Gilded. Cracked. And now, soaked in just enough blood to look like a warning. I stared at it. It stared back, as if to say: Oink oink, bitch. Let's get theatrical.
And then it hit me.
"Oh," I whispered. "Oh you beautiful bastard."
I snatched up the mask and spun on my heel like a burlesque dancer with a vendetta. Julius flinched. "Loona—what is it?"
"A plan." I grinned, already moving toward Verrin's limp form. "A glorious, awful, dangerous-as-syphilis plan."
"Do I want to hear it?" he whimpered.
"Absolutely not. But we're doing it anyway."
I dropped to my knees beside Verrin and slapped the pig mask onto his bloody face. It stuck with a wet shlick, turning the corpse into a grotesque, aristocratic parody. I turned to Julius with eyes gleaming.
"We're going to pretend," I said, "that Lord Verrin is just a drunk noble who passed out after a little too much wine. You—you're his concerned friend. I'm your valet. And the boy is…an emotional support orphan."
Julius blinked. "You want me to carry an unconscious war crime through a masquerade gala?!"
"Technically," I said, tugging Verrin's robe up to hide the gash in his throat, "you're carrying a blasted hog with a perfume problem. Use the mask. Use your flair. And lie like the rent's due."
There was a pause. Then Julius clapped his hands like a theater critic on cocaine.
"Oh this is just divine! It's delicious! It's deranged! It's—wait." He pointed to Verrin's chest. "That's blood. Like, very blood-colored blood. What do we do about that?"
I shrugged and offered a sheepish giggle.
"Wine stains."
Julius let out a strangled laugh. Then—sweating, muttering, and looking very much like a hungover peacock—he bent, braced himself, and slumped Verrin's corpse across his back. The weight nearly flattened him. His knees buckled. His cheeks puffed. His face went the shade of old plums. But he gave a trembling little thumbs-up like a pageant contestant about to pass out.
And then, drunk on desperation and theater, we stepped into the hallway.
The ballroom had become a divine mess. Nobles lay draped over chairs, tangled in silks and pearls, half-naked and blissfully unaware. A string quartet had collapsed into a snoring pile behind a curtain. A woman in a swan mask was slow-dancing with a potted plant. The smell of sweat, sex, spilled liquor, and perfume was so thick it felt like wading through the sweaty underarm of some overenthusiastic fragrance commercial.
Julius stumbled through with Verrin's body slung over his back like a sack of overpriced sausage. The boy held my hand tightly, pressed into my side, pretending—bless him—that this was fine. I gave him a wink.
Just then, a man in a tiger mask raised his beer as we passed. "Tough night, huh?" he slurred. "Hope your friend gets home safe!"
Julius squeaked. "Y-Yes, thank you! He's just…a little too festive, haha! Too much…uh…rosé!"
We picked up speed. Julius was beginning to list sideways. I caught his elbow just in time.
Then we reached the end of the main corridor. The two guards from before stood at the end of the hall, half-shadowed and grim. One of them squinted as we approached. His hand drifted to his belt. He stepped forward.
Shit.
"Oi," he grunted, eyeing the pig-faced body slumped over Julius's back. "That one alright?"
Julius giggled. It was the sound of imminent cardiac arrest.
"He's fine!" he chirped. "Just a bit…sleepy!"
The guard stepped closer. Then closer still. He leaned in, nose wrinkling.
My heart hammered wildly in my chest, each beat loud enough to drown out reason. The boy's hand clenched the edge of my tunic, trembling, pulling me back just a fraction, but I couldn't let fear show—not now.
And then—
Verrin snorted.
A tiny, involuntary puff of air wheezed from his mangled nose, ragged and pitiful, like a ghost's last breath caught in a broken throat. It was so slight, so accidental, it barely registered.
But it was enough.
"Ha! Still breathin'. Old bastard must've hit the punch bowl hard, eh?" He slapped Verrin's back with a guffaw. "Thanks for takin' care of him, my lord. Poor pig never could hold his booze."
"Y-Yes!" Julius said, voice an octave too high. "So true. Just being a good friend! Ha ha! Friendship!"
And just like that—we were through.
Past the illusionary wall and back into the prison.
The rest of the journey unfolded in a parade of increasingly absurd vignettes, each one more ridiculous than the last—like a twisted vaudeville act staged inside the prison's gloomy corridors. Julius staggered with exaggerated grace, slurring polite apologies to passing guards as if he'd just spilled a drink at a noble's feast, while I muttered my own half-hearted sorrys under my breath, praying the boy wouldn't start crying or suddenly develop a limp so pathetic it made us all look like a tragicomic troupe.
We passed one man who offered to sell us a wheelbarrow. Another prisoner—a bulky brute with a face like a smashed pumpkin—gave Julius a sly wink and asked in a gravelly voice if Verrin's "body" was available for dinner next week.
Somehow, by sheer force of narrative absurdity, we reached Julius's quarters. Past the hallway with the rented out rooms. Past the walls of moaning velvet. Past the last guard, who tipped his helmet at me and winked.
We collapsed through the door like fugitives, Verrin's body flopping onto the rug with a wet thump. Julius fell beside it, gasping like a martyr.
I sat back against the wall. The boy crawled into my lap. And for one blessed moment—we were quiet.
The silence was thick, syrupy, the kind of silence you only get after a murder, a con, and several near-death experiences wrapped in a wine-soaked bow. And then Julius, trembling, sweaty, and half-mad, turned to me with wide eyes and a panting gasp.
"Loona," he said, voice high and fraying like silk caught in a windstorm. "Darling. Loona. I'm going to ask you a question, and I want you to answer me honestly, plainly, as though we weren't—" he gestured vaguely at Verrin's mangled body,"—up to our silk-drenched necks in treason, blood, and...whatever that smell is."
I blinked. "That's the smell of fear and moral decay."
He nodded seriously now. "Fabulous. Now—how in the hells did you end up in this situation?!"
Ah. There it was. The inevitable post-coital confessional, minus the coital, though honestly, the seduction had been so thorough it might as well have counted. I let my weight fall from the wall with the theatrical ease of a bard preparing a tale and began to pace the room again—this time not with anxiety, but with the smug, unbothered leisure of someone who had absolutely no right to feel as calm as they did.
I strolled across to Verrin's sagging form and crouched beside him like a grave-robber about to open Christmas presents. My fingers slid into his coat pockets, still slightly damp from sweat and something darker.
"Well, Julius," I said with a smirk, producing the fat little pouch of my winnings and weighing it in my palm like a stolen jewel, "It all began with a boy in broken chains."
"Darling," Julius whispered, as if trying to suppress the growing shriek in his throat, "you can't just say that like it's the opening of a bedtime story and not the start of a criminal confession."
I ignored him, of course. My hand slipped once more into Verrin's coat, deeper this time, and there it was—the real prize. The folded parchment, crinkled and stained with whatever the aristocratic version of desperation smells like. I pulled it free with a flourish, rising like a demonic ballerina from the floor and holding it aloft like a treasure map. "Signed and sealed," I said, "by our dearly departed piggy himself."
Julius squinted. "Is that…?"
"The boy's contract," I said, stepping over Verrin's boot with all the grace of a cat burglar in heels. "Technically, he's mine now. Or, well—he would be. However, I'm still a prisoner. And, as you may have noticed, they don't exactly let Guttermeat with a flair for treason and theatrical bloodbaths own slaves during their imprisonment."
Julius's eyes widened to the size of saucers, his painted lips trembling with barely-contained glee. "Wait, you're giving him to me?"
My heart thudded, softly, stupidly. Then I nodded. "Even in the short time we've known each other, Julius... you've shown me more kindness than anyone in this hellhole. You're loud, ridiculous, and absolutely insufferable, but underneath all that perfume and panic, I think there's a decent man. Maybe even a good one." I hesitated, then handed the parchment to him, steady as a sword. "He deserves a life. And I trust you to give him one."
There was a beat. A single beat of silence before Julius let out a squeal so high-pitched it could've shattered wine glasses. "I'm going to be a father!" he shrieked, clutching the contract to his chest like a baby and diving forward to smother me in a hug that was less 'thank you' and more 'asphyxiation via sequin boa.' "A real father!"
I coughed into his shoulder as he gripped me like I was a lifeboat made of eyeliner. "Okay, okay—Julius, darling, I need air to maintain my bone structure."
He loosened his grip, only barely, blinking back tears with the frantic grace of someone trying to preserve their makeup through an emotional breakdown. "I don't know what to say."
"'Thank you' works," I wheezed, patting his back. "Or 'I owe you my life.' Or, my personal favorite, 'Loona, you're a gorgeous genius who smells like sex and stardust.'"
"You are," he sniffled. "You absolutely are."
He pulled back, hands still trembling, and fanned himself. "This calls for celebration. And by celebration, I mean wine. Filthy, forbidden, wallet-melting wine."
He scampered over to the ornate bar against the wall and flung open the cabinet with a flourish, revealing rows of bottles that probably cost more than my soul was worth at auction. "I paid for this room through tomorrow morning," he called out, already uncorking something ancient and ruby-red. "That means you, darling Loona, are my guest. And I do not take guests lightly."
I slid onto the nearest barstool, stretching my limbs like a cat that had just survived a meat grinder and somehow looked better for it. "Don't mind if I do."
The first sip hit me like silk and sunshine. Whatever this was, it had been aged longer than most of the prisoners in Prismillya had been alive. I let it roll over my tongue, humming in appreciation, before turning—slowly, languidly—to look at the boy.
He stood awkwardly near the wall, arms curled around himself like he was trying to shrink into the wallpaper. His cheeks were still red, flushed from more than just exertion. Every time I shifted, his gaze darted somewhere else, but I could feel the tension in his shoulders, the tremble of nerves in his fingers. He looked like a rabbit unsure if I was going to pet him or eat him alive.
My heart betrayed me. Skipped. Stuttered. And then flared hot in my chest.
I waved a hand lazily toward him, beckoning him to sit.
He hesitated, then shuffled forward with all the enthusiasm of someone approaching the gallows—but when he finally reached me, it was like something unclenched. He climbed into the stool beside me and sank into the seat with a sigh so small and sweet I thought I might actually implode from the softness of it all.
The wine worked its magic. The laughter came back—giggling, breathless, bubbling from some part of me I hadn't used in years. I asked him silly questions. What was his favorite fruit? Did he like music? Could he juggle?
He answered in head shakes and soft nods, every smile he gave me like a pearl in a minefield.
I leaned back on my hands, looking up at the ceiling with a dopey grin I couldn't seem to shake. "You know," I said casually, "I've been calling you 'the boy' like some creepy fairy tale villain this entire time. But I feel like you might have, I don't know, a name?"
And then, after a long stretch of silence—broken only by the sound of Julius humming in the background as he theatrically scrubbed what I dearly hoped was blood off the floor—the boy whispered:
"Felix."
My heart nearly broke in half.
"Felix," I repeated, tasting it. "That's...a good name."
He nodded and—gods help me—rested his head on my shoulder. Just… leaned in, like it was natural. Like he wanted to. I didn't move for a long, long while. Just listened to the sound of his breathing, the warmth of his skin against mine, the wild flutter of something I didn't want to name.
Eventually, reality returned, rudely, like an unpaid whore at the window. I glanced down at myself and realized I was absolutely filthy—sweat, grime, dried blood, and god knows what else. Felix wasn't much better, and the wine was doing little to make me feel less like a half-drowned raccoon in silk panties.
"I need a shower," I muttered, brushing a hand through my hair. "Maybe twelve. And a bath. And a ritual cleansing from a high priestess."
I stirred, shifting under Felix's gentle weight. He blinked up at me, half-asleep already, eyes heavy-lidded. When I moved to rise, he reached out—one small hand wrapping around my arm. His cheeks flushed deeper, but he didn't say a word.
Oh. Oh.
My breath caught in my throat.
He wanted to come with me.
A thousand thoughts danced through my mind like naked strippers at a funeral. Was it too soon? Was it wrong? Was it tender, desperate, or both? But then I saw the look in his eyes—not lust, not expectation, but trust. The pure, foolish, terrifying trust of someone who'd been given nothing and dared to ask for everything at once.
Just then, a wicked grin spread across my face and my heartbeat kicked up like a drum line in my ears.
Perfect.
It was time to initiate phase one of my plan.