Morning came on like a hangover with manners.
The manor pretended to be peaceful. Linen changed itself. Silver glowed like it had nothing to do with blood. Somewhere in the west wing, Nitron Vale's aura hummed steady as a generator. The house kept time to him and called it order.
Elma Nuiz didn't. Not today.
She crossed the upper lounges of Master Club as if they belonged to her, white blouse, black skirt, old bruises hidden under fresh makeup. The leash at her throat thrummed like a live wire under silk. Every server knew to get out of her path. Every guard pretended not to notice the way the air warmed when she moved.
Calista Vale walked a neat parallel seven meters away along the balcony rail, posture perfect, dress the blue of deep water, diamonds flicking light at the corners of her mouth. Protocol DP-3 stung when their trajectories curled too close, a polite electric bite. They didn't look at each other. Looking was expensive.
[Quest: Subvert 3 Donors]
Progress: 0/3
Warning: Master suspicion rising.
The first target arrived on time and on a lie.
Lady Vesper Alarie liked to be called a patron, never a donor, because money in her mouth was philanthropy and power in a dress. She wore sable and pearl, hair sculpted, smile knife-sharp. Her entourage peeled off at the threshold like they obeyed gravity.
"Elma," Vesper purred, air-kissing without touching. "I hear you give unforgettable tours."
"Only when the art fights back," Elma said, and steered her through the hush of the east gallery.
Art lined the walls. Paintings Nitron had bought to look like culture watched from their frames while numbers did the actual work. In the center, a low table waited with crystal, a bowl of olives that had never seen dust, and a decanter older than honesty.
Vesper took the seat with her back to the city, which told Elma everything about how Vesper planned to own the room.
"Congratulations on the duel," Vesper said, crossing one ankle over the other. "Frostspawn yielding in your master's house? Delicious."
Elma smiled like a blade laid flat. "You came for gossip."
"I came for leverage." Vesper's gaze slid toward the balcony door, where the hint of sapphire at the edge of sight betrayed Calista's route, precise and distant. "Rumor says your leash runs toward the dais, not the desk."
"Rumor likes to talk with its mouth full." Elma poured half a finger of whiskey into her own glass, none into Vesper's. Power games didn't require alcohol. "What do you want, Vesper?"
"To keep Vale strong," she said smoothly. "With better taste."
Elma stored the line. Useful later. "Your house backs Nitron on paper. In practice?"
Vesper's smile said practice paid better than paper. She toyed with the ring on her index finger, an antique signet that glinted in a way ordinary metal didn't. The hair on Elma's arms prickled.
There you are.
Not every chain was visible. Some sat in promises and sigils and contracts no one admitted were magic. Vesper's ring hummed like a dog whistle the body heard before the brain.
"Nice jewelry," Elma said lightly.
"Family piece." Vesper's fingers stilled. Her eyes did not.
Calista's route, seven meters away, curved again. The sting in Elma's chest sharpened and faded as Calista's silhouette vanished behind a pillar. Cover maintained. Mask flawless. Always.
"Let's talk plainly," Elma said. "You're leashed, Lady Alarie. Not by Vale. Not fully. Frostspawn left a string on you when you bought your last 'priceless' favor. If I cut it, you stop jumping when they tug."
Vesper's laugh was expensive and short. "You're accusing me of being another house's pawn. Bold, for the help."
Elma let the insult slide off. "Everyone wears a collar. The difference is who gets to name it."
Vesper's smile faltered for the first time. "If you could cut it, why would you? I am useful to Vale precisely because I am… networked."
"Because," Elma said, setting the empty glass down without drinking, "you'll be more useful to us when your neck is yours."
Vesper's gaze sharpened. "Us?"
"Calista Vale," Elma said simply. Names were power; this one belonged in the air. "And me."
The gallery went very still.
Calista's shadow paused on the balcony outside for one beat, then moved on like a metronome.
Vesper studied Elma's face the way buyers check for counterfeit. She didn't see fear. She saw amusement and bruises and the kind of hunger rich people like to pretend they invented.
"What do you want in return?" Vesper asked finally.
"Your vote when the Council pretends it can tell Nitron Vale what to do," Elma said. "Your purse when the donors pretend they aren't buying their own safety. Your discretion when you realize this house changes queens faster than anyone admits."
"And if you're selling me a story?" Vesper asked.
Elma smiled. "Then you'll live to regret it long enough to toast my name."
Vesper's fingers returned to her ring. She didn't pull it off. She didn't have to. Elma had already learned to work around pride.
She set the decanter down. The vibration through the table turned the whiskey surface into a mirror that caught Vesper's hand. Elma reached to adjust the glass and, in the same motion, let a piece of stolen winter slip from her cuff.
The shard kissed the ring.
Cold leapt across Vesper's skin. Not visible. Felt. Elma felt it too — the leash around her throat reared like a horse spooked by shadows. Pain lanced her collarbone, bright as teeth. She swallowed the noise that wanted to leave her mouth and kept her hand steady.
[Foreign Schema Introduced]
Target: Vesper Alarie (bound auxiliary contract)
Status: Threaded
Risk: Audit pings to Master: low if contact < 1.5s
Elma counted without moving her lips. One. Two.
Vesper's eyes widened, breath hitching. A faint silver thread no one else could see flashed at the edge of Elma's sight, connecting ring to nowhere. It snapped like sugar.
The shard retracted into Elma's sleeve as if it had never existed.
Vesper jerked her hand back, staring at the skin above her knuckle as if it had pulled a trick. "What did you—"
Elma lifted a shoulder. "You asked for unforgettable."
Vesper blinked hard. You couldn't see freedom the first second you had it. It didn't look like sunshine and open doors. It looked like the absence of a voice in your ear you didn't know you'd been hearing.
Her shoulders lowered a fraction. Her smile returned, smaller, realer. "Hypothetically," she said, voice cooler, "if this were true, what lesson are you buying with it?"
Elma didn't look at Calista's shadow. She didn't need to.
"That comfort isn't freedom," she said quietly. "He gives you a chair at the table, a title on your donor card, and calls it power. But if someone else can tug your finger and make you spill your drink, you don't own the room. You decorate it."
Vesper sat very still.
Elma tipped her head. "Now. Will you help us rearrange the furniture?"
Silence drew breath, held it. Then Vesper exhaled. "You will send me a list," she said. "Of what you need for the Council vote. And a second list of what you think I can do at dinner without making headlines."
"Already written," Elma said. "I'll have Kade deliver it."
"Kade," Vesper echoed, and something like interest flickered. "He's still alive."
"Annoyingly," Elma said.
Vesper stood. "You're playing a dangerous game, Elma Nuiz."
Elma rose with her, pressure easing at her throat as the shard consented to pretend to be dead again. "I don't play games," she said. "I end them."
Vesper's laugh returned, soft and genuine. "Fine. One donor." She extended her hand like they were signing a bill instead of a conspiracy. Elma didn't take it. Vesper didn't insist. "Send me the lists. And tell Calista Vale… she wears blue better than fear."
She left without looking back. People who intended to survive tended to.
Elma waited until the echo of her heels was gone, then leaned both hands on the table and let the pain hit. The leash retaliated late, a delayed bite for daring to touch someone else's promises. It buckled her knees and asked her to make a sound.
She didn't.
Calista appeared in the doorway without crossing the threshold. Seven meters.
"Progress?" Calista asked, voice polite enough for a board meeting.
Elma's mouth curved. "Vesper Alarie just agreed to help you redecorate the city."
Calista's eyes warmed a degree. "And you?"
"Still breathing," Elma said. "Barely."
They stood in their arithmetic. The protocol hummed, not impressed.
[Quest: Subvert 3 Donors]
Progress: 1/3
Reward preview: Council swing vote (2 seats)
Threat: Rumor spike +8%
"Good," Calista said. "Second target?"
"Elwin Carrow," Elma said. "Thinks money excuses a lack of imagination. He likes to watch girls say no and then offer them so much they hate saying yes."
Calista's mouth thinned. "Break him without giving him what he wants."
"Always the poetry with you," Elma said lightly.
Calista's gaze flicked down, then up, that half-second where the private woman peeked out from behind the queen. "And Elma," she said, voice barely above the gallery's breath, "be careful who you let cut you."
Elma nodded once. "Same."
The words were cheap. The cost wasn't.
They separated without touching. The room remembered it had been a trap once and relaxed.
—
Elwin Carrow liked servers to pretend they were his idea.
Elma sent him someone else first — a sweet new hire with a smile people confused for consent — and watched the man fail to find a wicket in her composure. When he started to press, Elma arrived like a spill that cleaned itself.
"Mr. Carrow," she said, sliding into the booth uninvited, "you're bleeding charm. Might want to put pressure on it."
He took one long look and forgot the name of the girl he'd been leaning on. "Elma Nuiz. Nitron Vale's… asset."
"Rhymes with it," she said. "Let's talk charity."
He leaned, eyes telegraphing old money's favorite lie: that all women were internships. "I prefer private philanthropy."
"I prefer public records." She set a ledger on the table — fake numbers that looked real enough to pass the first two sips of whiskey. "You donate. I make sure your name gets spelled correctly in the places that politeness matters."
"And what do you get?" He smiled like the question wasn't a knife.
"A chance to test if you prefer 'no' because it's honest or because you can afford to change it," she said lazily. "Don't worry. I won't. I like my dignity where I left it."
He laughed, the sound a little too loud for discretion and exactly loud enough for rumor.
"You think I'm leashed," he said.
Elma's gaze dropped to the cuff links at his wrists. Gold. Beautiful. Humming.
"Not to Vale," she said. "To your own father's debt. House Carrow never paid off the war it pretends it won. I can hear the interest from here."
His smile fell away, revealing the boy under the suit, still negotiating with ghosts. "You can't—"
"Relax," she said. "I'm not freeing you for free."
He went very still. "You… can free me."
"Everyone wears a collar," Elma said. "The difference is whether you wear it because you chose the price."
He stared at her like the room had tilted. "And your price?"
"When Calista Vale calls a vote," Elma said, "you'll be too busy writing checks for children that aren't yours to oppose her without looking like a monster."
His laugh this time was a short, ugly thing. "I am a monster."
"Then buy kinder teeth," Elma said. "Or I'll hand your leash to someone who likes to yank."
She reached across the table, casual, flirtatious, a touch that would never get to skin if he played it right. His cuff brushed her fingers. Cold leapt.
[Foreign Schema Introduced]
Target: Elwin Carrow (intergenerational pact)
Thread status: Braided, frayed
Risk: Audit pings to Master: moderate
Elma counted. One. Two. Three. Longer than Vesper. The contract went deeper on boys who inherited sins their fathers named "legacy."
Pain bit her throat. She rode it. She smiled into it. The braid snapped one thread at a time, each a sting, each a proof.
Elwin's breath collided with itself. He didn't cry. He did something worse. He confessed to himself that he'd been carrying weight since before he had shoulders.
When it ended, he flexed his hand like it belonged to him.
"What lesson," he said hoarsely, "did I just pay for?"
"That altruism done to look clean is just vanity," she said, gentler than the line deserved. "If you give now, give like it hurts. Otherwise don't pretend it counts."
He stared at her, the space where desire lived complicated by gratitude and rage. "You're dangerous."
"You're late," Elma said, rising. "We've all been dangerous since the day we learned 'no' sounds different with a price tag."
He didn't stop her. He didn't thank her. He did what men like him do when someone cuts a collar — he reached for his wallet out of reflex and for his phone out of habit.
Progress. Ugly, but real.
[Quest: Subvert 3 Donors]
Progress: 2/3
Note: Carrow's public philanthropy trajectory altered
Side effect: Gossip column interest +12%
—
Kade intercepted her before the elevator decided which floor counted as neutral.
He materialized from a pillar like manners with a knife under the jacket. "The Master would like to know why two donors in one day suddenly discovered religion."
Elma adjusted her sleeve where the shard had cooled to pretend to be harmless. "Tell Nitron Vale that charity is contagious."
Kade's eyes slid to her hand, not missing the tremor. "And tell Elma Nuiz that audits are also contagious."
"I'm vaccinated," she said.
"Against death?" he asked, genuinely curious.
"No," she said. "Against boredom."
Kade almost smiled. Then the moment died. "Be careful which fires you set. Some burn the house. Some show everyone how to get warm. He prefers the first."
"Good thing I'm cold-blooded," she said, and brushed past.
He didn't try to stop her. He wasn't the leash. He was the mirror.
—
They didn't meet in the open. They met where the house forgot to decorate: a stairwell that smelled like dust and old lemon oil. Seven meters, always. The protocol pricked like a warning and subsided like a sulk.
Calista stood three steps up, which turned looking at her into a small act of worship Elma refused to name.
"Well?" Calista asked.
"Vesper's in," Elma said. "Carrow's cut. He'll pretend he decided it himself; let him. Men like Carrow only learn by grading their own tests."
Calista's mouth twitched. "That's two."
"One away from a swing," Elma said. Her throat ached; the shard warmed her palm as if to apologize. "You were right about the lesson thing."
Calista arched a brow. "Which lesson."
"That power without consent is theater," Elma said. "And that theater still gets people killed."
Silence fit them like clothing they hadn't paid for.
Calista's fingers moved at her sides as if they wanted to reach for Elma and remembered math at the last second. "Nitron Vale is restless," she said, eyes gone slate. "He felt something this afternoon and couldn't name it. He will try to."
"Let him try," Elma said. "We'll give him a name he can't pronounce."
The ache spiked and smoothed. They both breathed around it.
[Quest: Subvert 3 Donors]
Progress: 2/3
Rumor Meter: 68%
Narrative drift: The wife smiles like a secret. The leash-witch laughs at pain.
"Third target?" Calista asked.
"Elma," said a voice that wasn't hers.
Nitron's shadow washed the landing. Not loud. Total.
He didn't climb the steps. He didn't need to. The house tilted without moving.
"Elma," he repeated, and the stairwell decided it had always been his.
She didn't bow. She didn't smirk. She lifted her chin half a degree and proved control and fear can share the same spine.
"Walk," Nitron Vale said. Not a request. A weather report.
Calista didn't look at Elma. Elma didn't look at Calista. Pain licked her ribs for even thinking of looking.
She followed the Master. The shard cooled, sulking like a cat that wanted to be fed. Behind her, Calista held herself perfectly still until perfection sounded like a scream.
Somewhere in the bones of the building, a third donor wrote a check he would pretend was a conscience.
And somewhere else, the city started to notice that the people who smiled at the witch's pain kept running out of reasons to smile.
[System: Audit Pending]
Target: Elma Nuiz
Trigger: Unusual donor activity
Countermeasure: "Shard" durability unknown.