The bar smelled of polished oak and something faintly sweet—like sugar burned too long. A jazz pianist played at the corner, hands moving lazily across the keys, filling the room with music too soft to distract and too tender to ignore. Behind the counter, bottles glimmered in orderly rows, their reflections trembling in the dim light. I sat there with my drink untouched, watching the condensation trail down the glass as if measuring how slowly the night was dying.
After the event, everything felt too quiet. The applause, the photographs, the congratulatory hands—they had all turned to smoke. I'd earned three nights at the Morrison, they said, as though comfort were a prize for performance. Eddie had gone up to sleep. Corvian lingered somewhere—he was never far, though he made distance feel deliberate.
The pianist shifted to something slower, something that sank under the ribs. I let the notes settle. Then my phone began to ring.
The number wasn't saved as anything. I hesitated, half hoping it was a mistake, before pressing answer.
"Hello."
The voice that followed cracked open the silence like a dry twig. "Have you seen Harry?"
For a moment, I didn't breathe. The phone felt heavier. I pulled it from my ear, stared at the screen as though the name might change, then raised it again. "...Odette."
"Aunt Odette," she corrected, her tone clipped, the way she used to say mind your manners while hurling plates into the sink.
I could hear the drag of her cigarette on the other end, the familiar rasp of someone who mistook exhaustion for authority. "Have you seen Harry? He was supposed to be back in Hollowford but his friends are saying he didn't show up" she repeated, this time quieter. There was a pause before the last word—as if she was holding back the sound of fear.
My mouth tasted bitter, metallic—not from the drink but from memory.
Now she calls. Years after she threw me out like a stray. Years after she locked the door and pretended she'd never raised me. Now she calls because her son is missing. How poetic. How unbearably annoying.
I stared at the mirror behind the bar, at the faint outline of my reflection. The same eyes she used to call too soft for a boy.
"I don't know where he is," I said flatly. "Call the police."
"Hugo—"
But I was already lowering the phone. Her voice broke through once more—just the tremor of it, like something fragile dropped from a height. Then silence.
I set the phone down beside the glass. The pianist's melody faltered for a heartbeat, then found its rhythm again. I listened, though it sounded different now—like grief disguised as music.
I leaned back against the stool, letting the room breathe around me. The scent of citrus polish, the dull shine of the counter, the faint clatter of someone stacking glasses—all of it felt suddenly precise, unbearable in its normalcy.
Her voice still echoed somewhere between my ears. Not the words—just that thin, involuntary fear that slipped through her restraint. It lodged itself under my skin, cold and persistent.
I lifted the drink at last. The ice had nearly melted. It burned all the same.
Eddie walked in like he owned the room—or maybe like he'd forgotten how not to. His hair dark and unruly, brushing just above the collar of his jacket. He wore a loose black shirt under a weathered coat that caught the light in thin strokes of blue. An earring—long, pale, and catching the bar's dim glow—hung from his left ear, shifting with every step. His face had the same careless sharpness as before, only now there was polish where there used to be grime. He looked like someone who clawed out of the gutter and learned to savor clean air.
He spotted me immediately. No hesitation, no pause to scan the room. Just a smirk, and then he slid onto the stool beside mine. The pianist was still playing that slow tune, something that sounded like a lullaby for people too tired to sleep.
"Who's paying for the drinks?" he asked.
"The hotel," I said, not looking up.
"Perfect." He signaled the bartender with two fingers. "I'll have a Glenfiddich Grand Cru, neat."
The bartender nodded once and moved with quiet precision, the kind this place was built to sell. Eddie leaned back, exhaling. "This has been crazy," he said. "I've never slept so comfortably in my life. I swear, those sheets—like sleeping inside a dream."
I let a small smile tug at the corner of my mouth. "I know. The mattresses here go insane. You sink in like it's trying to keep you."
He laughed, rubbing the back of his neck. "Yeah, and the shower head. Fuck, man. I stood there half an hour just because I could. Shit—probably should talk more like I belong here."
"Not really, no," I said. "Do as you wish, Eddie. We owe no one here anything."
The bartender set his drink down, the glass catching the low amber light. Eddie swirled it once, the liquid moving like slow gold. He took a sip and sighed, the kind of sigh that belongs to someone who hasn't had peace in years.
"Can I ask you something?" he said after a pause.
"Sure."
He rolled the glass between his palms, eyes lowered. "I've been thinking about it for a while. Not just lately—I always had this question stuck in my head."
"Go ahead, Eddie."
He hesitated, then said, "Was there anything going on between you and Riley?"
The name hit like cold water, unexpected and merciless. It sat in the air for a second before I could breathe again. I stared at the bar's polished counter, at the way my reflection trembled in it. The question carried no accusation, only the weight of something that had never been said aloud. But even so—it hurt.
My throat tightened. Every sound in the room seemed to fade, leaving only the piano, the slow ache of it pressing behind my ribs. I wanted to tell him no and have it mean yes, or say yes and have it mean I wish it were true.
Instead, I took a slow breath, turned toward him, and shook my head.
Eddie studied me quietly, his expression softening into something almost regretful.
"Why do you ask?" I said. The question came out quieter than I meant, flat against the slow notes of the piano.
Eddie tilted his head toward me, the light brushing over the sharp edges of his face, catching the blue earring that swayed when he breathed. "Because anyone would be stupid not to notice, Hugo. Just no one had the guts to ask Riley."
"What would anyone notice?"
I asked it without defense, genuinely. There was no sharpness in it, only the ache of confusion. For so long I had told myself there was nothing to notice, that the closeness between us had been ordinary, harmless—a kind of brotherhood built on shared nights and the silence after laughter.
Eddie gave a small, almost pitying laugh. "The way you'd look at each other," he said, voice slower now, the kind of tone that carried memory in it. "The way you'd look for each other. The way you'd look out for each other. Every time you walked into a room, your eyes went searching for him first thing. And him—he'd already be watching you."
I stared down at my drink. The surface moved slightly with the tremor of my hand. The idea of being so visible unsettled me. I thought we'd been subtle, hidden within the blur of noise and crowd, two people who existed only when no one else was looking.
Eddie leaned forward, elbows on the counter. "He'd always make sure your wishes were fulfilled. Your wishes, though—they were always too grand for him to do anything about. But the small ones? The small ones were already too big for him."
His words sank into me like slow water through fabric. I could see it as he spoke—Riley's face lit by streetlight, the way he'd pass me his cigarette before I even asked, the way he'd press a few bills into my hand pretending it was spare, how he'd stand in front of me whenever voices got too loud. I thought he did those things because that's who he was. I never considered he did them because of me.
Eddie continued, "You know how many fights he got into with Cole because of you? Cole wanted you to either work with us or get lost. But Riley wouldn't let him touch you. Said you weren't made for that kind of life. And because you didn't want to work with us, he made damn sure you never had to do anything you didn't want to do."
He stopped, drew a slow breath, and looked straight ahead, as though he was seeing it all again. "Man," he said after a moment, "I almost felt a little too jealous." His voice cracked into a quiet laugh, bitter but fond. "And all you did was complain. Complain, and complain, and complain."
The words hit softly but stayed. I wanted to tell him he was right—that I had complained, that I'd never understood the weight behind every fight Riley picked, every bruise he came home with. I wanted to tell him I was sorry. But the words wouldn't form. They sat heavy in my throat, something unspoken and old.
The piano went still between songs, and in that small pause, I could almost hear Riley's laugh again, warm and bright, breaking the static of memory. The silence that followed felt like the sound of something gone too long to retrieve.
"It wasn't complaint," I said, the words slower than breath. "You keep thinking it was me whining, Eddie. But it wasn't."
He glanced at me without turning his head, eyes dark and waiting.
"I wanted him to have a life," I continued. "A real one. He'd talk about it all the time—how he'd try to leave Cole, how he'd make it a few weeks out and then crawl right back. He used to laugh about it like it was some bad habit, but I knew it wasn't funny to him. Every time he came back, there was less of him. Like the streets were taking what was left, inch by inch."
Eddie's jaw tightened, but he said nothing. The light from the bar slipped over the planes of his face, over that earring catching the dim gold, swaying slightly as if listening.
"When I talked about leaving, when I said we should get out of that place," I said, "it wasn't complaint. It was me trying to drag him out with me. To make him see that something existed beyond all that filth, that he didn't have to die there. You don't know, Eddie. You couldn't."
My voice cracked, just a small tear in the sound. I pressed my thumb against the rim of my glass. "He'd talk to me at night," I said quietly. "About how tired he was. How it all felt like punishment he didn't earn. I memorized it all. Every line he ever said about the life he hated. Every word. I can still hear them."
Eddie shifted, the sound of fabric brushing against leather. I met his eyes. "You call it complaining because it's easier for you to believe I didn't care. You're so egotistic sometimes—you think whatever you decide is the right thing, the only way things should be done. Why did you even agree to come here if you think so low of me?"
He turned then, fully, his expression calm but something in it flickered—an old grief, unhidden for once.
"I don't think low of you at all," he said. "I agreed to be here because I wanted a taste of it." He paused, searching for the right words. "I'm not going to dress it up or pretend it's noble. I want a taste of what you've got, Hugo. Whatever this new world is that you've found yourself in. The money, the hotels, the eyes that finally see you. I do think you owe me, in a way. I was there before all this—when we were scraping coins off pavement, when Riley was still breathing."
He looked down, then back at me. "But that's not the only reason. I came because part of me still wants to protect you. I don't know why. I don't even know if you deserve it. But it's there, and I'm not pretending otherwise. I told you, right from the start—I want a taste of this. But I also don't want you tearing yourself apart, because you're the last piece of Riley left to me."
His voice dropped, quiet enough to pull the whole room still. "I've known him since we were nine," he said. "We were kids running in the streets, then kids working on them. Twenty years of friendship." His gaze grew distant, heavy with memory. "You stole him from me in the end, in those last years. You didn't mean to, I know that. But you did."
He took another sip of his drink, the ice shifting softly in the glass. "Still," he said, almost gently, "at least he was happy."
I looked away then. The pianist had started playing again, something too beautiful for a room like this. The notes blurred against the low light, and I felt it settle under my skin—the quiet truth of it, the ache of being both blamed and forgiven in the same breath.
The water was cooling, but I didn't move. My head rested against the edge of the tub, eyes tracing the ceiling's slow shadows. The bathroom light was low, tinted by the city's reflection through the glass pane—pale blue, like a memory left too long in water. The song played from the counter where my phone sat, the volume just enough to fill the silence without breaking it.
Ooh, never thought I would be without you... I wish you love, I wish you well.
Riley used to play it on repeat. I remember how he'd hum to it, low and quiet, the sound barely reaching the edge of his mouth. I used to laugh, tell him he had no business listening to something so soft. You look like you'd punch a radio before you'd cry to one, I'd say. And he'd grin, shrugging like he didn't owe me an explanation, like he knew that one day I'd understand exactly why he needed those songs.
Now I did.
Tonight had the kind of weight that pulled the air down with it. Odette's call, her voice scraped raw by worry; Eddie's words, sharp but honest. My ghosts had found each other, and somehow they'd all decided to visit at once. It was almost impressive.
I slid deeper into the water, felt it press against my chest. The surface trembled with every breath. The steam fogged the mirror, blurring my own reflection until I looked like someone unfinished. Maybe that's what I was—unfinished grief stitched over too many times to hold.
I thought about Riley again. The way he used to talk about leaving the life he hated. How he'd make plans that always sounded like prayers—small, practical dreams. A clean bed. A steady job. A morning without shouting. He'd tell me these things like confessions, and I'd listen like they were gospel. Sometimes, he'd believe in them long enough for me to believe too.
I wish you roses while you can still smell them…
I closed my eyes. The melody folded around me, each lyric a thread that pulled tighter.
Eddie wasn't wrong. His bitterness was earned. If I were in his place, I'd feel the same—the quiet kind of envy that grows from watching someone else hold what you lost. Riley belonged to no one, but he'd always been something I wanted to keep.
The water touched the edge of my jaw. I let it, breathing through my nose, the air heavy with the scent of soap and clean towels. The piano in the song bled softly into the next verse, and I could almost see him again: sitting by the window, cigarette hanging from his lip, pretending he didn't know all the words but singing them anyway.
So do not be afraid to get pricked by the thorn
While I'm here, I'm someone to honor
When I'm gone, I'm someone to mourn
I smiled, barely. "You had terrible taste," I whispered to no one.
But the truth was, I missed the sound of it—his quiet humming in the middle of all that chaos, like peace could be something you made yourself when the world refused to give it. I think that's what he was trying to teach me. That softness wasn't weakness. It was what survived after everything else was taken.
But as the song began to fade, those last lines trembled through the room—
You're gonna want me back… you're gonna…
You know we can't do that… you know you can't do that, you know it…
Something in me cracked open. Quietly, almost politely, the tears began to fall. No sobs, no breath hitched in the throat—just the steady, unstoppable warmth of it sliding down my face, mixing with the bathwater as though it belonged there.
Oh, how I would, I thought. How I would wish to get you back. How I would trade every trick, every false flame, every empty applause just to stand in that night again, the one where you laughed and called me hopeless.
The sound of the song dissolved, leaving the last echo hanging like smoke in the air. My chest ached with the shape of words I could never give him: that I'd meant to save him, not steal him; that I'd wanted a life with him in it, not a story about his absence.
I pressed my palms to my eyes, as if that would stop the memories from forming. But they came anyway—his shoulders bent over the lighter, the rasp of his voice, that grin that always found me even when I didn't want to be found.
"You know we can't do that," the lyric whispered again from the fading speaker.
"No," I murmured into the water, voice breaking in the quiet. "But I wish we could."
The room stayed still after that, soft with the scent of soap and warmth. My tears kept falling until I couldn't tell where grief ended and the water began.
A knock came from the door. It startled me out of the stillness.
I wiped my face with the back of my hand, assuming it was Corvian. "Use the key," I called out.
The latch turned. The muffled sound of shoes against the carpet followed—measured steps, deliberate but unhurried. Then another knock, this time against the bathroom door.
"I'll be out in a couple of minutes," I said, half raising my voice over the soft drip of the faucet.
"Take your time," came the answer.
Not Corvian's voice.
I froze. The water still whispered against porcelain. My heart lifted into my throat. That voice carried warmth, ease, and something human. Clay.
I stood quickly, rinsed the salt from my skin, the music still whispering its last notes from the phone. My hands moved without grace—grabbing the towel, pulling the bathrobe around me, tying it too tight. The air outside the bath felt colder than it should.
When I opened the door, Clay was seated on the edge of the bed. He looked different out of his usual composure. No tailored suit, no crisp tie. Just a short-sleeved shirt rolled at the elbows, jeans that looked too ordinary for someone who made wealth look effortless. He leaned back on one hand, his other holding a half-drunk glass of water from the minibar. The lamplight caught in his hair, turning the brown strands to a soft amber sheen.
"I used my master key, hope that's okay."
"Is something wrong?" I asked, voice still low, cautious.
He glanced up at me with that same practiced ease, lips curving into what might have been a smile. "No, nothing's wrong. Someone important wants you to perform at their house party."
I blinked, unsure if I'd heard right. "What do you mean someone important?"
"Patrick Swanson," he said, as though the name should have needed no explanation.
I frowned. "Patrick Swanson?"
Clay exhaled sharply, the sound halfway between disbelief and amusement. "You really don't know him?" He tilted his head slightly. "He's the Minister of Trade and Foreign Affairs. Ebonreach's golden boy. One of those men who can make or break a person's career with a dinner invitation."
He rose then, slow and fluid, tucking his hands into his pockets. "He's hosting a private event at his estate in the north quarter this weekend. Said he saw you at the event—was impressed. Asked for you by name."
I tried to read him, but Clay's face was made for deception—too symmetrical, too calm. The kind of calm that made you question whether you were being invited or cornered.
"Patrick Swanson," I repeated, still processing. "Why would someone like him want me?"
"Because men like him are collectors," Clay said simply. "They want what glitters, what others can't yet afford to touch."
His words hung there, soft but heavy. I could feel the damp warmth still clinging to my skin, the faint echo of the song in the air, and somewhere beneath it all, the growing unease of being summoned again—by another man who wanted something I didn't yet understand.
"Why do you talk like a pimp?" I said before I could stop myself.
Clay's laughter broke through the room—loud, unrestrained, the kind that made it feel like the air shifted with him. He straightened from his lazy lean, both hands pressing against the edge of the bed as he sat upright, still laughing. "You're really interesting, Hugo," he said finally, shaking his head as though I were some puzzle that had decided to speak back.
I met his gaze carefully. "Thanks?"
"No, really," he went on, his tone softening to something curious, almost indulgent. "You look too innocent to say the things you do. And yet, you say them anyway. Not because you don't know better, but because you just… don't care. You don't care if someone gets offended, or if someone gets hurt."
I watched him, unsure if he was admiring or accusing me. "You said I glitter," I said. "That men like him are collectors. I've heard that before—on the street."
He tilted his head, amused. "I told you I'm from the south."
"Oh, so old habits die hard, huh?"
"You can say that." His smile stayed, a thin crescent of charm and something sharper behind it. "Anyway, my advice? Go to Swanson's party. If you want to climb higher, this is the ladder. There's no better way."
"Why are you helping me?" I asked.
"I'm not." He leaned back on his palms again, eyes glinting with a lazy satisfaction. "I'm doing what Patrick told me to. This is how things go around here."
"Oh…" I muttered, studying him.
Clay's grin widened, slow and knowing. "You thought I was helping you?" He stood, his voice softening into mock affection. "You really are adorable."
"I didn't think anything," I said, keeping my tone even. "I was just asking. It looked like help, but oh well."
He stepped closer, the quiet sound of his shoes on the carpet carrying through the room. I could smell him now—something subtle, clean, the kind of scent that came from money. His presence filled the space between us until I could see the faint shadow of stubble on his jaw, the way his pulse shifted just below his throat.
"How do you do that?" he asked, voice low, eyes flicking between my mouth and my eyes.
I smirked. "Years and years of practice."
He chuckled, leaning in until our breaths mingled. "Wow. You must've worked really hard."
"I did," I said simply.
The air felt heavier, the distance between us thinning to inches. His mouth hovered near mine, close enough that I could feel the warmth of his breath against my skin.
"You can trust me, Hugo," he murmured.
I laughed softly, the sound quiet but cutting. "Try again next time—when you aren't seducing me. Maybe then you'll sound more genuine when you ask me to trust you."
He didn't move, but something flickered in his expression—curiosity, maybe irritation, maybe both.
Then the door swung open.
The sound cracked through the air like a whip.
Corvian stood in the doorway, still in his black shirt from earlier, sleeves rolled up, expression unreadable. His eyes flicked between us—between the proximity, the bathrobe, the unfinished breath that hung in the room.
The silence that followed padded into the room and sat.