A knock landed on the door, the kind that didn't ask for permission so much as announce an ending. The officer stepped inside, the faint rustle of his uniform brushing against the quiet that had settled between me and Logan. His eyes swept the room once before settling on us.
"Carrey, your time is up. We need to take him."
For a heartbeat I forgot how to breathe. The words drifted toward me slow and deliberate, gathering weight the closer they came. The air tasted sterile, recycled through vents that hummed above us, brushing a cold draft against the side of my neck.
"Take me where?" My voice didn't sound like mine. It felt too light, like it didn't know the shape of fear yet. The air thinned, like the room had decided I was no longer part of it.
Logan straightened beside me. He had been rolling his thumb over the corner of his tablet earlier, soft little circles that seemed to hold him together. Now he set the device aside and spoke gently, as if he were trying not to startle something already wounded.
"They're just taking you downstairs," he told me. "Holding. Detention. It's routine. It's not a sentence."
The word routine hung in the air with a strange chill. I nodded, though nothing inside me felt steady enough to agree. The room smelled faintly of old printer ink and disinfectant, sharp enough to sting the back of my throat when I swallowed.
"And what are you going to do?" I asked. I meant it to sound collected; it came out thin.
Logan leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees. His voice dropped low enough that only I could catch it. "I'm going to follow you down. I'll put in motions immediately. Bail review, intake preservation, everything I can think of. I'm not disappearing on you." His eyes held mine with an intensity that felt almost like warmth against the cold in my chest. "I'll be right behind you the entire time."
The officer shifted his weight, a quiet reminder that he was waiting. I forced myself to stand. My legs felt strange, as if they remembered a different floor than the one beneath them now. The table chain ticked once against metal—small, insect-sharp—like the room was tagging me before release.
"Let's go," the officer said.
Logan rose too. He buttoned his blazer with one precise motion, straightening it across his chest as though he were armoring himself before stepping into battle. He turned to me again.
"Hugo," he said, steady and clear. "This part is just process. That's all it is. Walk with them, stay polite, and don't say a word without me. You've already protected yourself by asking for counsel. Keep going in that direction."
I breathed in, trying to steady the tremor in my ribs. The air coming through the vents smelled metallic and cold, and it scraped down my lungs in a way that made me grimace. My palms felt damp when I wiped them against my jeans.
The officer gestured toward the hallway. I stepped past Logan, close enough to catch a trace of his cologne—a clean scent, sharp and grounding, like crushed leaves after an early storm. It steadied something inside me just long enough for me to move forward.
"Hugo." His voice followed me as I reached the doorway. Low. Certain. "I'm right behind you."
I didn't turn around. I couldn't. My throat felt stretched thin, and looking him in the eyes would have broken whatever fragile line of composure I still held.
The corridor outside glowed under fluorescent lights, pale and humming. The walls seemed to lean inward slightly, as if they were listening. The air carried that familiar mix of dust, cold metal, and the distant echo of a printer spitting out forms that would define someone's future.
I walked because the alternative felt like unraveling completely. The officer shadowed me with slow, measured steps. My pulse climbed into my ears, a steady throb that matched each footfall.
Behind us, the door closed with a heavy sigh of hinges, sealing the little room and its brief illusion of safety away from me.
That sound lingered long after the corridor swallowed it. It felt like the first note in a dirge written for a version of me that was already disappearing.
The holding cell door opened with a low scrape along its frame, and the officer guided me inside with a nod that did nothing to soften the drop in my stomach. The space was smaller than it looked from the threshold. A metal bunk sat bolted to the wall, its legs fused into the concrete as if even furniture wasn't trusted with freedom. A thin mattress lay on top of it, warped in the middle, its plastic pillow showing the pale shine of too many heads pressed against it.
A toilet waited in the corner, exposed, its shape almost shameful in how openly it demanded vulnerability. The fluorescent lights above painted everything in a dull wash that made even the shadows look tired.
When the door shut behind me, the sound carried through my spine like a settling verdict.
I took a few steps in. The air tasted dry. Dust and old disinfectant lingered in it, clinging to the back of my throat. I ran my hand along the painted wall near the bunk and felt small grooves cut into the surface. Names, years, initials trying to outlive the people who carved them. A set of tally marks stopped at nineteen, then a gouge. Whoever started twenty didn't finish. There were prayers squeezed between curses, whole sentences carved with desperate pressure, the kind that must have made palms ache and knuckles throb.
My fingertips drifted over a date someone had scratched deep enough to break the paint. I wondered how long they were here, what they had done, whether someone waited outside for them. I wondered if anyone would wait for me after this.
I sat on the bunk. The mattress yielded under my weight as if reluctant to hold another person. I leaned forward, elbows on my knees, trying to steady my breath. The room felt narrow, too close to my skin. My breath began to saw—short pulls, shallow drops—the old storm gathering in the ribs. Like it wanted something from me I didn't know how to give.
I lay down for a moment, but the mattress crackled beneath my shoulder blades, and the pillow clung coldly to my cheek. I got back up. Sat again. Lay down. Sat again. My body didn't know where it belonged, and the walls felt closer each time I stood.
I pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes until sparks flared beneath my eyelids. Logan's voice kept circling in my mind. How he tried to speak gently, as if his tone alone could loosen the grip of fear in my stomach. I remembered the look he gave me—the one that wasn't pity but something steadier, something he tried to make believable. I wanted to believe him. I wanted him to be as capable as he looked in that crisp blazer, all determination and tired warmth.
I wanted to think he could handle this.
My breathing picked up. I sat back against the wall and closed my eyes, waiting for the rhythm I knew too well. That second breath. The one that usually slipped into sync with mine, quiet at first, then unmistakable. A presence that lived somewhere behind my ribs like a hand pressed gently against my heart.
I waited for it.
One breath. Then another.
Nothing answered me.
I tried again, inhaling slowly, coaxing the familiar cadence. My chest rose with expectation, but the air stopped short, thin and uneven. I felt for him the way I had countless times—sensing for that invisible tether, that strange pulse that wasn't mine.
Still nothing.
The absence crawled beneath my skin. It made the room shrink further. It made the mattress look like something laid out for a body that wouldn't be reclaimed.
"What's the point of it," I whispered, breath barely shaping the words. A promise without presence is just leverage. They just slipped out because the silence pressed too hard against my throat.
The mark had been everything—his breath forced into mine, the air inside my lungs rewritten with him. I remembered the moment too clearly: his hands on my face, the kiss that wasn't meant for affection, the exhale that split my world open. I remembered thinking it would bind us in ways that couldn't be severed. That he could reach me anywhere. That he could hear me even when I didn't speak.
Yet here I was, in a cell cold enough to make my fingers stiff, and that second rhythm was gone. No echo. No pull. No subtle pressure threading through my chest. Panic doesn't sprint; it climbs. Fingertips first. Then wrists. Then the throat.
If he really was inside me, he felt far away.
If he could feel my panic, he didn't answer.
I leaned back until the wall cooled the back of my skull and stared at the ceiling. It buzzed weakly with electricity, the light flickering in a way that made the corners of the room shiver. My own breath sounded too loud in the quiet, too human, too alone.
The mark had promised connection, power, a bond that blurred the edges of my life with something larger. But it hadn't prepared me for this: being locked away without even the illusion of him standing beside me.
I closed my eyes and tried again, willing my lungs to find him.
All I found was myself.
I pulled my knees closer, the bunk groaning under me as though it disliked sharing its space. The air inside the cell felt too steady, too watchful, and all I could hear was my own breathing—the uneven drag of it, the little break in the middle where panic caught and sharpened everything.
And in moments like this, I hated myself. Not the performer on stage, not the boy who learned how to make fire look like silk, but the small thing sitting in a corner of a concrete room. I wasn't fond of that version. The one that shook. The one that couldn't decide if he deserved help. Every weakness pressed against my ribs in a way that made my chest feel hollow, like someone had carved out the center of me and left the scaffolding behind.
I had spent years on the streets, slept under broken gutters, eaten food that tasted like exhaustion, survived nights without knowing if morning would be kind. Yet through all those years, I'd never stepped inside a police station. Never dealt with officers beyond the distant sirens that moved past whatever doorway I hid behind. I thought I was clever, quick, slippery enough to slip out of any trouble that carried too much authority.
And the one time I ended up here—really here—it was because of murder. That word pressed against the front of my skull like a cold nail. I tried to shove it aside, but the cell gave me nowhere to run.
Maybe I misjudged everything. Maybe I wasn't clever at all.
I pressed my palms against the sides of my thighs, feeling the tremor run through the muscle. I tried to think back, to follow the thread from the moment Henry handed me that contract, to the night I walked behind that house with the dry leaves curling under my shoes. Was I wrong to take the money? Was I wrong to follow an order I barely understood? Was my curiosity so starved that I didn't recognize the boundary I was crossing? I told myself it was survival, that I needed it, that it would be quick and harmless.
But then the lights inside the house switched on.
And now I was here.
Fear crawled up the back of my neck, slow and steady. I was more frightened now than I had been on my first day alone out there. At least then Riley had appeared like some rough-edged miracle, offering me half of whatever he had, pulling me through the first nights when the cold felt like teeth.
But no one was going to show up in here. Not for me. Logan might try, but he was only human, and humans had limits no matter how sincere their voices were.
I bowed my head and pressed my forehead against the back of my wrist. "Corvian," I whispered, the name barely sound, more breath than word. "Do something. Please. I'll give you whatever you want. Anything."
The silence that followed wasn't empty. It had weight. It filled the cell slowly, took its time settling into the corners like a shadow learning my shape. I tried again to feel him—searching for that echo inside my body, the subtle pulse that marked the line between his breath and mine. Nothing answered.
My heart kicked against my ribs, sudden and sharp.
A shout erupted down the hallway. A man's voice cracked somewhere between rage and desperation, spitting curses that bounced off the walls. Another voice rose behind it, louder, rougher, the sound of someone being pushed backward by their own anger. Metal answered metal. Footsteps broke into a run, then stopped too cleanly.
The noise punched straight through my chest.
I jerked upright. My hands trembled outright now, fingers twitching as though they weren't connected to me. I couldn't slow the shaking. It rolled through me in waves, climbing up my arms, settling at the base of my spine. Someone shouted again—closer this time, as if they were right on the other side of the corridor, screaming at the bars that kept them in.
My breathing fell apart. It scattered into pieces I couldn't gather. One inhale caught, the next stumbled, the next disappeared entirely, leaving my lungs grasping for direction.
I counted to four, then forgot what came next.
In for four. Hold—nothing.
Out for—nothing.
I pressed both hands against my sternum as if I could hold myself still from the outside. It didn't work. Panic thrashed under my ribs, wild and familiar, the kind that made the edges of the room tilt.
I wanted Corvian's rhythm. I wanted that unnatural second breath, the one that always steadied mine, the one that felt like someone else was breathing through me, guiding the rise and fall of my chest until my body remembered how to function.
I tried to call for it. I tried to summon him the way I had on other nights when fear made the world too wide. I whispered his name again, letting it scrape out of me raw.
But nothing came.
Only the shouting. Only my own heartbeat hammering too fast, too loud. Only the cold weight of a room that held no one but me.
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Corvian, 3181.
------------------------------
The casino welcomed me like a chapel built for another god. Light poured from crystal fixtures in steady cascades, slipping over polished floors, over bare shoulders and raised glasses, over chips stacked like small, colorful offerings. The air smelled of perfume, deodorant, and the dry sweetness of expensive liquor, layered over the low drone of conversation and the occasional sharp clatter from a winning hand announced too loudly.
I moved through it all without slowing, a ripple of bodies parting on instinct. I wore the shape they were meant to see: precise suit, cuffs aligned, shoes that caught the light with each step. This face made people comfortable. They saw a man. The mistake worked in my favor every time.
The door to the VIP corridor stood at the back, guarded by a man with a neck too thick for his collar. His gaze narrowed as I approached.
"Sir, this section is—"
I met his eyes. I did not need to speak. I reached for the soft machinery behind his pupils, the collection of hours and thoughts that made his evening coherent, and lifted one thin thread. Memory folded. His words died on his tongue.
He blinked once, shoulders loosening, and stepped aside. The question of why he had moved would not occur to him until much later, if at all, and by then it would feel like a dream he had decided not to remember.
I walked down the corridor, past the closed doors, each one muffling private deals and private sins. The final room was the one I wanted. Voices spilled through it in muted bursts—laughter that did not reach the chest, the steady slide of cards across felt, the scrape of chairs.
I opened the door and stepped inside.
The room went still. Men in tailored suits turned toward me as one, a ring of faces interrupted mid-calculation. There were drinks half-lifted, chips balanced between fingers, cards pressed close to chests. Power always assumed it would not be interrupted. It made this kind of silence easy to summon.
"Gentlemen," I said, letting the word settle comfortably between us. "Forgive the intrusion. I just came to fetch something."
I gave them a small, courteous nod, then shifted my attention to the far side of the table where Kent sat, already halfway into a scowl. His hair was artfully disheveled, his tie loosened just enough to signal that he belonged here more than most. He had a stack of chips neatly ordered in front of him, fingers tapping idly against them.
Before he could rise on his own terms, I crossed the remaining distance, hooked my hand into the back of his collar, and pulled him to his feet.
"Come," I said.
He made a sound of protest, more insulted than alarmed, and tried to twist out of my grip. It did not interest me. I turned him toward the door and walked, half-guiding, half-dragging him away from the table.
"What the— what are you doing?" he sputtered, digging in his heels. "I am well respected here."
"I am aware," I answered. "They will not remember this interruption. You can keep your throne."
I did not bother to blur the memory of the others yet. Their eyes followed us, wary, but I felt no need to correct them while my hand was still on him. Ownership, even brief, had its own gravity.
We stepped back into the corridor. I let the weight of my will roll outward, a quiet sweep through the room we had left behind. A few seconds adjusted themselves. Conversation rewound. For those men, the door had never opened. Their game continued without a missing piece.
Kent shoved at my wrist again as I marched him along the passage. "You have officially lost your mind," he snapped. "Dragging me out in the middle of a hand—"
"You will still have your chips when you go back," I said. "Assuming you go back at all."
He cursed under his breath, but the sound softened when he realized we were heading for the staff exit, the distant rattle of trays and muffled kitchen sounds leaking through the walls.
Once we passed through the rear door and into the cooler night, I loosened my grip and released him. It was less a release, more a throw; he stumbled forward, catching himself with a hand against the wall. The alley behind the casino smelled of old smoke, damp stone, and the sour trace of spilled alcohol that never quite washed away.
Kent straightened his jacket with sharp little tugs, fingers working the fabric like he could restore dignity with enough pressure. His eyes flashed when he looked at me.
"You've lost it," he said. "Pulled me out from my table like that. What do you want? Didn't you already get what you asked for?"
"Yes." I regarded him for a moment, studying the curve of his mouth as he tried to pretend he wasn't bothered. "Thank you for your service. You may start over with a new, younger magician."
He stared, disbelief sliding quickly into offense. "Do you have any idea how long I'd have to wait for someone to call for me again?"
"Of course." I folded my hands behind my back. The sky above the alley showed only a thin slice of night, smeared with city light. "I will speak to Thea. I will ask that your name be placed at the top of the list. That should satisfy your patience problem."
"Don't flatter yourself," I said. "I'm doing it so I don't have to hear you complain."
He rolled his eyes upward, then exhaled in a long, irritated sigh. "What do you want, Corvian?"
"What happened with the police?"
He clicked his tongue against his teeth as if someone had just spoiled a good drink. "I should have known." His shoulders relaxed a fraction, and his irritation slipped into something more amused. He reached into his jacket, pulled out a packet of cigarettes, and tapped one free. The lighter flared, briefly painting his face in pale orange. The first drag sent a white stream curling into the air, carrying the bitter, tarred scent with it.
"And what do I get in return?" he asked, smoke curling from his lips.
I studied him. "You have audacity for someone so fragile."
"I paid back the deception," he said, smoke curling from his lips. "Igor died by my hand. You're satisfied. We're even. So now I want something."
"I told you—I'll make sure you receive the next willing body."
"I want money," he said simply. "Cut the theatrics. You've always had it. Give me some."
I felt an ache of old contempt. "Fine. Tell me."
Kent flicked ash to the ground, sighing. "The police launched something called the Purity Pact Act. They've realized they can't compete with us while relying on ordinary men. So they're forming alliances with those who exist in the same fractured state as I do."
I stilled. "Meaning?"
"Marked people. Those whose souls didn't evacuate properly. The half-souled. The in-between." Kent smirked, pleased he could hold my attention. "Guess who fits that category?"
My pulse sharpened. "Who?"
"Your boy's cousin."
I went still enough to silence the night around us.
Kent's lips curved. "Harry. His mother found him and called the police. They investigated, found other cases with similar wounds. They thought it was a serial stabbing incident at first. But no. They figured it out."
He stepped back slightly, as though even he feared my reaction.
"Your boy marked the cousin incorrectly," Kent said. "The soul took too long to leave. They realize he's a vessel halfway undone."
A quiet settled behind my ribs, colder than anything the mortal world could conjure. Something old inside me tilted, unbalanced.
I spoke, barely audible.
"Harry."
Kent nodded once.
And the world narrowed to a thin, unbearable line.
"So now what?" I asked. My voice held very little inflection; it rarely did when the ground beneath me shifted. I watched the curl of smoke rise from Kent's cigarette, the way it thinned into the night air like a whispered omen.
Kent shrugged, rolling the cigarette between two fingers. "We change our ways. This isn't the first time humans tried to involve themselves. But your boy made too much noise. They're going to convict him, Corvian. He's done."
"There must be something else I can do."
Kent let out a dry laugh. It wasn't mockery, just resignation given a voice. "You told me I couldn't control my human, yet look at you. You never controlled yours at all."
"He never needed guidance," I murmured.
Kent shot me a raised brow. "I heard that." He tapped ash to the ground. "And yes, of course he needed guidance. The fire was too large a gamble. And don't forget—Henry might have handed him over."
The thought coiled in my temple like a tightening thread. "What about Patrick Swanson?" I asked. "Who does he belong to?"
"Tema."
A low chuckle escaped me, unplanned, shaped by recognition rather than amusement. "Ah. That makes sense."
Kent nodded. "He's the head secretary."
"Do you think we can convince him?" I asked.
Kent took a slow drag from the cigarette. Smoke lifted from his lips in a quiet stream before he spoke. "Let me ask you something, Corvian." He paused long enough to meet my eyes. "Do you like Hugo that much? Enough to go through all this effort?"
"He's doomed already," Kent continued. "The effortless way is the kinder one."
"I made a mistake," I said. "I'm trying to fix what I can before choosing the effortless option."
Kent smirked. "For someone who accuses me of pandering to humans, you're becoming quite the expert."
"I marked him," I replied. "He belongs to me. This has nothing to do with catering to him."
Kent studied me for a moment, eyes narrowing as though he were searching for a crack he hadn't noticed before. "You're becoming self-aware," he said softly. "What did you do?"
I bit the inside of the vessel's cheek, grounding the words that pushed against my teeth. "When I first blurred the officers' minds, he could have run. I could have taken him away before the effect faded. But I didn't. I let greed decide. Hunger for other things."
Kent clicked his tongue. "You see? Too aware." He lifted the cigarette to his lips again, drawing in the last of it. "Be careful, friend. And yes—I'm calling you that again. We just had a productive discussion. Try not to forget it when you spiral later."
He flicked what remained of the cigarette aside, then grinned. Not the playful smile he wore for mortals, but the old one—the one I remembered from before betrayal, before we realized our paths would always fracture.
"I'll go back inside," he said. "If I find out they still remember you dragging me out, I'll come collect payment."
He slipped back toward the service door with the easy grace of someone who had been performing for centuries.
The alley quieted behind him.
I stood there for a while, letting the stillness settle. The conversation replayed, not for meaning but for tone—how unthreatening it had felt despite the content. Kent could be tolerable when I allowed him to exist without dissection. When I didn't peel apart intention or motive. When I treated him as simply what he was.
He was… acceptable.
And when he smiled just now, I remembered the reason I gave him a place near me once. That glimmer of old charm, before deceit hardened it.
Awareness pressed gently, annoyingly, against the back of my mind.
I was changing. Not in the ways Thea warned us of—not fully—but enough. Too much proximity to human fragility was a contagion, subtle and persistent. It seeped in through moments like this, through the smallest considerations, through the memory of a smile that shouldn't matter anymore.
Yes. I was becoming too aware.
All because I lingered among mortals long enough to absorb the shape of their emotions, their attachments, their irrational ways of valuing each other.
I exhaled once, steady and controlled.
Humans made everything messy.
And Hugo—he was worse. He made awareness feel… inevitable.