They walked me back into the remand facility as if I were being delivered to something that had been waiting. The hallway lights pooled in their usual dull lagoons, pooling along the floors with that washed-out color that never changed, not day or night. The weight of the court still clung to my clothes, to my skin, to the space behind my ribs where the judge's words kept echoing in slow, deliberate repetition.
When the officers guided me into the cafeteria, the room greeted me with its usual chorus—plastic trays sliding, boots scraping across linoleum, a low rumble of voices threading through the stale air. The scent of reheated food drifted like something worn-out, hovering above the tables. I scanned the room instinctively, half expecting to see nothing and no one waiting for me.
Instead, Tucker sprang up from one of the tables near the back, his chair clattering against the floor. He moved toward me in long strides, his scar catching the overhead lighting in an uneven streak.
"About damn time," he muttered as he reached me, though his face held an exhale of genuine relief. "Thought you'd miss lunch."
I sank onto the bench across from him, my wrists still aching from the cuffs. "There's a lot I'm going to miss, Tuck."
He studied me a moment—really studied me—with that unpolished sharpness he tried to hide behind foul jokes and swagger. He must have seen something in my face, because he eased onto the seat slowly instead of dropping into it like he usually did.
"Were there a verdict?" he asked.
"No," I said. "Nothing like that. Today was just the first session."
"First," he repeated, eyebrows lifting. "So we get more of those?"
"Apparently."
He scratched the edge of his jaw, the scar shifting slightly with the movement. "Court shit's weird," he said. "Back when I had my run-in—" He stopped himself, waving a dismissive hand. "Doesn't matter. Heard around they're letting you back to the cell tonight."
My head lifted a fraction. "Why?"
"They checked the recordings," Tucker said, leaning closer. "Saw Keiser following you. Saw him block your way in the showers. You know—doing what Keiser does." He sniffed, shaking his head. "Didn't think the officers would buy your story, but looks like they got proof this time."
I nodded slowly, but the relief never reached my chest.
If anything, the cold inside me pulsed a little harder.
I should have been glad. No more solitary. No more hours stretched out in that concrete box where my own breath kept me company. No more waking to the scrape of my heartbeat sounding louder than anything outside the door.
But all I felt was a dim, stubborn ache in the place where Corvian had appeared. Where he had touched my face. Where his voice had traveled through the dark and found me without sound or light.
Some small part of me had hoped—foolishly, pathetically—that I would return to that stillness again. That he would come back. That the walls would warm the way they had. That I could touch him again without burning.
The thought slipped into my mind with an almost embarrassing honesty:
It might have been better if they kept me alone. He could have visited again.
I looked down at my hands—red at the knuckles from the cold, the veins raised pale beneath the thin skin. They didn't look like the hands of someone who could burn a house. They didn't look like someone capable of the fire the prosecutor described. They looked like hands that didn't know what they were anymore.
Tucker nudged the food tray toward me with the back of his knuckles. "Eat," he said. "You look like shit."
I huffed out a breath, almost a laugh, though it never reached my chest. "You say that to all your cellmates?"
"Only the ones who get dragged back in looking like they saw their own funeral," Tucker said.
"I might have," I murmured.
Tucker stared at me, confused. "The hell happened in that courtroom?"
I shook my head. "Doesn't matter now."
He grunted at that, leaning back, folding his arms. "You're staying with me tonight anyway. They already made the call. No more hole for you."
A quiet part of me tightened.
"Great," I said, even though something inside me sank at the thought.
Because now I would spend the night in a room with Tucker—loud, nosy, unpredictable Tucker—and not in the narrow silence where Corvian had appeared with heat circling his edges like a second skin. Not where I could feel him leaning into my grief, where his voice threaded itself through me with an intimacy I pretended not to understand.
Tucker jabbed my arm with his elbow. "Hey. You hear me?"
"Yeah," I answered, though my mind drifted far from him, far from the cafeteria, far from the clatter of trays and the scrape of benches.
I picked up the fork slowly, staring at the steam rising from the food.
Somewhere deep inside that silence that used to belong to solitary, Corvian felt impossibly far.
And staying in Tucker's cell tonight meant I would go to sleep alone.
Truly alone.
For the first time since Corvian had touched me in the dark.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
December 7th, 2025
-----------------------------
By the time the guards dragged me out of the cafeteria, the blood on the table had already begun to dry, a dark smear that carried the shape of the man's skull after I slammed it once, twice, until he stopped fighting back. I didn't remember starting. I remembered the sound, though—the dull thud of bone meeting wood, the sudden hush of bodies freezing around us, the officer's shout splitting the room open.
They pulled me off him with a force that left my shoulders aching. My own breath didn't feel like mine. Something inside me had snapped, not loudly, but with a quiet crack that I knew I couldn't repair.
I stood before the disciplinary panel with my hands trembling behind my back. The officer who read the report avoided my eyes. Kept it factual, procedural, lifeless. By the time he reached the line about the victim's condition—concussion, fractured nasal bone, four stitches on the scalp—I could already feel the verdict tightening around me like a rope.
"Ten days in solitary," the officer said. "Effective immediately."
My knees weakened. Not again. Not like this. Not alone with the dreams.
But they took me anyway.
Solitary swallowed time whole. I slept until my muscles cramped. I slept until waking felt stranger than dreaming. Sleep became the only place where the world loosened its grip on me, and even there, I was not free.
The dreams came every night.
Eddie stumbling down a burning hallway, smoke blooming around him like a ghost. Eddie pounding against the back door. Eddie reaching for the porch I had set alight. Eddie calling my name without sound. Eddie's hands sliding against charred planks as the fire curled around him like a closing fist.
I woke with my throat raw, my chest slick with sweat, my heart thrashing against my ribs.
I begged the air to stop. I asked Corvian. I whispered to the mark. Nothing answered.
But nothing answered.
By December twelfth, I felt hollowed out. The guard opened the door in the morning, told me to get ready for court, and I could barely lift my head. When he pulled me out, my legs moved sluggishly, like they weren't sure whether they wanted to hold me up or leave me there forever.
December 12th, 2025
The second hearing room felt colder than the first. The lights glared overhead, turning everything harsh and too bright. People filled the seats again—faces I didn't know, faces that came to watch someone else's ruin like it was a necessary ritual.
They led me to my place beside Logan. His eyes widened when he saw me, immediate and unfiltered concern crossing his face before he smoothed it away.
"Jesus, Hugo," he whispered. "You look terrible."
"I slept," I said, though my voice cracked around the lie.
He didn't push. The judge entered. We all rose. We all sat. Time thickened.
"The State calls Marco Durante," the prosecutor announced.
My breath caught.
Marco walked in with that uneven, hurried gait he always carried, as if he were perpetually running late even when he wasn't. He wore a worn jacket, clean but old, the collar fraying from years of being tugged. His hands were rougher than I remembered—callused from lifting crates, from stacking pallets, from doing work no one thanked him for. He adjusted the name tag clipped to his chest out of habit, though there was no name tag anymore.
He raised his hand, swore the oath, and sat.
The prosecutor gave her introduction, but her voice blurred. All I could do was stare at him—at Marco, who used to split sandwiches with me during lunch breaks, who once lent me twenty dollars with no promise I'd pay it back, who told me to keep my head down and avoid trouble in the shelter.
He looked nervous. His knee bounced as he waited.
Logan approached and offered him a small, reassuring nod before beginning.
"Mr. Durante," he said, "could you tell the court how you know the defendant?"
Marco's eyes flicked toward me, then back to Logan. "He used to work with me," he said. "In the warehouse."
Logan nodded. "Could you describe him as an employee?"
Marco breathed out slowly. "He was… dependable. Kind. Always on time. Sometimes early. Stayed late when we needed help. Took extra shifts when others were sick."
Logan asked, "Did he ever show any violent tendencies?"
"No," Marco said immediately. "Never. He'd step in if someone needed help. If I had to get my kid from school, he'd take my shift and not take the pay for it. Said I needed it more."
Something stung behind my eyes. I blinked hard.
"Where did Hugo live then?" Logan asked.
"A shelter," Marco said quietly. "He kept to himself. Didn't have much. But he'd always ask how people were doing."
"Did he seem angry? Reckless? Disturbed?"
Marco shook his head. "He was disciplined. Focused. If anything, he seemed tired. But never dangerous."
Logan paused, the moment hanging between them. "Do you believe Hugo could do what he's accused of?"
"I don't," Marco said. "Not for a second."
A tightness eased briefly in my chest—not hope, but a small reminder of who I used to be.
Logan stepped back. "No further questions."
The prosecutor rose with the calm of someone about to unravel something delicate.
"Mr. Durante," she said, walking toward him, "when did Hugo stop showing up to work?"
"End of May," he answered.
"Did he act strangely before he left?"
"No," Marco said. "He just… disappeared. When we called, he didn't answer. We figured he got a better job or moved."
"And when you saw him on television months later," she pressed, "you realized he had begun performing magic?"
"Yeah," he said. "That was his dream. He used to do tricks during lunch. Sleight of hand. Cards. Coins. We asked him to do them all the time because it was—well, it was good."
"And you believe he loved magic?"
"Of course he did."
She leaned forward slightly. "Do you think he loved magic enough to make a pact with a devil?"
Logan snapped upright. "Objection—"
But Marco shook his head before the judge could respond.
"No," he said firmly. "He would never do that. We don't mess with whatever is in the mountains. Everybody knows that. Hugo knew that too. He lived in the shelter. People talked about the mountains all the time. He asked me once about them, and I told him they were dangerous. He listened."
There was a quiver in his voice now, something barely held together.
"He wouldn't do this," Marco said softly. "Not Hugo."
The prosecutor paused, assessing him, then nodded once and stepped back.
"No further questions."
Marco looked toward me, eyes full of sorrow I didn't deserve, then was led away. The courtroom felt cold again as soon as he left, as if he had taken a piece of warmth with him.
The judge called for the next witness.
And the truth lingered in the space Marco had vacated:
Someone still believed in me. Someone still held the memory of who I had been.
But belief wasn't enough to save me. Not here. Not anymore.
The door at the back of the courtroom opened again, and for a moment I forgot how to breathe. Poppy stepped inside with her shoulders drawn inward, as though she were holding herself together by will alone. Her eyes were rimmed red, lashes clumped slightly as if she had cried quietly before they brought her in. She looked smaller than I remembered from the nights we spent rehearsing at the Morrison—less light around her, more weight dragging her down.
She saw me and froze. Her eyes watered instantly, the shine gathering so quickly my own chest tightened. She had always been quick to cry, but never like this. Never because of me.
A guard guided her toward the witness stand. She walked with slow, careful steps, wiping beneath her eyes once before sitting. Her fingers trembled as she placed them on her lap.
"Please state your name for the record," the judge said.
She swallowed. "Uh… Pamela Hudson."
Her voice cracked on the last syllable. Something inside me twisted at hearing her real name spoken in this place, stripped of every softness it once carried.
The prosecutor stepped back, giving Logan room. He rose with gentle movements, as though afraid a sudden gesture might shatter her.
"Ms. Hudson," he began softly, "how do you know Mr. Verran?"
She glanced at me again. Her lips trembled before she pressed them together, trying to collect herself.
"I knew Hugo… for a long time," she said. "Since he first came on the streets. I… I knew some of the guys he was hanging around with. That's how I met him."
Her voice wavered, but she held her posture.
"And your relationship with him," Logan asked, "would you describe it as good?"
"Yes," she said. "Very good." A tear slid down her cheek, and she brushed it fast, embarrassed. "He's one of the kindest men I've ever met."
My throat tightened. I looked down before the emotion in her voice became too raw for me to hold.
"And how did you come to work for him?" Logan asked. "As his stylist and secretary?"
The corner of her mouth twitched as though remembering something almost sweet. "He offered," she said. "I didn't think he was serious at first. But he was. So I accepted."
"And how would you describe him as a person? His behavior, his temperament?"
Poppy inhaled slowly, steadying herself. "He's… disciplined. He works hard. He's generous, even when he shouldn't be. He cared more about us than he ever admitted. If someone needed help, he would help. If someone was hurting, he'd show up."
Logan listened carefully, letting her speak at her own pace.
"You mentioned earlier," he said, "that Hugo was with you on September eighth. Could you remind the court where you were that day?"
"At the Morrison Hotel," she said. "We were practicing for the Fall Ball event. Fittings, rehearsals. He was with us the entire day."
"Did he leave at any point?" Logan pressed, but gently. "Did you notice him stepping away?"
"No." She blinked more tears away. "I honestly don't know why he would leave. He was right there with us. If he did leave, I… I didn't see it."
Logan nodded. "So he had no reason to be near the scene of the fire. No reason to leave the hotel."
"No," she whispered. "None."
"And how did you know Edgar Ruiz?"
At Eddie's name, the grief in her face cracked open. She covered her mouth, tears pooling again.
"Eddie," she said quietly. "I met him on my first day on the streets. He was… good. Always good. He helped me when I had nobody."
"Was there ever hostility," Logan asked softly, "between Eddie and Hugo?"
"No. Never." She shook her head vehemently. "They fought sometimes, like… bickered, but it was jokes. Always jokes. They never hated each other. They had a common friend who… who died. After that they were close. They shared that grief."
Logan nodded slowly. "Would you say Hugo would ever intentionally harm Eddie?"
"No." Her voice broke. "No way. Of course not. Hugo would never harm anyone."
Logan let her breathe a moment, then stepped back. "No further questions."
He returned to his seat. The prosecutor rose with the kind of practiced calm that scraped against my nerves.
She approached Poppy, her heels clicking rhythmically against the floor, her tone smooth but sharp underneath.
"Ms. Hudson, did Hugo ever tell you he wanted to obtain black magic?"
Poppy froze.
Her spine went rigid, shoulders lifting. Her eyes darted to me—wide, wounded, unsure—as though she feared answering wrong might hurt me, or hurt herself, or both.
"He… he didn't say 'black magic'," she said slowly. "He just loved magic."
The prosecutor's gaze hardened. "I'll ask again. Did he ever express wanting to obtain black magic? To make a pact with the devil?"
A ripple of unease traveled through the room. Poppy's chin trembled. She furrowed her brows, searching for the truth she knew, not the one the prosecutor wanted.
"No," she said firmly. "He never said anything about a devil."
"But he might have said something about black magic?" the prosecutor asked again, leaning in just slightly, tone sharpened to a point.
"I—" Poppy's mouth opened, a frightened inhale escaping her.
Logan surged to his feet.
"Objection," he said sharply. "Asked and answered. And the phrasing is deliberately manipulative."
The judge lifted a hand.
"Objection sustained."
Poppy's shoulders sagged in relief. She wiped her cheeks, looking at me for a fleeting second—her expression filled with sorrow, loyalty, and fear that she couldn't protect me from any of this.
She had come here to save me. To give me something human in a place that had stripped me of everything else. And seeing her shaken like this carved a hollowness into my chest that felt deeper than the solitary cell had ever been.
The judge nodded to the prosecutor. "Move on."
But Poppy stayed there, hands trembling in her lap, looking like she might fall apart under the weight of her love for me and the horror that she couldn't bend the truth into a shield.
And as the courtroom settled into a new silence, I felt my eyes sting—because for the first time since this nightmare began, I saw someone who looked at me not with suspicion, not with fear, not with judgment…
…but with grief. And affection. And helplessness.
As if she already saw me slipping away.
"Very well," she said, voice even. "Ms. Hudson, let me ask you something else."
Poppy wiped her cheeks again, trying to sit straighter, trying to be strong for me. The tremor in her fingers betrayed her.
"When Hugo began gaining fame," the prosecutor continued, "did you notice any changes in his behavior?"
Poppy blinked. "Changes?"
"Yes," the prosecutor said. "Did he become withdrawn? Secretive? Did he start spending time with people you didn't recognize? Individuals who might have pushed him toward darker practices?"
Logan stood. "Objection. Vague. Speculative."
"Sustained," the judge said. "Rephrase."
The prosecutor nodded as though she had expected the interruption.
"Did Hugo begin disappearing for hours without telling you where he went?"
Poppy's throat bobbed. "Sometimes he left without saying anything. But that's not—"
"And you didn't question him?"
"I trusted him," she whispered.
The prosecutor stepped closer—not towering over her, not menacing, but with the cold patience of someone guiding a witness toward a conclusion she had already written.
"Ms. Hudson," she said, "did you ever notice Hugo coming home late with injuries he couldn't explain?"
Poppy hesitated.
She shouldn't have. She didn't deserve to. But she did.
My stomach twisted.
"Yes," she said quietly. "Sometimes. Bruises. Scratches. But nothing—nothing that meant he was doing anything wrong."
"And did those injuries increase after he began performing?"
Poppy's breath stuttered. "Maybe. But that doesn't—"
"And did he ever tell you where he went during those absences?"
"No," she said, shaking her head. "Hugo kept things to himself, but it wasn't… it wasn't dark. He wasn't—"
"So the answer is no," the prosecutor said, cutting her gently. "He did not tell you."
Logan rose again. "Your Honor—"
The judge shook his head. "She may answer."
Poppy looked at me again. I could see the fear rising in her eyes—not fear of me, never of me, but of what this woman was trying to build around my name.
"No," she whispered. "He didn't tell me."
The prosecutor nodded, as though she had found the thread she needed.
The prosecutor flipped to a new page, her eyes narrowing slightly, sharpening in a way that told me she had scented a weakness. She stepped closer to the stand, not hovering, but close enough that Poppy's shoulders rose defensively.
"Ms. Hudson," she said, "before we conclude… I'd like to clarify something."
Poppy's fingers tightened around the railing. She looked exhausted, wrung out from grief and fear and the weight of trying to protect me.
"Was there," the prosecutor asked slowly, "anyone Hugo was always with? Someone he trusted? Someone he spent unusual amounts of time alone with?"
My heartbeat stumbled.
Poppy's breath caught in her throat.
Her eyes flickered to me—tiny motion, but full of meaning—and I felt a sickening twist deep in my chest. She wasn't supposed to go here. She wasn't supposed to say anything.
She hesitated.
"Yes…" she whispered. "There was."
A flash of slow, suffocating dread spread through my limbs. I shut my eyes tightly, trying to push the mark harder, the way Corvian had taught me—blur her memory, blur the moment, fog it just enough so she couldn't remember his name, couldn't bring him into the open, couldn't—
The courtroom door creaked behind me.
A shift of fabric. A controlled step. A presence sliding into place like a weight on my spine.
Harry.
He sat directly behind me.
Fuck. The word roared through my head, useless, helpless.
The prosecutor straightened. "Ms. Hudson? Who was this person?"
Poppy blinked hard. "Um… sorry. What was the question again?"
Her voice wavered. The memory smudged at the edges—my influence pressing, desperate, trying to shield her.
But the Witness was behind me. I felt him like cold fingers at the base of my neck.
He would not let her forget.
The prosecutor repeated the question, slower this time.
"Who was Hugo always around?"
Poppy's lips parted. Her eyes went glassy for a second, as if torn between two opposing pulls—mine trying to cloud her mind, and something behind me dragging clarity back into her skull.
"There was…" she whispered again, almost choking on the words. "There was a guy."
My heart sank.
"A guy named… Corrin."
The sound of his name in her mouth felt like a blade sliding between my ribs.
The prosecutor's eyes flickered with interest. "Corrin? Who is Corrin?"
Poppy swallowed, staring at the wall like she wanted to vanish into it. "He was Hugo's friend. I—I haven't seen him since Hugo got arrested."
She didn't understand. She couldn't. She had no idea what it meant to put Corvian's shadow into the court record. She had no idea what she'd just dragged into daylight.
She can't be this naive. The thought burned through me, bitter and panicked. She can't be this stupid. This was supposed to be my witness.
The prosecutor continued, unaware she'd just stepped on something sacred and dangerous.
"And this Corrin—did he influence Hugo? Did he encourage the defendant's sudden interest in dangerous practices?"
Poppy froze, unable to answer.
I turned my head, drawn helplessly—not to Poppy, not to Logan, not to the prosecutor—but to the presence behind me.
Harry sat perfectly still.
His posture rigid. He looked at me with depth but no bottom.
The pupils darkened until I couldn't see where iris ended. A faint tightness pulled at the skin around them, like someone else was looking through him.
His stare was quiet. Unblinking. Predatory.
It held me in place.
It told me without sound that every veil I tried to pull over the truth was useless while he sat there. That Corvian's name belonged to him now—etched into his memory like scripture, ready to be weaponized at the slightest breath of command.
A chill crawled up my spine so sharp it felt like claws.
Poppy looked at me, apology written in her tear-stained face.
And behind me, the Witness waited—silent, patient, and ready to strike.
I could feel everything—every eye, every breath, every second collapsing into the next.
And for the first time since the hearings began, I felt truly hunted.
The guard approached to escort her out. She stood slowly, her legs unsteady, and before she turned away, she looked at me once more—eyes red, full of apology I didn't deserve, and fear she couldn't disguise.
And I felt the mark beneath my ribs tighten again, a kind of ache that suggested Corvian had seen everything through me.
Everything.
I stood. Or something like it. My legs carried me to the stand with the dull obedience of a marionette whose strings had frayed too thin to fight back. The bailiff gestured. Logan nodded once, a small, brittle reassurance. And I walked as if underwater, the courtroom lights blurring along the edges like smudged halos.
My palm rested on the wood rail. It felt dry, almost powdery, leaving a residue against my skin. Like touching bone.
Logan's voice sounded far away when he told me to state my name.
"Hugo Hollands," I said.
It came out flat. Even I could hear it—barely human, not because I lacked emotion, but because I had exhausted anything that resembled resistance. I answered the next series of questions in that same hollow register. Where I lived. Where I worked. My schedule that day. My acquaintances. My supposed motivations. Each answer slid from me with the laziness of surrender. I had stopped lifting my eyes; I no longer bothered trying to thread hope into my voice just to make Logan's job easier.
He kept glancing at me the way a man does when he realizes the foundation beneath him shifted while he wasn't looking. I hated that look. I hated even more that he deserved better than me.
Then, somehow, I lifted my head.
Not to look at Logan. Not to look at the prosecutor waiting like she could smell the end of me.
I looked at the judge.
"Your Honor," I said, my voice scraping out of my throat, "can I speak?"
He blinked once, as if the request had crossed some line of decorum he hadn't prepared for. "…Excuse me?"
"I'm asking if I can speak freely."
A hush spread through the benches behind me—an inhale the entire room shared without wanting to. Logan shifted sharply beside me; I felt rather than saw the panic roll through him like a tide, subtle but forceful. My stomach knotted because I knew I had just thrown myself off the ledge—but there was something inside me that refused to keep dying slowly.
The judge leaned forward, hands steepled.
"Mr. Hollands, you are already under oath. Whatever you wish to say must be said within the boundaries of the questioning at hand."
"I understand," I said, though I didn't. "I just… I need to say something."
"Hugo—" Logan murmured under his breath, the sound tight, strained, threaded with desperation. "Don't do this."
I ignored him, not because I didn't care, but because caring hadn't saved me from anything so far.
The judge exhaled through his nose. "This is irregular. But I will allow a brief statement. Do not deviate from matters relevant to the case."
Relevant. Everything in my life felt relevant to the case against me.
I swallowed. My throat stung. There was a tremor in my fingers I couldn't steady.