“A hunter who follows one blood trail may still be forgiven for abandoning it when the room begins to bleed.”
— from Field Notes on Shroud Interdiction, author redacted
Rori
The rave swallowed us in color before it swallowed us in sound.
For the first three steps past the gate, I could still pretend the bass was only music. Loud, ugly, too deliberate, but music. Then it sank beneath my skin and found bone. It moved through the soles of my boots, up my calves, into the hinge of my knees and the tight place behind my ribs where anxiety liked to sit with its hands folded like it had every right to be there.
Blue-green light washed over the stairwell walls in slow pulses, turning damp stone slick and luminous, and the air grew warmer with every step down. Rain vanished behind us. The city vanished behind us. Above ground, Dominveil had been late Baretree damp and cold—all wet brick and gutter rot. Down here, the air was thick with heat, perfume, sweat, old magic, and something floral that had been made too sweet on purpose.
Mira walked beside me in a wine-dark dress and black cropped coat, her glamoured autumn-ginger hair curling damp against her jaw from the rain we had crossed to get here. She looked like a princess who had decided to become a bad decision for the evening. Expensive. Beautiful. Unapproachable in a way that made people approach anyway because some men treated danger as a flirtation technique instead of a warning label.
Her silver jewelry caught the pulsing light at her throat and wrists. Her green eyes moved over the chamber ahead as we reached the bottom of the stairs, and for half a second I could see the shape of what this place would look like through her mind: exits, watchers, bad lighting, too many bodies, too many scents, too much motion, not enough information.
Then the rave opened around us, and even I almost understood why people followed the lights.
The chamber was huge, impossibly huge for the buildings above it, its ceiling swallowed by darkness except where strange constellations had been etched into the stone and lit to pulse with the music. Bioluminescent vines hung down like chandeliers, shedding blue, violet, and green across a crowd that moved as if the bass had found a string tied through every spine and tugged. Humans, fae-touched, shifters, spellborn—pretty things and dangerous things and people trying very hard to become both.
Alcoves lined the walls behind curtains of shimmer-cloth and shadow. A bar curved out of vine-wrapped stone, the drinks glowing like trapped stars in glass. Dancers occupied the center of the floor, their bodies too graceful, too synchronized beneath the illusion of chaos. Watchers in pale-mouthed masks drifted near the edges.
Mira stopped for only a breath. Caldus nearly ran into her and did not, which was one of the many reasons he was still alive.
I felt him behind us, a precise, silent line of disapproval dressed as bodyguard duty. Ilyan stood slightly behind my right shoulder, close enough that if the room decided to bite, he would find its teeth first. Two more guards were farther back, lost in light and shadow, visible only when the room’s colors caught the wrong edge of steel or posture. Everyone here saw what they were meant to see: Princess Mira Quinveil Firebrand of Eversea and Lady Aurora Ashvane arriving at an underground party with the kind of security wealthy girls brought when they wanted danger to remain decorative.
No one saw the blades. No one saw the wards worked into seams, clasps, hems, cuffs, and boots. No one saw Mira’s grief.
That was not entirely true. I saw it. I had been seeing it for weeks, even when she smiled with all her teeth and pretended rage was an adequate substitute for a pulse. Grief sat under her skin like a fever that had forgotten how to break. It sharpened her, hollowed her, made her beautiful in a way that frightened me because there were kinds of beauty that belonged too close to cliffs. She did not look reckless tonight. That would have been easier. Reckless was loud; it announced itself. Mira looked controlled, which meant every terrible thing in her had lined up in the same direction.
I touched the inside of my wrist where my own pulse beat too fast. “Remember,” I said, leaning close enough that my words could find her beneath the music, “we are here to ask questions.”
“I remember many things.”
“That tone does not reassure me.”
“It should. I’m being very patient.”
“Mira.”
She looked at me then, and the light caught her eyes in a way that almost made the green seem thin over something darker. “Rori.”
My name in her mouth had always been complicated. Before, when I was still pretending one version of myself could survive being buried under another. After, when I stood beside her as something newly made and not yet fully understood. Tonight, it came quieter, scraped raw at the edges.
I kept my face smooth. “Questions first.”
Her mouth curved, not quite a smile. “If they answer badly?”
“Then I will make a note of it in the official report before you set something on fire.”
“That is very bureaucratic of you.”
“I contain multitudes.”
For one second, something almost alive crossed her face. Not happiness. Not even amusement. A flicker. A tiny fracture in the hard blue-black shell of grief. Then the crowd pressed near us, and she looked away before either of us had to admit it had happened.
We moved.
The room noticed us as a room, not as individuals. That was the thing about entering anywhere with Mira now. Attention gathered around her first, then scattered outward in hunger, calculation, curiosity, envy. A princess in an underground rave was a story before she even opened her mouth. People who knew better looked away after looking once. People who did not know better smiled.
The first man reached us before we reached the bar. He had silver paint at his temples and a shirt cut low enough to suggest he had excellent confidence. He stepped into our path with a drink in each hand, smile lazy, eyes moving over Mira with the kind of entitlement that made my fingers itch for a blade.
“Princess,” he said, bowing just enough to make mockery deniable. “Didn’t know royalty came underground.”
Mira’s gaze swept from his face to the drinks, then back. “That’s because royalty doesn’t usually send you itineraries.”
He laughed as if she had flirted. That was his first mistake. “Can I buy you one?”
“You already appear to have two.”
“One could be yours.”
“That would be tragic for both of us.”
His eyes flicked to me. “And your friend?”
“My friend,” I said, before Mira could use something sharper, “is also not interested.”
He looked me over then. Copper shimmer top, cropped black jacket, short skirt, sheer tights—boots that looked like fashion and could break his kneecap if necessary. I had dressed to look like a noble girl playing at danger; I had not dressed to be touched by men who mistook proximity for permission.
His smile widened. “Not even a dance?”
Mira leaned closer to him, just enough that his attention snapped back to her. “She said no.”
The words were quiet. The kind of quiet that lived in blades.
His smile faltered. Caldus shifted behind us—barely, but enough. The man raised both hands, drinks glowing between his fingers. “No offense meant.”
“That’s fortunate,” Mira said. “I find intended offense much more interesting.”
He left. I waited until the crowd swallowed him before exhaling through my nose. “That was almost diplomatic.”
“I am my father’s daughter when deeply inconvenienced.”
“You are many things when deeply inconvenienced.”
“Careful. That sounded fond.”
“It was criticism.”
“You’ve always been bad at lying to me.”
I looked away first because she was right and because there were already too many things pressing against my ribs. The music. The heat. The smell. The mission. Mira’s grief. My own home waiting somewhere beyond the city like a summons already written. Caelan’s name tucked into a message I had not answered yet. Declan’s last text sitting on my phone with a picture of soup, because apparently the human boy had decided emotional warfare should come in broth form.
Declan had asked if I had eaten. Caelan had asked whether I intended to attend the Dawnbreak reception. One question had made my chest ache. The other had made my shoulders square as if I were about to walk into a duel.
I hated that.
Mira glanced at me as we slid along the edge of the dance floor. “You’re thinking loudly.”
“That’s not a thing.”
“With you, it is.”
“Your grief has made you rude.”
“My grief has made me efficient. I was already rude.”
I should not have smiled. I did anyway, small enough that maybe the room did not see it. Mira did. Of course she did. Her eyes flicked to my mouth and away again, and for a breath I could almost pretend we were only two girls in a dangerous place, not a princess on a warpath and the girl who had sworn herself to her side.
We passed the central dancers at a careful distance. Their movements were beautiful, but there was something wrong with the beauty. Too smooth. Too repeated. Every turn seemed spontaneous until one watched the third dancer’s hand echo the first dancer’s wrist. I did not like things I could not name. My skin prickled beneath the shield-thread of my jacket.
Mira slowed. “What?” I asked.
“Pattern.” She followed the pattern. “The dancers. The vines. The lights. Maybe the floor.” Her mouth tightened. “Maybe the drinks.”
“That narrows it down.”
“It’s a club. Everything wants you unconscious eventually.”
“Mira.”
“I’m observing.”
“You’re catastrophizing.”
“I contain multitudes.”
I hated that she used my own words against me. I hated more that she was not wrong.
A masked watcher moved near the outer ring of the crowd, dark cloak whispering over stone, pale sigil where the mouth should have been. Their hand brushed a reveler’s shoulder. The girl smiled dreamily and kept dancing. The watcher moved on.
Mira’s eyes sharpened. I touched her wrist before she could follow.
“Questions first,” I reminded her.
Her pulse jumped under my fingers. Hot. Too fast. Alive. I let go before the contact became something neither of us could carry right now. She stared after the watcher for another moment. “Fine.”
We found the bar by following the smell of sugar, alcohol, and bad decisions. The bartender was hooded, face shadowed, violet eyes pulsing faintly with the beat. Behind them, bottles glowed in colors that should not have existed in drinkable substances. Several people clustered near the counter, laughing too loudly, pupils wide, shoulders loose.
Mira leaned on the bar with the lazy grace of someone born to make rooms wait for her. “I’m looking for a friend.”
The bartender’s eyes moved to her, then to me, then briefly to Caldus behind us. “Most people are.”
“This one has a name.”
“Most people do.”
I almost respected the bartender for that.
Mira smiled. “Vaelis Aunrae.”
There it was. The name that had brought us into this place. Not the killer—not yet. Just a thread. A fae lieutenant with old Summer ties, rumored Shroud money, and a habit of leaving other people to bleed while he changed coats. Vaelis Aunrae had been mentioned by three frightened mouths and one dead account that should not have connected to Kess’s final mission at all.
The bartender’s violet eyes did not change. That told me more than a flinch would have. “Never heard of him,” they said.
Mira’s smile remained. “That’s unfortunate. I heard he enjoyed your hospitality.”
“Many people enjoy many things here.”
“Does he enjoy the green drinks?”
The bartender’s hands paused for half a second. Barely that. I would have missed it if I had not been watching Mira watch them. “No idea what he drinks.”
“Mm.” Mira tilted her head. “You’re a terrible liar.”
The air behind us shifted as Caldus adjusted his stance. The bartender looked past Mira to him. “Is the princess threatening staff now?”
“No,” Mira said. “The princess is making conversation.”
I leaned forward, letting Lady Aurora settle over me like an expensive shawl. The public face, the noble smile—the one that had survived dining rooms full of people who thought my life could be arranged by committee. “Perhaps you misunderstood. We are not asking for private details. We only need to know whether Lord Aunrae is here tonight. There are court matters attached to his name.”
Court matters. A beautifully empty phrase. It could mean anything from an invitation to an execution if said with the right posture. The bartender looked at me longer this time. “Not here.”
Mira’s fingers tapped once against the bar. Not the three-beat pattern. One. Controlled.
“When was he here last?” I asked.
“People come and go.”
“People like Lord Aunrae tend to be remembered.”
“Then ask someone who remembers.” The bartender turned away.
Mira’s hand began to lift. I caught it under the bar. Her fingers twitched against mine. Heat licked briefly through her skin—not enough to show, but enough that my own magic stirred in response. She did not pull away. She also did not look at me.
“Mira,” I said under the music.
“I heard you.”
“You were about to be loud.”
“I can be quiet and terrible.”
“Yes, but we’re trying new things tonight.”
Her mouth moved like it wanted to become a smile and failed halfway through. “Personal growth is exhausting.”
“So I’ve heard.”
She let her hand lower and I released her. The bartender had not missed any of it, though they were very carefully pretending otherwise.
We left the bar with less than we wanted and more than nothing. Vaelis Aunrae’s name meant something here. The green drinks meant something, too. Mira knew it. I knew it. Caldus likely knew it from the set of his shoulders. Ilyan said nothing, but his silence had sharpened.
We moved toward the alcoves next, pretending to drift. That was the humiliating part of investigation work in a party dress: one had to look aimless while being very precise. Mira accepted a compliment from a woman in silver and returned one so smoothly the woman blushed and forgot to be suspicious. I spoke with two fae-touched boys who insisted Lord Aunrae only came to “private mirror nights,” whatever that meant, and that he had not been seen since “the last blood-glass set.”
All the while, Mira frayed. Not visibly to anyone who did not know her—to them, she was incandescent and bored. To me, she was a bowstring pulled too tight. Her eyes kept snagging on masks, exits, and hands. Her laugh came too late twice. Her fingers tapped against her thumb whenever a lead dissolved into another circle of maybe. The fire under her skin was quieter than it had been at Veil and Vice, but quiet did not mean safe.
At the edge of a mirror alcove, another man tried us. He was taller than the first, prettier, and much worse because he knew it. Gold dust shimmered across his cheekbones. He stepped beside Mira as if invited and smiled down at her like proximity was already progress.
“I didn’t expect to see you here, Princess.”
“That seems to be a theme.”
“Dominveil’s full of surprises.”
“Mostly paperwork and mildew, but yes.”
His smile faltered, then recovered. “Dance with me.”
“No.”
He laughed. “That quick?”
“I’m efficient.”
His gaze slid to me. “Your friend can join.”
I felt Ilyan move behind me. Mira’s eyes went flat.
I stepped in before she could say whatever had just crossed her face. “We are not looking for company.”
“You sure? You both look like you could use some fun.”
There were many answers to that. Most of them involved violence. Mira gave him a bright, terrible smile. “The last person who told me that ended up disappointing himself in public.”
His expression changed. “That supposed to mean something?”
“It means,” I said, still pleasant, “that you should leave before you become part of a court incident.”
He looked between us, then past us at the guards who had stopped pretending not to listen. His confidence performed a tactical retreat. “Whatever. Your loss.”
Mira watched him disappear into the crowd. “Court incident,” she said.
“It works.”
“You say that like you’ve used it before.”
“I have used it many times.”
“On Declan?”
“Declan caused three court incidents by existing near my parents.” That slipped out before I could stop it.
Mira looked at me. The rave kept moving around us, but for a second the noise retreated. I hated that, too. Mira had always been able to make a room vanish when she focused on you properly.
“Your parents messaged?” she asked.
“Not yet.”
“But.”
I looked toward the dancers because they were easier than her face. “Caelan did. There’s a reception in a few days. Dawnbreak. Which means my family expects me home before it.”
“Do you have to go?”
A simple question. It should have had a simple answer.
No
, I could say.
I am no longer the son they arranged. I am no longer the daughter they know what to do with, either.
I could choose Declan because he made me feel like a person before he made me feel like a problem. I could choose Caelan because he understood the language of the court and the weight of my family.
“I don’t know,” I said.
Mira’s expression softened in the smallest way. “That’s allowed.”
“Is it?”
“No.” Her mouth twisted. “But it should be.”
Declan sent soup when he worried. He looked at me like the person I was now had not erased the person he had cared about before. Caelan sent court dates and careful openings, but he also listened when I spoke. Both mattered. That was the problem.
“I hate men,” I said.
Mira’s eyebrows lifted. “All of them?”
“Conceptually.”
“Fair.”
“Some individually less than others.”
“Tragic.”
“Deeply.”
She bumped my shoulder lightly with hers. “Don’t decide tonight.” I looked at her. She did not look back. Her gaze stayed on the crowd. “Tonight is for other disasters.”
That was Mira. Grief-shattered, rage-lit, barely sleeping—still capable of reaching sideways and putting one careful hand on someone else’s wound without making a speech of it. I wanted to tell her Naomi would come back when both of them could breathe without cutting each other. I wanted to tell her Kess would hate this, except I did not know if that was true.
Kess was dead.
The thought hit without warning. I swallowed.
Mira went still beside me, as if she had felt the shape of my silence. Maybe she had. Maybe grief had its own scent now and both of us were soaked in it.
A shout rose near the dance floor. Not fear—not yet. More like surprise sharpened by laughter. We both turned.
A girl near the central dancers had gone limp. For half a second, no one reacted properly. People around her laughed, then reached too slowly, then swayed aside as two masked watchers appeared with unsettling smoothness. One caught her under the arms; the other took her legs. They lifted her as if this had been expected and began carrying her toward a curtained passage along the wall.
Mira’s eyes narrowed. “Did she pass out?” I asked.
“Maybe.” The word came out too flat.
Another body sagged near the bar. A boy this time, drink slipping from his fingers. A watcher appeared before the glass hit the floor. My skin went cold. The bass deepened. Near the mirror alcove, a short white-haired woman stumbled, clutching something small and glowing against her side. A watcher touched her neck, and she dropped out of sight.
Mira saw enough. Her face changed. The mask of bored princess fell away, and something colder stepped forward under her skin. She was always beautiful when she was about to become catastrophic.
“Caldus,” she said. He was already closer. “Your Majesty.”
“Curtained passage. Left wall. The one they keep using.”
“Seen.”
“Ilyan,” I said, and my voice sounded steadier than I felt. “At your right,” he answered.
Mira’s gaze cut toward the bar, then the dancers, then the passage. I knew that look. She was rearranging the night. Vaelis Aunrae, the Shroud lieutenant, the lead tied to Kess’s death—all of it still mattered. I could see the cost of letting it wait hit her body like a blade. Her jaw tightened. Her hand flexed once. The air near her tasted briefly of smoke.
Then another person collapsed near the dancers. A watcher caught them before they struck the floor. Mira’s expression went very still.
“Vaelis can wait,” she said. It cost her. I heard it.
I touched her wrist, not to stop her this time, but to anchor her. “Mira.”
Her eyes found mine. For a breath, I saw all of it: the rage, the guilt, the part of her that wanted to burn every lead down to ash before it could run from her. I also saw the part that could not watch bodies carried into the dark and keep walking.
That was the part of Mira I kept choosing. Even when she frightened me. Especially then.
“We find out where they’re taking them,” she said.
I nodded once. “Questions are over?”
Her mouth curved. It did not feel like humor. “Questions,” she said, “are about to get more specific.”
The blue-green lights pulsed overhead. The watchers moved toward the curtain with their latest limp offering. The music swallowed the room’s smaller sounds—laughter and warnings and the first thin edge of panic. Mira turned toward the left wall, and every guard around us shifted with her as if the whole formation had become one blade.
I followed at her side because that was where I belonged tonight. Whatever waited behind that curtain, it had just become our problem.