POV: Cael
We run the trap at dawn.
Jax sketches the bait-route with chalk on the Tide Book copy. “Three notes,” he says. “All say ‘Mara—deliver to chime garden at second bell.’ Different hands. Different hallways.”
“Why three?” I ask.
“Because the rat picks one,” he says. “And because I like overkill.”
We place the false notes where gossip walks: kitchen door, ledger table, corner bench near the hibiscus hall. Lanterns hum as if they’re waiting for the show. The morning smells like wet stone and early nerves. I drag a hand across my jaw and pretend I slept.
We wait in the shadow of a pillar that hates dust. My heart is a drum I won’t admit to hearing. Jax leans against the arch, arms crossed, casual in the way only someone prepared to break a nose can be.
Second bell approaches. Footsteps echo—quick, uneven. A junior clerk wanders in, whistling off-key, eyes sharp despite the performance. He’s the forgettable kind—smooth hair, soft hands, ink stain on the middle finger. A boy who wants to be invisible and tells on himself by trying too hard.
He glances once, twice, then plucks a note like he’s stealing a cookie.
Jax is air until he isn’t. His hand lands on the boy’s wrist. “Interesting,” he says.
The boy startles so hard he squeaks. “Oh—sir—I was just—”
“Reading?” Jax asks, raising a brow.
“Delivering,” the boy blurts. “To the, uh, chime garden.”
“Who told you to deliver?” I say, stepping out. My voice is calm. My jaw isn’t.
He looks past me like the truth might be written on the wall. “A lady,” he says. “With rings. A lot of them. She said it was urgent.”
Rhun snarls inside me.
Not loud.
Not quiet either.
“Name,” Jax says.
The boy shakes his head. “I don’t know. Not the important lady. The lady behind her.”
Seris’s maid. I can see the rings. I can hear the voice. Sweet and sharp. A hand that laughs while it poisons.
We take the boy to a side room. No shackles. Just two chairs and a table. A lantern burning low. The kind of stillness that makes truth sweat out of a person’s skin.
Jax sets a cup of water down. I stand. I watch the boy’s throat jump like a trapped bird.
“I’m in trouble,” he whispers.
“You’re in trouble if you lie,” Jax says. “If you tell us the shape, you leave with all your fingers.”
The boy talks fast then. Words spill like a cut sack.
Money. Two silver pieces.
“Just move petals,” the maid said.
“Just slip notes.”
He thought it was a game. He didn’t ask why. Of course he didn’t.
His mouth trembles. He looks barely older than some of the apprentices who run errands in the kitchens.
“Where are the petals now?” I ask.
“In a pouch,” he says, eyes shiny. “Laundry chute. Second landing.”
I nod to Jax. He sends a runner immediately. The boy twists his fingers together like he’s trying to knit an apology out of panic.
“Listen,” I tell him. “You aren’t a martyr today. But you don’t touch paper that isn’t yours again. Not for anyone with rings. Not for anyone who smells like sugar.”
He nods too fast. “Yes, my lord.”
His voice cracks. Rhun settles inside me with a blunt, irritated growl: cub. Not foe.
We let him go. He stumbles out like he forgot how knees work, muttering promises to the floor.
Jax leans against the table and blows out a breath. “Rings,” he says.
“Seris’s maid,” I say. “Of course.”
“Can we prove it?” he asks.
“Enough to act,” I say.
Jax’s eyes sharpen. He likes action. He hates subtlety. Unfortunately, we need both.
I sign the order an hour later: Seris Vale’s private staff are restricted from service corridors until further notice. No public flare, no crowd. Just a door turned into a wall. A wall wrapped in politeness.
The message travels faster than ink. I know it does by the way the kitchen goes quiet for one thin minute and then louder again, like a throat cleared. The way Silvie mutters a prayer under her breath. The way Pia nearly drops a ladle but recovers with a glare.
Mara isn’t there when the news settles, but I feel her absence like a draft.
I find Seris in the long hall after midday. She’s in pearl, as always, talking to a minor lord who has never carried his own basket. Her posture is perfect. Her attention floats. She looks up when I approach.
She smiles like a secret.
“Busy morning?” she asks, voice all velvet.
“Productive,” I say.
“I heard a rumor,” she says, soft as a gown’s hem sweeping marble. “My staff… lost their walking rights?”
“They lost the privilege of sneaking into places they don’t need to be,” I answer.
Her smile grows. Slow. Precise. “You sound like a man who likes rules.”
“I like safety,” I say. “For the city.”
“Do you?” she murmurs.
She glances down the hall—to where Mara passes with a stack of folded linen—then back at me. The glance is quick. The meaning isn’t.
“How… touching,” she says.
Rhun presses hard against my ribs, teeth bared. Mine, he growls. The word isn’t meant for anyone else, but it ricochets through my chest anyway.
I keep my face quiet. Still. Controlled. The way I was raised to be.
“Enjoy your afternoon,” I say, and step away.
She doesn’t follow. She doesn’t need to. Her smile reaches me anyway, soft as poison, patient as rot.
And behind my ribs, Rhun whispers a single word:
War.