Something flickers in his eyes. Notfear. Surprise.
I tilt my head toward the shadows beyond the lantern light. “Alejandro?”
The name hangs there before footsteps emerge from the dark.
Slow and unhurried.
He steps into the light with his hands in his pockets, posture easy, expression unreadable. The sight of him lands wrong in my chest, sharp and sour all at once.
Kenji chuckles, genuinely amused. “Well. Isn’t that something.”
He looks between us, reassessing. “I’ll give you this, Saint. You never were predictable.”
“Now that we’re all here,” I say, “let’s introduce everyone properly.”
My gaze returns to Kenji first. “The Guildmaster, I presume?”
He spreads his hands and bows, elegant and practiced. “At your service. Though I suppose introductions are a bit late for that.”
I turn to Alejandro.
The smirk that curves my mouth isn’t fond. It isn’t amused.
It’s disgust.
“Then I suppose that makes you El Fantasma.”
He doesn’t react.
He doesn’t need to.
I already know.
“Saint,” he says instead, like it’s a greeting and not a verdict.
He slides his hand out of his pocket and tosses something toward me.
I catch it without thinking.
A blue marble.
I snort and laugh, sharp and humorless. “You can keep it.” I toss it back. “I’ve got one of my own. And you’re a lousy shot.”
He still doesn’t move.
“Let’s see if I’m any better.”
I draw.
The motion is smooth, practiced, inevitable. The shot cracks through the garden, loud and obscene in the quiet.
Alejandro spins as the bullet hits him, surprise finally breaking through his composure. He slams into the stone bench just behind him, then the path, the sound ugly and final.
He doesn’t move.
My arm swings back to Kenji, gun steady, sight lined perfectly with his head.
The petals keep falling.
