The temperature in the room changes. Not from magic. From Ruvan going completely still.
"How many?" His voice has gone flat.
"Seventeen dead. Six got away. They saw—" Gray Streak glances at me. "They saw everything."
Ruvan's shadows start writhing. "Someone talked. Someone told them exactly where to hit."
"Boss—"
"I want to know who." He's not looking at anyone now, which is somehow worse than if he was staring someone down. "Six hours. Find them."
Joss walks in, still wiping blood off her blade with someone's abandoned vest. Very thorough about knife maintenance. "The ones who escaped will spread word. Every guild will know about her by morning."
She's looking at me when she says it. Not unkind, just practical. Like she's stating the weather.
"She's guild property now." Ruvan's voice is cold. So cold. "No one touches her without going through me."
Property. That's... not great.
"I can't go home," I say, because it's just hitting me. My studio. My paintings. My life where I worried about rent and sold landscapes to people who didn't really want them.
"No." He's looking at the bodies now. His people. Seventeen of them. "You stay where I tell you. Do what I tell you."
"Fourteen prisoners," someone reports. "Including the kid she healed."
"They'll be questioned. Thoroughly." The way he says thoroughly makes my stomach twist.
"They'll need food first," I say quietly. "And dry clothes. Wet prisoners are just asking for pneumonia."
Everyone stares at me. Ruvan turns that cold gaze my way.
"They killed my people. And you're worried about them catching cold."
"Someone has to be." It comes out smaller than intended.
He stares at me for a long moment. Something flickers across his face – disbelief maybe. Or exhaustion. Then he turns away.
"Joss, start evacuation procedures. Gray Streak, secure the prisoners. Grimm, count our dead properly. I want names." He pauses. "And find out who leaked our location."
They scatter to follow orders. The hall empties except for bodies and water damage and me, still standing there trying to process that my life just ended. Or changed. Same thing maybe.
"Your shoulder needs cleaning," I tell his back.
"Later." Sharp. Final.
He walks away, shadows trailing behind him. I'm alone with corpses and puddles and the knowledge that I'm now property of the Shadow Guild. Because I healed people. Because I couldn't watch them die.
Because I watched him kill and wanted him anyway.
The morning's portrait session feels like a different lifetime. Was I really worried about his curtains? Was that really my biggest concern?
I look at my hands. Still faintly glowing. Then at the water damage. Then at the bodies that need... something. Dignity maybe. Sheets at least.
"Hey," I call to a passing guild member. "Where do we keep the mops?"
He stares at me. Which is fair.
But someone has to clean this up. The water won't mop itself. The blood needs cold water before it sets. And I need something to do with my hands that isn't thinking about how Ruvan moved when he killed. How my body responded. How I'm trapped here now with nowhere else to go.
