Koshin steps closer. His hand on my face—fingers tracing my jaw, my throat, the pulse beneath my ear. Mapping. Memorizing.
"You stay with Renan." Not a request.
"I—yes."
"You do what he tells you."
"Okay."
"And if anyone touches you—anyone at all—you tell me. Every detail. So I know exactly what to do to them."
His thumb brushes my lower lip. Light. Threatening.
"Okay," I whisper.
He holds my gaze. Longer than he should. Then he's gone—a last warning look thrown at Renan, and the door closing behind him, and the room gone hollow with his absence.
Renan exhales. "Well. That was romantic."
I choke on a laugh. "He threatened to unmake you. Slowly."
"Over years. He specified over years. It's the attention to detail that really makes you feel special." He tilts his head toward the door. "Get dressed. We have work."
The story comes out in pieces as we walk.
Discord territory sprawls—not neat districts but bleeding boundaries, pockets of influence scattered through the city. Renan moves through them with the ease of someone who grew up here, who knows which streets belong to which games.
"Six months ago," he says, "a new recruit showed up. Perfect credentials. Good connections. Too good."
"You knew he was a spy."
"Obviously." He sounds almost offended. "The credentials were flawless. Which is how you know someone manufactured them."
"So you... let him in anyway?"
"No one had tried anything stupid in months. We were bored." Renan shrugs. "Figured we'd see what he'd do. How sloppy he'd get. Turns out—very sloppy. Made it easy to decide what he 'found.'"
I stop walking.
"You've been feeding him false intelligence because you were bored?"
"Entertainment and strategy aren't mutually exclusive." His mouth curves. "He thinks he's stealing secrets. We're the ones picking which secrets he steals. Everyone wins. Well—" He tilts his head. "He doesn't. But that's the fun part."
"And Faith—"
"Has been making decisions based on whatever we felt like telling them." He picks at something under his nail, unbothered. "Last month we convinced them War was stockpiling weapons in a temple basement. There is no basement. Watching them dig was extremely satisfying."
My feet stay planted.
All those stories about Discord's chaos, their unpredictability—I thought it was exactly what it looked like. Wild and reactive and dangerous.
"You're not actually insane."
"Oh, we're definitely insane." Renan's smile shows teeth. "We're just also petty. And patient. And easily entertained by other people's bad decisions."
"That's..." I search for the right word. "Horrifying."
"Thank you."
