I wake up sweating, breath caught in my throat like it’s trying to escape.
My apartment is still.
Too still.
I sit up, heart hammering. My sheets are twisted around me like battlefield bandages. The clock says 04:03. Outside, the sky is that weird, purplish pre-dawn—soft and sticky.
I pad to the door barefoot, tugging my cardigan around my shoulders. The hallway light flickers. My toe throbs from where I kicked the couch last night during a stealth bathroom mission.
I open the door and nearly trip over it.
A box.
Wrapped in deep blue foil. Neat. Square. Silent.
There’s no tag, but I know.
I pick it up, heart stuttering.
Inside, nestled in black velvet like a museum relic, is a hairbrush.
But not just any brush.
It’s Vakutan. I know from the shimmer of the resin—dark with veins of iridescent red, polished smooth and heavy in my hand. The bristles are curved to follow the scalp, firm but gentle. I’ve seen things like this in trade catalogs. Once. As a curiosity. Too rare. Too expensive. Definitely not something youbuyfor someone unless…
There’s a note.
Folded with precision.
The handwriting is surprisingly elegant. Upright. Clean.
For the warrior of the curling iron. –V
I stare at it like it might bite me.
My stomach does a slow, traitorous flip.
I pace.
I fume.
I make tea and forget to drink it.
Then I do something even dumber than asking a war criminal about love.
I call Lazarus.
He answers after two rings. “If this isn’t life or death, I will personally teleport a centipede into your hairline.”
“It’s four in the morning,” I whisper. “I can’t scream, but just know Iwantto.”
“Let me guess. Voltar made you breakfast in bed but it was actually a booby trap and now you’re emotionally compromised.”
“I woke up to a luxury alien hairbrush on my doorstep. Vakutan resin. Bristles like silk. Wrapped like a royal wedding present.”
He yawns. “And?”
“And?!And?!It probably costs more than my rent!”
