Page 21 of He’s A 10 But… He Bites

"Well, it's here, and it's holding something." I run a thumbnail along the cradle's seam, where the wood doesn't quite sit flush. "False backing. They built a void into the mount." I work the edge of a palette knife under the lip. "Hand me your patience."

"I have none."

"Fake it."

The backing lifts. Tucked into the void, flat as a love letter, is a strip of dark vellum. And the second I touch it, the obsidian at my hip flares stinging me, and faint etched lines bloom across the vellum's surface like frost forming in reverse.

"Nico. Look."

He leans in. Lines resolve into script. The keepers who feared their own blood. Truth divided before power could claim it. A mark at the corner—a ring of small interlocked seals.

"It splits the trail toward a circle of private owners," I say. "Collectors. People like⁠—"

The lights flush red. A shutter somewhere drops with a sound like a guillotine.

"Removing the vellum tripped a silent contact," Nico says, already at the door. "Lockdown."

"Of course it did." I'm up, fragment sealed, both obsidian and that shoved deep in my jacket. "Service shaft. Conservation lift goes to the loading roof. Move."

He moves. I move faster, because I know the route and he doesn't, and that's the first time tonight he simply follows—no argument, no taking over and speeding ahead holding onto me, just trust burning off him.

We hit the freight lift as boots thunder through the main stair. In the brushed-steel doors I catch a reflection that doesn't belong—black hair, a sharp profile, gone before I get a chance to turn. My stomach drops. Then the lift swallows us upward and there's no time to be afraid of the right things.

Roof. Rain. The fire scaffold on the north face, slick and waiting. Below, the wash of blue police lights bleed across wet stone.

"Down. Now."

We go down through the rain, and at the bottom Nico catches my arm so I don't break an ankle. He turns my hand over without asking, sees the knuckle I split on the lift latch, and wipes the blood away with his thumb—brief, practical, like it offends him. Then he shrugs out of his coat and drops it over my shoulders, no speech attached.

We slide into the black two streets over And somewhere between the roof and the rain, I stopped checking whether Nico would catch me. I just assumed he would.

This was supposed to be a job I was solving. It doesn't feel like that anymore. It feels like a trail closing slowly around my throat—and I'm letting the predator walk beside me into it.

14

NICO

By the following evening, the museum has doubled its guards, and the stolen vellum has been copied twice. The salon glitters like a trap built by someone with taste. Candlelight moves over the parquet in long gold ribbons, catching crystal, gilt frames, the dull shine of old varnish on older paintings. Beeswax hangs in the warm air, and beneath it, faint to anyone who isn't a vampire, the cool mineral note of blood. A string trio plays something restrained in the corner. Servants drift with trays. Half the room is human money pretending to be cultured. The other half is older than the building, and just as practiced at pretending. Riley's hand rests on my forearm, light, perfectly placed.

"Smile," she murmurs without moving her lips. "You look like you're pricing coffins."

I let myself look at her, which is its own discipline. Her dress is dark, deliberate, and she wears it like a tool. Underneath the silk she is still athletic, and that steady pulse beats that I feel through me. The performance asks me to stand close, lean in, let the room read us as one thing. The trouble is how little performance that actually requires.

"You clean up," I say.

"You sound surprised, kinda insulting." Her mouth curves. "Try to look like you adore me. People are watching."

They are. And then one of them stops being a guest and becomes our host. Casimir approaches, and the room parts for him. Blond at the temples, a suit the color of wet slate, an unhurried smile that has buried more men than my reputation has.

"The famous Black Fang." He takes my hand with both of his, warm, lingering. "And his companion. I confess I did not expect company. You travel so rarely with anyone you cannot replace. Good to see you again."

"Times change," I say.

"Do they?" His gaze slides to Riley, appraising. "Prague was such a noisy affair. So much fuss over one small black stone. You have a gift, mademoiselle, for being where remarkable things go missing."

Riley doesn't blink. "I have a gift for being underestimated."

He laughs, delighted, and I trust him less for it.