Page 29

“I am. Deeply. Historically. Almost professionally.” I step farther into the passage, letting the damp shadow fold around us while his grip tightens around the weapon. “But not of you.”

That lands where I want it to.

Talen draws the club halfway free. It is warded with a strip of brass near the grip, cheap estate issue, probably meant to shock human servants without leaving marks that would inconvenience paperwork. He expects me to look at the weapon. I keep my attention on his face instead, on the damp shine at his hairline and the way his mouth keeps twitching as if he is trying to decide whether anger or fear would be more humiliating.

“You insulted her to provoke me,” I say.

“I told the truth.”

“You don’t know the truth well enough to borrow its boots.”

“She’s Vaerith’s analyst. You’re lower-district filth with strange eyes and too much mouth. I know enough.”

The heat under my skin wakes.

It slides up my spine, slow and eager, and the world sharpens around the edges. The dripping gutter becomes loud. Talen’s pulse shows itself in the hollow of his throat. The warded club hums against his palm with a thin, ugly little current, and beneath it all I feel the bond tug toward the registry where Isolde is still somewhere nearby, alive and walking and not in his reach.

I breathe through my nose.

“Here’s how this goes,” I say, keeping my voice quiet because anything louder might come out wrong. “You stop watching her.”

He gives a brittle little laugh. “Oh, that’s precious.”

“You stop speaking to her like she belongs under your boot.”

“She belongs wherever Lord Vaerith puts her.”

The hunger flares so hard my vision flashes gold.

Talen sees it this time. He takes one step back before pride drags him upright again, and that step feeds something mean in me. Fear has a taste. I hate that I know that. It is bright, metallic, almost sweet where it touches the air, and the infernal part of me lifts its head like a hound catching scent.

I close my hands into fists until my nails bite my palms.

“No,” I say quietly.

Talen’s uncertain smile pulls to one side. “Talking to yourself now?”

“Frequently. I’m excellent company.”

“You’re diseased.”

“Maybe.”

“You’re one of those contract freaks, aren’t you?”

The words hit harder than they should, but not because they are clever. They strike an old bruise, one worn smooth by years of pretending the world has not noticed what I am. Contract freak. Half-blood. Mistake. Useful anomaly when Rhazek is being honest. Dangerous inconvenience when Sable is frightened enough to stop softening the truth.

The hunger spreads through my shoulders.

I can see the shape of Talen’s life-force now, not fully, but enough. It flickers behind his ribs, duller than Isolde’s, coarser, threaded with petty cruelty and ordinary fear. I could reach for it. The knowledge arrives without drama, which is the worst part. It would not be difficult. His soul is not guarded by discipline, power, or oathcraft strong enough to matter. He is just a man with a club and a borrowed tabard, and if I let the hunger open all the way, he would not have time to scream properly.

My stomach turns.

I step back from him.

Talen mistakes that for weakness. Men like him always do.

He lunges.