The final bell rang like a spell breaking.

Lockers slammed, sneakers squeaked, and somebody’s perfume fought a losing war against fryer grease. Ravenrest Academy spilled into the courtyard in one glittering, overstimulating wave.

The sunlight hit too hard—sharp off car windows and badge clips—and for a second the world tilted bright enough to sting. My eyes, still glamoured green, couldn’t decide what to focus on. I started counting sensory anchors to keep from unraveling.

One — Cassie’s hand brushing mine, static and citrus.

Two — Kael’s soft “move” as she steered a cluster of gawkers out of our way.

Three — the low hum of the Firebrand convoy idling by the gate, engines tuned to court precision, glamour whispering beneath the noise of human traffic.

“Smile, Your Highness,” Cassie said, all teeth and teasing as a few phones angled our way. “You’re trending again.”

“I’m counting my remaining neurons,” I muttered.

Three black sedans waited beyond the wrought-iron fence—too symmetrical, too polished for a mortal parking lot. Their reflections shivered in the heat like mirages; I could feel the glamour vibrating against the air, a heartbeat away from revealing the Firebrand crest beneath.

Cassie whistled low. “Freedom’s got chauffeurs now.”

“Freedom,” I said, “is apparently chauffeured, catalogued, and armed.”

Kael moved between us and a boy pretending not to film, her shift so smooth it looked like choreography. “You’re a duchess, not a hostage,” Cassie added, elbowing me.

Kael didn’t blink. “That’s debatable.”

Her eyes swept the line of cars, hand brushing the hidden knife under her jacket. The sunlight glanced off her collar, catching on the shimmer of her fading glamour—silver one second, steel the next.

The exhaust stung the back of my throat, bitter after the incense from class. My brain started mapping exits on instinct.

Left — security spaced ten meters apart.

Right — gates still clear for maybe fifteen seconds.

Center — Alaric, of course, planted beside the lead car like someone had trained an eclipse to wear a suit.

Sir Alaric’s posture said I’m here because the High Lady commands it, and his expression said and I intend to survive the experience.

Cassie leaned close enough for her hair to brush my shoulder. “You know he’s probably tracking your heart rate.”

“Several devices,” I murmured. “They measure anxiety spikes and treasonous thoughts.”

“You’re maxing both.”

“Only because I’m allergic to being babysat.”

Kael’s laugh was quick, almost human. “And yet he’s the reason you’re still alive.”

“I would’ve survived without him.”

Cassie grinned. “You would’ve blown up a café proving it.”

Her warmth steadied me. I watched her thumb trace the edge of her ring—our quiet signal that meant breathe. I mirrored it: three beats, a rhythm looped back to calm.

We crossed the courtyard together, the crowd parting like water skirting flame. Whispers trailed behind—Princess, Firebrand, Eversea—each one a title that fit and didn’t. None of it mattered.

What mattered was that the sun was too bright, the cars too perfect, and my skin itched with the need to run.

Kael opened the rear door of the center car with a theatrical bow. “Your Highness,” she said, deadpan.

“Careful,” I warned, sliding in. “You’ll convince them I actually like the title.”

Cassie followed, her perfume cutting through the sterile scent of leather and protocol. “Oh, you’re royal,” she said, buckling in. “You just hate it.”

I looked once more toward the courtyard—the laughter, the noise, the hint of something like normalcy—then felt the Firebrand engines purr beneath us, smooth as obedience.

Freedom had chauffeurs now.

And every mile of it smelled like obligation.

The door shut behind us with that soft, expensive click that only government-issued cars seem to have. Air conditioning hissed awake. Leather and ozone. The quiet hum of engines waiting for orders.

Kael slid into the front passenger seat, tapping her wristband twice—routine check-in with command. “Convoy ready,” she murmured. The reply came through the radio, crisp and toneless: Acknowledged. Proceed when cleared.

We waited.

There’s always waiting with Firebrand escorts—every second a measured breath in the choreography of appearances.

Outside, the sunlight fractured across the polished line of black cars. Sir Alaric approached with all the ceremonial gravity of a man personally responsible for the survival of civilization—or at least for my timely arrival at the Solar.

“Your Highness,” he said, bowing with precise geometry. “The Solar awaits.”

His voice had the cadence of someone who dreamt in bullet points.

Cassie’s whisper hit my ear like mischief disguised as mercy. “He talks like a parking ticket.”

I coughed into my hand to hide the smile. Kael’s shoulder twitched forward—her version of laughter.

“Thank you, Sir Alaric,” I said, summoning my best imitation of diplomatic grace. It came out somewhere between polite and allergic. “We’ll depart momentarily. I have a brief stop first.”

He straightened, every line of his posture radiating protocol violation detected. “A stop, Your Highness?”

“Yes,” I said smoothly, the word sliding too easily off my tongue. “At the Silvergate Archive. There’s material I need to review before the council meets.”

Cassie turned her head toward the window, biting her lip so hard it had to hurt. The Silvergate Archive was a real place—sort of—but it was three stories of mold and abandoned shelving in a district the Firebrand convoys avoided on principle.

Alaric frowned. “That request was not on your itinerary.”

“Which is why it’s a request,” I said, layering my tone in silk and mild rebellion. “An unscheduled academic errand. I won’t be long.”

Kael leaned back over her seat, voice calm and military. “It’s within the safe zone. I’ll accompany her personally.”

I could almost see the war in Alaric’s head—the duty to obey versus the need to die on this particular hill. His jaw worked once. Twice. “Very well,” he said finally. “Two escort vehicles will follow at distance.”

Cassie muttered, “At distance means up our—”

I kicked her ankle lightly. “Thank you, Sir Alaric,” I said, cutting over her before she completed the geography lesson.

He inclined his head, suspicion barely leashed. “We’ll maintain visual contact. Any deviation will trigger recall.”

Kael’s expression didn’t move. “Understood.”

Her tone translated perfectly: we’ll see.

Alaric stepped back, tapping his comm. The front car peeled out first, clearing the path through a mess of students still trying to film. My own reflection flickered in the tinted glass—a girl playing princess while half her mind ran logistics for an escape.

Cassie leaned close, voice low. “You’re a terrible liar.”

“I don’t lie,” I said. “I just curate truths.”

“That’s not reassuring.”

“I didn’t say it was meant to be.”

Kael flicked the turn signal and muttered, “If you two are done curating, I’d like to avoid traffic.”

The car eased forward, rolling into formation. The second escort slid in behind us, the third lagging half a block behind per Alaric’s order. Through the rearview mirror, I saw him climb into the lead car—the one ahead of ours. Perfect.

Cassie caught the look on my face and smiled like someone who knew exactly what I was planning. “So,” she said under her breath, “Silvergate Archive?”

“Eventually,” I said. “But first…”

“Let me guess.” Her grin widened. “Howling Moon?”

Kael sighed. “I should’ve called in sick.”

The convoy merged onto the main road, glamour flickering faintly in the sunlight like a secret barely holding.

My pulse steadied—half nerves, half the thrill of knowing that for the next few miles, the Duchess of Starveil was about to disappear.

The first few minutes of motion were all sound and motion blur—wheels humming, city noise thinning into the low mechanical thrum of control.

Kael sat up front, posture textbook-straight, one hand on the wheel, the other near the comm fixed in her ear. I could hear the faint hiss of convoy chatter leaking through the feed—Firebrand call signs, route updates, the occasional “Solar ETA confirmed.”

Every time Alaric’s clipped baritone came through, Kael’s mouth tightened a fraction.

Cassie leaned against me, her perfume still sharp enough to outfight the smell of reinforced upholstery. “We’re really doing this?” she whispered, her voice just loud enough for me to hear over the tires.

I angled my gaze toward the tinted window—Dominveil rolling by in layers of stone, neon, and shadow. “Absolutely,” I said. “I’m not walking into the Solar without seeing them first.”

Cassie’s eyes caught the light, half amusement, half worry. “You realize Naomi’s probably going to lecture you for showing up with a royal escort?”

“Not if we lose them first.”

Kael flicked the comm’s internal mic switch off, the quiet click of rebellion. “Fifteen minutes,” she said, eyes on the road. “Once we hit the underpass near Silvergate Bridge, we’ll drop out of line-of-sight. That’s your window.”

Cassie grinned, half feral, half impressed. “You’ve done this before.”

Kael didn’t look away from the traffic ahead. “Royal field training,” she said. “We called it plausible deniability drills.”

Cassie laughed under her breath. “Sounds like spy school for etiquette majors.”

“Close,” Kael said. “We learned how to make escape routes look like scheduling errors.”

My knee bounced once—too much kinetic energy, nowhere to put it. The rhythm grounded me, kept my thoughts from spiraling into what-ifs. The Solar. The council. The way they’d stare at me like I was both miracle and malfunction.

Cassie noticed the movement, reached out, and stilled my leg with her hand. “Breathe,” she said softly.

I did. Once. Twice. The air smelled of her—warm vanilla and something citrus-bright. The combination untied a few knots behind my ribs.

Kael’s voice carried back, level but softer than usual. “You know, if Alaric catches on before we clear the bridge, I’m pretending this was your idea.”

“It is my idea,” I said.

“That’s what makes it believable.”

Cassie smirked. “She’s getting better at sarcasm.”

Kael allowed herself a ghost of a smile. “That’s from exposure therapy.”

Outside, the skyline changed—glass and government steel giving way to the older bones of the city. The air through the vents grew heavier, touched with the faint mineral scent that always came before rain.

Cassie twisted the ring on her finger once, the habit she fell into whenever Mira’s plans required plausible deniability. “You sure this is smart?” she asked. “Because sneaking out past your mother’s security detail is… not subtle.”

“I’m not trying to be subtle,” I said, watching the buildings slide past like slow-motion dominoes. “I’m trying to be alive.”

Kael’s laugh was short and sharp, like metal striking glass. “You sound like your mother when she’s about to start a war.”

“That’s genetics,” I said.

The comm hissed once—Alaric’s voice cutting through briefly, confirming the route ahead. Kael flicked the mic back on, responding in flawless military monotone. “Copy that, Lead One. All clear on our end.”

When she cut the line again, Cassie leaned forward. “How long until we’re invisible?”

Kael checked the rearview mirror, where the shimmer of the second escort car hovered two lengths behind us like an obedient shadow. “Ten minutes,” she said. “Once we hit the bridge curve, they’ll lose our reflection. Glamour interferes with the signal grid there—it’s a blind spot the city never fixed.”

Cassie’s lips curved. “Convenient.”

“Strategic,” Kael corrected. “Seara ordered the interference left alone. She just never told Alaric why.”

I smiled faintly, tracing a line on the fogging glass. “Mother does love plausible deniability.”

Cassie tilted her head against my shoulder. “And you inherited it perfectly.”

The light turned amber ahead, washing the car in honeyed glow. The air vibrated faintly—part engine, part anticipation.

Kael’s gaze flicked between mirrors. “If we’re doing this, do it clean. Once we drop, no comms, no tracker pings. I’ll spoof our route toward Silvergate Archive, but after that, you’re on your own narrative.”

Cassie nudged me. “Translation: we disappear.”

“Exactly,” Kael said.

The underpass loomed in the distance, a dark curve beneath the fractured skyline. I could already feel the glamour in the air, tugging faintly at the edge of my disguise—the way light bends before a storm.

I looked at Cassie, at Kael, at the shimmer of possibility threading the air around us, and grinned.

“Then let’s make history’s least dignified getaway,” I said.

Cassie squeezed my hand. “Duchess,” she whispered, “you had me at undignified.”

Kael rolled her eyes. “Goddess help me.”

The car picked up speed. Ahead, the bridge’s shadow opened wide—one perfect heartbeat away from freedom.

The underpass swallowed us whole—gray concrete and echoing tires, the kind of acoustics that made engines sound like thunder pretending to be important.

Kael’s voice was a low thread. “Three… two… now.”

She killed the interior mic. The static in my ear dropped to nothing.

When we emerged into daylight again, the car eased right, blinking its turn signal like a saint. The old Silvergate Archive loomed ahead—a hulking marble library that had once been full of scholars and was now full of pigeons. Its columns leaned just enough to look philosophical.

“Officially,” Kael said, “this is your research stop.”

Cassie looked at the cracked steps and graffiti-tagged doors. “What are you researching—fungus?”

“Urban history,” I said primly.

“Your commitment to the bit is terrifying,” she murmured, but she was smiling.

The convoy slowed into formation. Alaric’s voice barked once over the radio: “Confirming arrival at Silvergate. Maintain watch perimeter.”

Kael parked at the curb, straight-backed professionalism incarnate. She stepped out into the sunlight, boots hitting pavement like punctuation. The air outside smelled of rain on brick, exhaust, and distant street food—an odd comfort after so much filtered air.

I watched through the tinted glass as Kael strode to the lead car. She gave a perfect half-bow to Alaric’s driver, voice pitched for the comm. “The Duchess requests thirty minutes. Research consultation.”

The driver nodded, dutiful, relaying the update through his earpiece. The front car pulled forward, repositioning to block the street. The second rolled another fifty yards down to “secure the perimeter.”

Perfect choreography.

Inside the sedan, Cassie tilted her head toward me. “You’re enjoying this way too much.”

“I was raised in a palace,” I whispered back. “You have to make your own fun.”

While the engines idled outside, Kael slipped along the side of the building toward the tram hub. She disappeared behind a maintenance gate and, a breath later, the service door clicked open on our end.

Cassie blinked. “She actually found us a side quest.”

“Stay here,” Kael’s voice came through the comm in my ring—an old trick we’d picked up to bypass convoy frequencies. “Thirty seconds.”

I pulled the small coin from my pocket—rune-etched, silver-bright in the filtered light. When I pressed my thumb against it, the runes pulsed once, then settled to a steady glow.

Cassie frowned. “That’s the glamour field emitter, right?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“And you’re about to—oh no. No, you’re not.”

“Oh yes, I am.” I dropped it neatly onto the seat, right where my body heat had been. The air shimmered faintly, settling into a soft outline shaped suspiciously like me—head tilted, hands folded, obedient as a ghost.

From the outside sensors, I’d still be there: Duchess Mira Firebrand, studious, safely contained, doing research.

Kael reappeared at the door, eyes glinting. “Congratulations,” she said dryly. “You’ve just invented the royal decoy.”

Cassie leaned back with a low laugh. “Remind me to get that patented before the Firebrand lawyers do.”

Kael gestured toward the stairwell. “Maintenance access. It feeds into the old tram tunnels two blocks east—no surveillance grid, no convoy signal.”

“Which leads to Grimwall,” Cassie finished, her grin blooming.

Kael’s answering smirk was all wolf. “And The Howling Moon.”

I hesitated only long enough to glance once more at the glowing coin on the seat, at the perfect illusion of a dutiful duchess behaving herself. Then I slipped out into the alley’s breath of cool air and closed the door behind me.

The glamour field hummed on the other side of the glass—obedient, convincing, and utterly hollow.

Cassie looped her arm through mine. “So,” she said, “how does it feel to be your own alibi?”

“Liberating,” I said.

Kael sealed the maintenance door behind us, muffling the sound of the idling engines. “Let’s move before Alaric starts cross-referencing your pulse rate.”

The stairwell yawned below—damp, echoing, the air alive with the metallic tang of forgotten magic. Each step down sounded like a countdown.

By the time we reached the bottom, sunlight was a rumor and duty was three cars and a thousand expectations away.

For the first time all day, I felt entirely like myself.

The stairwell spiraled down into chill and static hum. Every surface was the same sickly industrial gray that made you feel like color was a privilege. Water dripped somewhere, slow and deliberate, the rhythm syncing with my pulse until I started counting it just to quiet my brain.

Kael’s boots echoed behind us, measured and solid—her version of reassurance. She stopped at the landing and popped the lock on the lower maintenance door with a faint click that sounded like defiance.

The air that rolled out smelled of dust, oil, and something faintly electric—old magic tangled with Dominion power lines. The corridor beyond looked like a forgotten artery of the city, half-lit, humming with life that refused to die.

Cassie wrinkled her nose. “You sure this isn’t where serial killers do team-building exercises?”

“Only the ambitious ones,” Kael said.

Cassie gave a low whistle. “You’re too calm about this.”

“That’s why I’m the guard and not the duchess.”

“Technically,” I muttered, “you’re both.”

Kael shot me a look over her shoulder, dry enough to spark. “Technically, I’m about to become an accessory to whatever this is. Move.”

We slipped into the passageway, shoes scuffing through a thin layer of grit. Pipes ran along the walls like ribs; somewhere far ahead, the hum of a tram line vibrated through metal. It was comforting, in a strange way—Dominveil’s heartbeat, steady and subterranean.

Kael unfolded a small holo-map from her jacket pocket—one of Seara’s models, naturally. It projected in faint amber light, the route pulsing like a live thing. “This corridor links to the public tram tunnel. You’ll follow the left track until it forks, then take the old freight path down to Grimwall Hallow station.”

Cassie arched a brow. “And you’re not coming?”

Kael flicked her gaze toward the street-level cameras, then back to us. “I’ll circle around and misdirect the Ember Wardens. Convince them your convoy’s just repositioning. If I’m not there to greet Alaric when he checks the perimeter, he’ll smell the lie.”

“You’re covering for me?” I asked, though I already knew the answer.

“Technically,” Kael said, tucking the holo-map into my hand, “I’m preventing panic. Which is nearly the same thing.”

Cassie bumped my shoulder as we walked, her laugh bouncing off the metal walls. “My knight is cooler than yours.”

I nudged her back. “Mine’s more expensive. And busy making sure we have our own security team so we can stop borrowing my mother’s.”

“That would require you to actually let someone protect you,” Kael said without turning. “You’re allergic to protocol.”

“Protocol’s allergic to me,” I said.

Cassie grinned. “Can confirm.”

Kael paused at the junction, pressing her hand to a faded glyph on the wall. It flickered faintly, reacting to her touch—the remnants of an old Summer Court transit ward. The glow painted her face gold for a heartbeat before dimming back to gray.

“This tunnel hasn’t been used since the first Veil Accords,” she said. “No active wards, no surveillance. But the air’s unstable—stay close, don’t wander.”

Cassie looped her fingers through mine, grounding me before I could even process the word unstable. The sensation ran through me like static—familiar, electric, safe.

Kael glanced between us, then sighed, long-suffering. “If you two get caught making heart eyes in the tunnels, I’m filing for reassignment.”

“You’d miss us,” Cassie said.

“I’d sleep,” Kael corrected.

The corridor narrowed, the light dimming to a faint phosphorescent shimmer. The sound of a distant tram whooshed past somewhere far above us, a ghost reminder of the world still functioning on schedule.

Mira Quinveil Firebrand, punctual duchess, headed to her Solar appointment right on time.

And me—just a heartbeat off that perfect rhythm, stealing back an hour of my own life.

Kael stopped at a low service gate where a faded sign read AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. She knelt, keyed a quick pattern into the lock, and the gate slid open with a reluctant groan.

“Follow the tunnel until you hit the rusted barrier,” she said. “That’s Grimwall’s back entrance. You’ll know it by the sound of drunk laughter and poor life choices.”

“Feels like home,” Cassie murmured.

Kael’s mouth twitched. “I’ll give you a ten-minute head start. Once the Ember Wardens realize you’re ‘studying’ too long, I’ll redirect them toward the upper sector. If Alaric asks, I’ll swear you’re in consultation with an archivist.”

“Who doesn’t exist,” I said.

“That’s what makes her believable.” Kael adjusted the earpiece, face settling into that perfect soldier’s neutrality again. “Now go. And please, Duchess—don’t start a rebellion before curfew.”

“No promises.”

Cassie tugged my hand. “C’mon, your Grace. The Howling Moon awaits.”

Kael gave a mock salute. “Try not to burn anything down unless it deserves it.”

“Everything in Grimwall deserves it,” I muttered, stepping past her.

“Then pace yourself.”

The gate clanged shut behind us, sealing Kael’s silhouette into shadow. The air ahead smelled faintly of wet stone and distant whiskey—a promise and a memory both.

Cassie’s hand tightened on mine as we started down the tunnel, the echo of our footsteps folding into the pulse of Dominveil’s underground.

Duty could wait.

For now, I was just Mira again—no duchess, no titles, just a girl sneaking off to see her friends.

And gods, it felt good.

The service tunnel spilled us out into what felt like the city’s underbelly—the part Dominveil pretended not to have.

The air was heavier here, thick with iron dust and ozone, the way storms smell when they’re trying to remember how to break.

Cassie’s hand stayed in mine as we climbed the last metal ladder to a half-collapsed utility gate. When I pushed it open, the hinges screamed like they hadn’t been used in years.

Grimwall Hallow waited on the other side.

The light changed first—less sun, more static. Neon bled across cracked windows and rain-slick pavement, reflecting off puddles that shimmered like half-functioning portals. Somewhere nearby, a generator coughed itself awake, and a billboard flickered through six languages, advertising a brand that hadn’t existed since before Cassie was born.

“Welcome home,” I said softly.

Cassie wrinkled her nose. “This place smells like broken promises.”

“You get used to it.” I stepped forward, the soles of my boots sticking slightly to the pavement. “Then you stop.”

We passed graffiti-scrawled walls alive with Fae shorthand—some warnings, some jokes. Mind the mirrors. Pay before you pray. The sigils pulsed faintly when I brushed my fingers across them, the remnants of a charm still trying to feel useful.

Cassie’s reflection hovered beside mine in the cracked glass of a shopfront, half human, half haloed by faint glamour bleed. She caught me looking.

“What?”

“You’re glowing,” I said, because she was—streetlight pooling gold on her hair, the faint shimmer of her ring pulsing in time with mine.

She huffed a laugh, low and warm. “You’re one to talk, Duchess.”

“I’m trying to pass for human.”

“Failing beautifully.”

I tilted my head toward her, brushing my shoulder against hers. “You make rebellion sound romantic.”

“That’s because it is.”

Her voice slipped through me like a small, perfect rebellion all its own.

Ahead, the alley bent toward the tram hub—though the trams hadn’t run here in decades. The rusted rails glimmered faintly under leaking streetlights, carrying the echo of movement long gone. The air hummed in that strange way it did around dormant Veil-tech, as if the city itself remembered magic even when it pretended not to.

Cassie slowed when she saw the flickering glyph tags near the corner—half a dozen sigils painted over each other. Some I recognized: safe passage, no court jurisdiction, and one scrawled like a dare: The Moon Howls for Those Who Answer.

Before I could touch it, a voice came from the shadows: “Still breaking and entering, Your Grace?”

Kael stepped out from a side alley, already out of uniform—black jeans, leather jacket, hair pulled back. She blended into the chaos like she’d been born here.

Cassie exhaled in relief. “Tell me you didn’t get caught.”

Kael’s grin was all sharp edges. “Convoy diverted. The decoy’s still sitting pretty, and Alaric’s chasing a false signal two districts north. You’ve got two hours before anyone checks the feed.”

“That’s generous,” I said, smiling.

“That’s charity,” Kael countered. “Use it wisely.”

I didn’t think before I moved—I just threw my arms around her. It startled her, the way it always did, but after a heartbeat she let me. Kael hugged like a professional—efficient, grounding, and only for emergencies.

Cassie crossed her arms, smirking. “See, she missed us.”

Kael rolled her eyes but didn’t deny it. “Let’s move before the Veil’s mood changes.”

We followed her through the narrow cut between buildings, the hum of hidden wards brushing over my skin like static. The air thickened with the scent of rain-soaked brick and old magic, that half-alive tang you could taste if you breathed too deep.

Up ahead, through the mist and the half-dead neon, I could see the faint outline of a crooked sign swinging over a narrow door.

The Howling Moon Tavern.

The letters glowed faintly blue, rearranging themselves every few seconds as though deciding what language they wanted to exist in. Sometimes it was Common, sometimes Fae, sometimes the curling sigils of an ancient script I hadn’t seen since childhood lessons. The Veil had moods; tonight, it seemed indecisive.

Cassie tilted her head, watching the letters melt from HOWLING MOON into AU LUNE HURLANTE. “That seems promising,” she said dryly.

“Depends on whether it bites,” Kael murmured.

From the street, the tavern looked condemned—dark wood, cracked windows, a sign one strong breeze away from surrender. But as we stepped closer, the glamour peeled back in slow, deliberate waves. Lanterns flickered with blue flame, casting light that bent instead of falling straight. The scent changed too—smoke threaded with honey and sea-salt ale, like memory warming itself by a hearth.

The door recognized me before I touched it. Its hinges creaked once, like an old friend clearing its throat.

Cassie hesitated. “We’re not breaking in, right?”

“We’re home,” I said, and pushed.

The world changed temperature on the other side. Heat hit first—followed by laughter, music that didn’t have a single source, and the shimmer of Veillight drifting through the rafters like lazy fireflies. The tavern never looked the same twice; tonight it had chosen dark oak and candle-flame, cozy chaos arranged by someone who understood both drunks and dreams.

Every table was alive. Shifters in half-furred forms trading stories with witches, a pair of dwarves arguing about runes, one merfolk perched in a conjured bubble chair still dripping seawater onto the floorboards. The bar itself breathed—literally exhaling small clouds of magic every time someone set down a coin.

Cassie’s fingers brushed mine as she took it all in. “Still feels weird that humans can’t see this place.”

“They can,” I said. “They just tell themselves it’s something else. A dive, a daydream, a place they’ll remember later and not know why.”

Kael’s expression softened just slightly. “That’s half the city, really.”

The crowd hadn’t noticed us yet, but the bar had.

A familiar voice rang out over the din—sharp, amused, unmistakably Naomi. “Well, if it isn’t Her Radiance of Terrible Timing!”

I laughed before I saw her. Naomi stood behind the bar like she owned it—probably did, tonight—hair pale as frost and eyes bright with mischief. She wiped her hands on a towel, already grinning in that way that said you’re late and I’m going to enjoy this.

Beside her, Kess didn’t even glance up from cleaning her knives. “And her chaos entourage,” she said flatly.

Cassie made a wounded noise. “Excuse you, we’re very dignified chaos.”

“That’s what all chaos says,” Kess replied, still not looking up.

The laugh slipped out of me easy this time—real, unguarded. The day’s weight, the expectations, the convoy, all of it dissolved in the warmth of the tavern air. The hum under my skin finally eased; I could breathe again without counting it.

Kael closed the door behind us, sealing the mundane city out and the Veil’s heartbeat in. “Two hours,” she reminded quietly, but even she smiled a little.

“Plenty of time,” I said.

Naomi leaned her elbows on the bar, eyes glinting. “For what?”

“To remember why I like this world,” I said.

Kess finally looked up then—sharp grin, dangerous and fond all at once. “Then grab a drink, Duchess. The night’s still young, and you’ve got stories to catch up on.”

I stepped into the heat and the light of The Howling Moon, Cassie’s laughter brushing against my ear like a promise.