Dashiel's breathing evens out behind him.
Or at least—it pretends to.
Gaston doesn't turn to check.
He sits where he is, eyes open, unmoving, the fire reduced to a low bed of embers that pulse faintly in the hearth. The house has settled into its quiet.
But he hasn't.
And in that silence—
It's there.
Not pressing. Not speaking.
Present.
Watching.
He exhales slowly through his nose, jaw tightening, then reaches for the woodpile. A few more logs settle into the fire with a dull crack, sparks briefly flaring before fading again.
Movement. Something to keep from thinking.
It doesn't work.
His steps carry him through the hall before he's fully aware of the decision, stopping at a door left slightly ajar.
His sisters' room.
It hasn't been touched.
He pushes it open.
Dust hangs in the air, disturbed by the motion. Two narrow beds sit opposite each other, quilts faded but neatly made. A shared desk remains cluttered with ribbons, scraps of charcoal sketches, and a small music box shaped like a unicorn.
Dolls sit propped where they were last left.
Waiting.
The scent of lavender lingers faintly beneath the dust.
It hits him all at once.
Not just the sight—
—but the sound of laughter in these walls. The weight of two small bodies clinging to his legs when he returned from the city. Endless questions. Endless noise.
Life.
Gone.
His hands curl into fists at his sides.
Aurelia. Gabriela.
Fourteen.
Sold.
Not spoken aloud. Never with honesty.
"Placed."
"Secured."
Words his father had used while staring into a fire he refused to leave, his mother weeping in silence beside him. Gaston had known what it meant the moment he heard it.
Everyone did.
Fallen houses didn't starve—they liquidated.
Daughters first.
He'd searched.
Burned what little influence remained, chased whispers through the lower tiers, followed names tied to brokers and handlers until the trail twisted into the pleasure districts of the Mid-Spire and vanished completely.
After that—
Nothing.
His parents hadn't lasted much longer.
Cowards, at the end.
The anger that rises now is slow and absolute.
Not sharp.
Not wild.
Heavy.
A pressure building behind his ribs until it becomes something physical, something that hums through his bones.
This is the truth of it.
Not duels. Not pride.
This.
This is what was taken.
This is what the world allowed.
His jaw tightens.
Not again.
Not to anyone under his name.
Not while he still drew breath.
"Gaston."
Her voice cuts cleanly through the silence.
Not groggy.
Aware.
"Come back to the fire."
He doesn't answer.
The silence stretches—
Then soft footsteps break it.
He hears her before he sees her.
Dashiel appears in the doorway a moment later, the oversized robe pulled tight around her. She doesn't step inside at first.
She just… looks.
The room does the rest.
Two beds. Too small.
The dolls. The sketches. The quiet.
Something in her expression shifts—subtle, but unmistakable.
The sharp, measuring focus dulls, replaced by something unguarded.
Understanding.
Not from observation.
From recognition.
"I didn't know," she says quietly.
No analysis. No framing.
Just truth.
Her gaze drifts to the wall where a child's drawing still hangs—two uneven figures standing back to back before a crooked castle.
Crude. Determined.
At the bottom, in uneven script:
Gaston will save us.
Her throat tightens—barely visible, but it's there.
For a moment, she doesn't speak.
Doesn't calculate.
Doesn't distance herself from it.
Then she exhales softly, something of that vulnerability sealing back behind practiced control—but not completely.
"This is why," she says, quieter now, though her voice steadies, "people build walls."
A small gesture toward the room.
"Not to forget. To survive it."
Her eyes find his.
"To decide whether it becomes poison… or something you can use."
No lecture.
No calculations.
Just… honesty.
And something else, almost imperceptible—presence, awareness, a tether that holds him steady.
"Come back," she adds after a moment. Not firm this time. Not commanding.
Something closer to understanding.
He stands there a second longer.
Then turns away.
This time—he follows.
Gaston lets out a quiet breath through his nose, staring into the flames.
"It doesn't change anything."
"No," Dashiel agrees. "It doesn't."
Another pause.
Then her tone shifts—subtle, but deliberate.
"Crimson Sigil kept records," she says. "Transactions. Movements. Assets acquired from failed houses." Her eyes lift to meet his. "House Salem appears in several of them."
That gets his attention.
Not visibly.
But she sees it.
"If we get access to the Conservatory's data core," she continues, "there's a high probability we'll find ledgers. Shipping manifests. Ownership transfers."
A thread.
Not hope.
Not a promise.
Something actionable.
Something real.
Gaston takes another drink, slower this time.
"…then we pull it apart," he says.
"Yes."
No hesitation.
No illusion about what that means.
Silence settles again—but it's different now.
Focused.
Directed.
"Sleep," Dashiel says after a moment.
He lets out a quiet, humorless breath.
"Not happening."
"Then rest," she corrects. "Because tomorrow, you'll need control."
Her gaze sharpens slightly.
"And what you're carrying right now?" she adds, voice even, "that's not something you can afford to lose hold of in the middle of a room full of predators."
He doesn't respond.
Doesn't need to.
She studies him for another second, then leans back slightly, giving him space without disengaging entirely.
The fire crackles.
The house remains still.
And somewhere beneath the weight of memory and anger—
Something watches.
Waiting.
The fire has burned to ash.
The bottle beside the chair sits half-empty.
The house is silent in a way that feels heavier than any noise.
Gaston shifts slightly, letting the ache in his shoulders settle into the floorboards beneath him. Even in this quiet, he can almost hear the faint echo of little footsteps racing across the hall, the soft scuff of tiny shoes against wood, the excited squeal of a laugh cut short too soon.
Somewhere in the recesses of his mind, the images of their faces flash in fragments: Gabriela's braids, Aurelia's crooked smile, the way they'd tangle themselves in the folds of his coat when the wind was sharp and bitter outside.
The memory doesn't soften the rage—it sharpens it, makes the weight behind his ribs hum with need.
The little things. The noises. The promises lost.
A subtle shift catches the corner of his eye. Dashiel is already moving. Her robe brushes the floor quietly as she crosses to the desk by the window. She's found some parchment, picked up a stylus, and begins drawing with the precise focus of someone who could be cataloging the stars. Lines form walls, corridors, junctions—details that only someone who remembers every shadow and doorway could reproduce.
Gaston leans back in the chair, letting the quiet of the room wrap around him. The faint morning light filtering through the heavy drapes throws long rectangles across the floor, falling over scattered ash and the remnants of last night's fire. Somewhere beyond the house, the wind shifts in the trees, scratching at the window frame. He doesn't flinch. Not yet.
Dashiel's voice cuts through the stillness. Neutral, measured, but carrying that same precision that always makes him listen:
"Good morning. I've mapped what I remember of the Conservatory's donor gallery level and the adjacent service corridor. The two-minute window occurs here—" She points to a junction on the sketch. "—when the tour group transitions from the 'Historical Arcana' exhibit to the 'Modern Innovations' wing. There's a bottleneck at a decorative archway. Guards are stationed at both ends but their sightlines cross in the middle, creating a blind spot for approximately one hundred and twenty seconds if one is standing in precisely the right place."
She sets down the stylus, eyes meeting his for the briefest moment.
"I need you to look at this. Then we need to decide how you'll occupy your time during those two minutes while I'm gone, and what your cover story will be when I return."
Gaston doesn't answer immediately. He studies the sketch, tracing the route with a finger, imagining the flow of footsteps, the crossing of sightlines, the weight of a hundred and twenty seconds stretched impossibly thin. He thinks of the room he left behind—the beds, the dolls, the drawings—and the lives that were stolen, the precision with which the world allowed them to vanish. That same precision now extends into every line Dashiel has drawn.
The ache in his shoulders is joined by the familiar tightness in his jaw, that deep pressure that always comes before action. His gaze drifts to the window, to the faint glow of morning over the treetops, the mist curling in the yard like it's waiting for him too. And somewhere, beneath memory and anger and cold calculation, something watches. Always.
He exhales, slow and deliberate.
One hundred and twenty seconds.
One chance.
And he will not fail.
One mistake and it all ends.
Outside, the wind shifts again, rattling the glass slightly.