The next days passed with the deceptive smoothness of a palace pretending nothing had teeth.

House Vale remained under investigation. Their name sat in the public feed like a body nobody had covered yet, and every noble house connected to them suddenly discovered urgent reasons to issue statements about transparency, loyalty, and full cooperation with imperial authorities.

Andrea was moved on the third morning.

Not to prison.

That would have been too simple.

He was transferred to a diplomatic residence on the edge of the eastern compound, a pleasant modern house with pale stone walls, reinforced windows, a private garden, medical staff, and enough hidden security to make the place less a refuge and more a beautifully furnished cage. Officially, he was being allowed to rest after the strain of the investigation and medical distress.

Unofficially, Arion had put him somewhere safe.

For himself and for everyone around him.

Dean read the report over breakfast and lifted one eyebrow. "Rest?"

Arion, seated across from him, did not look up from his tablet. "That is the polite word."

"The impolite word?"

"Containment."

Dean took a slow sip of coffee. "Better."

Arion was not stupid enough to believe Andrea had learned remorse. Andrea had learned fear. Humiliation. Perhaps caution. Those were not the same thing. A man like Andrea did not suffer consequences and emerge wiser; he emerged more careful. More elegant in his poison. More committed to proving that the wound done to him had been undeserved.

So Arion had given him a secretary.

A familiar one.

Someone Andrea had known for years. Someone from court. Someone quiet, efficient, unthreatening, and harmless enough in appearance that Andrea would not immediately bare his teeth.

At least, that was the theory.

Dean looked up when Arion mentioned the name and stared.

"You planted Soren with him?"

Arion’s mouth curved faintly. "Andrea trusts Soren."

"And you trust Soren?"

"No."

Dean blinked.

"I trust Soren to want survival more than Andrea’s approval," Arion said. "And I trust the three people watching Soren."

Dean stared at him for another second, then nodded. "That is more reasonable."

"I am patient when it comes to revenge."

"That sentence is very attractive and deeply concerning."

"Both can be true."

Dean pointed his fork at him. "Do not use my logic on me."

Arion finally looked up, eyes warm with the kind of affection that still made Dean feel both exposed and smug. "Your logic is useful."

"My logic is copyrighted."

"By whom?"

"Me."

"I will compensate you."

Dean narrowed his eyes. "In suits?"

Arion paused.

A mistake.

Dean smiled slowly. "Excellent. We understand each other."

While Andrea rested inside a diplomatic cage, Thomas Lancaster left Alamina for Rohan with a private military file, a full written confession, and the doomed dignity of a man who had decided to walk into his own consequences before anyone could drag him there.

He had informed Arion first.

Then Dean.

Then, for some reason Dean still considered suspicious, Sylvia.

Sylvia had received the news with a smile that was too bright, a nod that was too quick, and enough emotional steadiness to fool absolutely no one.

Dean noticed on the second day.

By the fourth, it became impossible to ignore.

Sylvia arrived in the Crown Prince’s private garden carrying a box of pastries, wearing sunglasses despite the sky being overcast, and pretending very hard that she had not checked her phone three times before reaching the table.

Dean watched her.

Sylvia sat down across from him. "What?"

Dean raised one brow.

Sylvia froze. "No."

"I didn’t say anything."

"You raised a brow."

"It moved on its own."

"Liar."

Arion, seated beside Dean with Boreas pressed against his chair, did not intervene.

Coward.

Dean leaned back. "Thomas?"

Sylvia immediately opened the pastry box. "Éclair?"

Dean’s brow rose higher.

Sylvia looked at Arion. "Control him."

Arion took a sip of coffee. "No."

"You are both terrible."

Dean smiled. "You fell for him."

Sylvia stared at him in betrayed silence.

Then she looked down at the pastries as if they had personally failed her. "I did not fall. I experienced a brief gravitational incident."

"That is falling."

"It was emotional physics."

"It was Thomas."

Sylvia picked up an éclair and pointed it at him. "He is seven feet tall and tragic. That is not my fault."

Dean’s mouth twitched. "He is also calm, honorable, handsome when laughing, and currently facing his mother and queen because he decided to stop hiding someone else’s failure."

Sylvia’s face softened before she could stop it.

Dean saw.

Arion saw.

Even Boreas, who knew nothing about romance beyond opening doors for disasters, seemed to see.

Sylvia slowly lowered the éclair. "He looked relieved when he laughed."

Dean’s teasing eased.

"Yes," he said. "He did."

"I don’t like that."

"That he laughed?"

"That I wanted him to keep doing it."

Dean said nothing.

Sylvia sighed, leaned back, and removed her sunglasses with the grave dignity of a woman surrendering evidence. "Fine. Maybe I like him."

"Maybe?"

Sylvia lifted her chin with exhausted dignity. "I am allowing myself legal ambiguity."

Arion’s mouth curved faintly. "Wise."

Sylvia immediately turned on him. "You are not invited into this discussion."

"You are in my palace and my empire," Arion replied lazily, stretching his long legs beneath the garden table before calmly reaching over and stealing part of Sylvia’s éclair just to prove his point.

Sylvia stared at him in betrayal. "That was mine."

"You hesitated. Ownership dissolved."

"You are a tyrant."

"I am Crown Prince. There is overlap."

Dean snorted quietly into his coffee.

Arion ate the stolen piece with complete composure, then looked at Sylvia again. "What I recommend is that you keep in mind this might end in tragedy."

Dean choked slightly.

Sylvia nearly dropped the remaining half of her éclair. "What?"

Both of them stared at Arion with open horror.

Arion looked faintly offended by the reaction. "Before either of you decides I am predicting death, I was referring to a breakup."

Dean pressed a hand to his chest. "You cannot say things like that with your face remaining that calm."

"You are dramatic."

"You implied doom."

"I implied statistics."

Sylvia looked genuinely alarmed now. "Arion."

Arion’s expression stayed measured, though the edge of amusement in his eyes softened the cruelty of the words slightly. "Sylvia is a beta. Thomas requires a dominant omega for long-term stabilization. That reality does not disappear because the two of you find each other attractive while emotionally compromised."

The garden quieted.

Sylvia looked down at the table for a moment, fingers tightening faintly around the napkin in her lap.

Dean immediately frowned at Arion. "You could have phrased that less like a physician announcing a terminal diagnosis."

"It is a relevant concern."

"Yes, but you sounded like you were informing her Thomas has six months left to live."

Arion considered that. "That would have been worse."

Dean stared at him. "You are impossible."

"Frequently."

Sylvia exhaled slowly, then rubbed one hand over her face before looking back up. "I know."