So when I stood there, expression neutral and my pulse steady, it wasn’t because I fancied martyrdom — well, not that I’d never love to die just to be done with the suffering.

But rather, it was because all the vectors weighed to favor me—failure, exposure, the loss of Selene, the loss of leverage—had already been measured, evaluated and assessed.

I chose the path that minimized systemic damage, not because it was noble, but because it was necessary.

I picked this out because I wanted the most efficient path.

The one that promised me results...

Not some kind of stupid miracle people cling to.

Selene tensed behind me, grief already drafting its epitaphs into the air. The urge to shield her was audible in the pitch of her thoughts. Predictable. Useful. Distracting.

Valeria’s voice filled the corridor with performative surprise.

"My my, what a surprise.""It turns out someone has been lurking! How fascinating!"

Her performance was neat: practiced vocal inflection, a smile curated for cameras, surprise calibrated to solicit confession. Lies are readable if you know which muscles betray them. She smiled with the mouth; the rest of her did not agree.

Two predators, then: one wearing charm like armor, the other wearing indifference like a scalpel.

"Kairi.""Elysia.""Veylith."

Names cast like nets. I let them fall. I allowed the tiny, habitual upturn of my mouth—an almost imperceptible curl, not a smile—for the pleasure of watching a predator read its prey and find a trap instead.

Valeria’s smile died in place. Her eyes darted; a fissure ran through the composure she’d been rehearsing.

"I know who you are," she said.

Of course she thought she did. Her map of the world had been thorough—until someone else redrew the borders.

"Me too," I answered, quietly.

The reaction was physical and immediate. Her posture hitching, blood leaving the face, the slight recalibration of grip on the staff: the body’s arithmetic of surprise before the mind catches up. It was the sound of a practiced liar encountering unassailable evidence.

Selene’s bewilderment hummed at the periphery of my attention. She was searching for the explanation in the wrong shelf: motive, theatrics, pity. Her confusion wasn’t useful to me in the moment; it was merely human, and therefore clutter.

Valeria tried to reclaim control—mask back in place, tone sharpened into condescension.

"Well, well, well... what does this little fourteen-year-old girl know about me at all?" Her hand trembled; she tried to hide it by wrapping the fingers more tightly around the staff. Tiny tremors are terrible for performers.

I answered the way one supplies a diagnosis: precisely, coldly, with a cadence that made the words land like measured blows.

"One little n*gg*r left all alone; He went and hanged himself and then there were none."

Silence. The air contracted.

Selene blinked, lost; the phrase had neither context nor comfort for her. She reached for meaning the way a drowning person claws for a handhold. She couldn’t find one.

Valeria’s composure failed catastrophically. Not a fissure this time, but a collapse: the practiced mask cracked into shards, and panic poured through in a thin, animal sound. Her staff skittered against stone.

"You are kidding, aren’t ya?"

Valeria whispered it like a prayer she didn’t believe in. T

The cold fury drained from her expression, replaced by something far less dignified—panic wrapped in the brittle shell of composure. Her staff slipped in her grip and tapped against the stone floor, once. An involuntary tell.

No. I don’t kid.

I watched the realization hollow her out in stages. First disbelief, then recognition, then the slow collapse of whatever internal narrative had been holding her upright. Whatever I had invoked wasn’t merely shared history. It was structural. A truth heavy enough to fracture the scaffolding she’d built herself upon.

Selene froze behind me. I felt it without looking—the hitch in her breathing, the way her thoughts scrambled for context. Confusion radiated off her in sharp, unfocused spikes. She was trying to decode the quotation, the reaction, the sudden imbalance in the room. She wouldn’t get there yet. That was fine.

The silence stretched. Not empty—compressed. Pressure building, coil by coil.

Valeria took a half-step back. Her eyes flicked, not toward me, but toward the shadows, the walls, the air itself—as if only now realizing the space was no longer neutral. Predators notice environments when the script breaks.

"How..." Her voice scraped raw against her throat. "How could you...?"

I stepped forward.

It was a small movement. Measured. Almost casual. But it was enough. Her pupils tightened. Dominance doesn’t require force—only certainty.

She stood there, watching her secrets destabilize in real time, expression caught between outrage and grief. People rarely recognize the moment they lose authorship over themselves. Valeria did. That made it worse for her.

I raised my hand.

Even now, the proportion sometimes amused me—small fingers, unremarkable palm. Innocent, if one didn’t know better. Experience weighs more than size ever could.

I pointed directly at her.

"And just now," I said evenly, "you were asking me that question?"

My voice didn’t rise. It didn’t need to.

"To be fair, Miss Christie, that should have been mine." 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

Her name landed cleanly. Precisely. No ornamentation.

"The fact that you imitated my voice. My demeanor. My patterns." I let each word settle before continuing. "All to deceive Selene—out of every possible magician you could have chosen."

A pause. Deliberate. Surgical.

"Don’t you think that demands an equal payment?"

Behind me, Selene stiffened. I didn’t need to turn to know what that realization felt like to her—the delayed comprehension, the humiliation sharpening into something hotter. She had been targeted. Studied. Used. And she had missed it.

That wasn’t my concern right now.

Valeria’s reaction was.

Her breathing faltered. Not fear alone—calculation failing mid-process. She was trying to anticipate consequences without a working model of the board anymore.

The quote had done its job.

And she still hadn’t answered my question.

Selene was spiraling.

I could feel it without turning around—the restless mental friction, the way her attention snagged on irrelevant fragments instead of the structure in front of her. She always did this when confronted with something that violated her internal narrative. She tried to explain before she tried to understand.

Her confusion radiated outward like static.