Court is adjourned.

  The marble still holds the echo of my last words, but their weight is already bleeding into the stone. Nobles begin to scatter,some fleeing scandal with stiff smiles and hurried steps, others lingering like carrion birds, whispering over half-drained goblets, circling opportunity like blood in the water.

  I don’t linger.

  The moment I step through the private arch behind the dais, the air changes. Cooler. Dimmer. Quiet. Afternoon light slants through tall arched windows, laying golden bars across the polished stone. For the first time since sunrise, I let myself exhale.

  Mid-stride, I shrug off the formal coat. The velvet catches at one shoulder before sliding free. I catch it by the collar and hand it off to the first footman I see.

  “Tell Valcroft,” I say, my voice low but firm, “no staff are to travel alone after the evening bell. Not one. Double the sentries on every door. Exterior and interior.”

  “Yes, my Lord,” the footman answers with a quick bow and turns on his heel.

  I keep walking.

  “Send word to Watchmaster Garin. Patrols in the dock wards are to increase immediately. I want presence near the silos, the dry docks, the old grain lifts—anyplace with river access. If the Bastien Trade Consortium is moving goods through Falkensgrave, I want eyes on them before moonrise.”

  Another servant peels away at the next turn, boots echoing down the side hall.

  I reach up and unfasten the top button of my collar. It gives with a quiet snap. I hadn’t realized how tight it had been until the pressure eases—like steam bleeding off a boiler.

  “Pull someone from the Watch,” I add as I turn down the eastern hall. “Not a blunt instrument. Someone subtle. Smart. I want Bastien Trading cracked open. Every ledger. Every shipment. I want couriers, names, charter routes. And if even a single line traces back to House Verdane, I want it on my desk.”

  “Understood.”

  Isla says nothing.

  She walks one step behind me, the way she always does when the ground has shifted—quiet, coiled, ready. A constant shadow.

  It isn’t until we near the staff wing that I stop and face her.

  “Verdane wouldn’t leave this to chance,” I tell her. “There’s someone in the city. Find them.”

  She doesn’t blink. But I see it, the hesitation. Barely a twitch. The pause of someone already doing the math.

  “And when you leave the estate?” she asks.

  “I won’t,” I say. “Not until you return.”

  She studies me for a beat too long, reading my eyes for lies. For tactics. For sacrifice.

  She finds none.

  I head down the narrow stairwell tucked behind the linen closets. Stone gives way to brick. Velvet quiet becomes the clatter of distant pans and faint laughter. The scent changes too, wood polish replaced by boiling stock, hot bread, roasted onion, soap. Real air. The kind that clings to skin and memory.

  The staff mess hall hums in a kind of in-between quiet, the calm breath held between lunch and dinner. Tables half-cleared. A few scullery boys still wiping surfaces. Chairs askew. The smells are warm and real—bread crusts, wood soap, and boiled potatoes clinging to the walls.

  In the kitchen beyond, I catch a glimpse of Lena. Sleeves rolled to her elbows, hair pinned up with what looks like a carved fork, bent over a pot large enough to drown in. Elbow-deep in suds and steam. The estate’s heartbeat.

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  Then—

  A blur of motion.

  “Ahem!”

  Clara.

  She darts out from behind a bench like a herald springing from a trapdoor. Her shoes scuff against the floor, arms flailing as she skids to a stop and plants herself directly in my path. Back straight. Chin up. Expression carved from the finest marble. Or at least, the most determined five-year-old imitation of it.

  “Good afternoon, honored sir,” she says, pitch too high, vowels too crisp. She’s clearly channeling the upper butler—either Hensley or poor, long-suffering Audric. “What might His Excellency the Heir of Larkin like to dine upon this most glorious day?”

  I pause. Let the silence sit, thick and warm as soup, while the fatigue of the last hours drags at my ribs and hunger gnaws at the edge of my patience.

  Clara holds her pose. Arms behind her back. Nose tilted slightly too far into the air.

  Then her mouth twitches.

  Just a hint.

  A beat later she breaks, dissolving into giggles as she bounces on her toes. “I can make you toast!” she says brightly. “Or apple slices! Or, or—a sandwich! A really fancy sandwich!”

  “I’ll take the fanciest sandwich ever assembled by a five-year-old,” I say, dry as parchment, making my way toward one of the long benches.

  She throws a salute like she’s about to march into war. “Right away, big brother!”

  She freezes mid-step. Spins back with exaggerated horror.

  “Sorry—I mean, Sir Big Brother—wait—uh—Lord High Marshal Sandwich Commander!”

  She cackles and vanishes into the kitchen.

  I sit. The bench creaks. My spine protests.

  Across the table, Isla made to turn toward the door, already preparing to slip away and vanish into the undercurrent of Falkensgrave.

  “Sit,” I say.

  She pauses, brow raised. “You said time matters.”

  “It does. So does functioning. Food, Isla. Ten minutes. Then vanish.”

  She slides into the seat across from me, too graceful for someone so irritated. But she doesn’t argue.

  The mess hall air is warm, alive with movement in the next room. Someone’s humming off-key. Metal clatters in rhythm. It smells like someone’s already started the bread for dinner.

  Then Clara returns, tiny hands carefully balancing a plate.

  She sets it down with ceremony, puffing out her chest. “Your lunch, my lord. May it bring you strength and honor on the battlefield.”

  I glance at the sandwich—thick slices of bread stuffed with ham, cheese, pickles, and a worrying amount of something green.

  “Perfect,” I say.

  She beams. And for just a second, everything else—treason, power plays, the cold coil of Verdane's shadow—fades.

  Clara hops onto the bench beside me, climbing like it’s a castle wall. Her feet swing under the table. She watches me eat like she’s waiting for the stars to align.

  I take a bite.

  She leans in. “Well?”

  I chew. Slowly. Grimly.

  “It’s…” I pause, adopting the ponderous tone of a council verdict, “…very green.”

  She gasps. “Too many peas?”

  “No,” I say, swallowing. “Just enough to count as a vegetable. Solid structural integrity.”

  Isla raises a brow. “That’s your bar now? Structure?”

  “It’s a high bar.”

  Clara giggles, taking it as absolute praise. “I almost used jam instead of mustard. But then I thought, ‘No, the High Marshal of Sandwiches would never allow that.’”

  I glance sideways at her. “You have a strong grasp of military logistics.”

  “I’m very mature,” she declares, just before picking up a spoon and trying to balance it on her nose.

  Isla actually snorts. I give her a look. She doesn’t even pretend to be sorry.

  Clara sets the spoon down. “Are you going somewhere?” she asks suddenly. Her eyes flick between me and Isla. “You both look like you’re going somewhere.”

  Isla freezes mid-bite. I keep my voice light.

  “No. Not today.”

  Clara narrows her eyes, suspicious. “You only say that when you’re definitely about to do something dangerous.”

  “And you only catch that because you’ve been lurking outside doors again.”

  “I was helping clean,” she insists, puffing up.

  “You were lurking.”

  She grins. No shame at all.

  I reach over and ruffle her hair. “I’m not going anywhere. Not until it’s safe.”

  She doesn’t reply at first. Then she slips down from the bench and pads around to my side, resting one small hand on my arm.

  “Okay,” she says softly. “But if you do go, will you write everything down so I can pretend I’m in charge?”

  I glance at her. “You want to be in charge?”

  She gives me a look like I’ve just asked whether water is wet.

  “I already have a title,” she says, serious. “Lord High Marshal Sandwich Commander.”

  I laugh. I can’t help it.

  Across the table, Isla hides a smile behind her cup.

  Clara spins and marches back toward the kitchen, announcing as she goes, “I’m making the Royal Treaty of Toast and Jelly. No one touch the jam!”

  I lean back against the wall, letting the heat from the kitchen settle around my bones. The noise. The clatter. The childlike absurdity. It’s all still here.

  For now.

  Isla breaks the moment.

  “She’s good for you,” she says.

  “I know.”

  “She grounds you.”

  “I know that too.”

  “Which means if something happens to her—”

  I look at her. Not a glance. A weight.

  “Nothing will.”

  It isn’t a promise. It’s an absolute.

  She nods. Finishes the last of her food. Stands.

  “I’ll be back in two days,” she says. “Three, if they buried it deep. I’ll leave through the north wall, after dusk.”

  “If anything feels wrong—”

  “I vanish,” she says. “I always do.”

  She turns and slips away, already disappearing into the estate like mist.

  Behind me, a pot clangs.

  Clara’s voice echoes: “No! That’s not the treaty bread!”