The glass cylinder rested against the flesh of Lieve’s palm, slick with sweat. In the Grand Atrium, rain beat an erratic tattoo against the vaulted skylights, competing with the hum of diamond-draped conversation and the bidding caller’s brass bell. “Lot fourteen,” the caller cried out, his voice sharp beneath the crystal domes. “The Sunken Star. Recovered from the pre-submersion vaults of the Drowned Quarter. Flawless deep-sea sapphire, sixty-two carats, set in platinum mesh.” Tazio lounged beside her on the velvet settee, a crystal coupe of dry vermouth balanced between long knuckles. He looked bored, the slouch of his shoulders radiating lazy disregard, but his left knee rested firmly against hers through her silk gown. Every time an heir or diplomat cast a lingering glance at Lieve’s bare collarbones, Tazio’s thumb stroked the ridge of her knuckle with a deliberate, territorial pressure. “You are pale, my dove,” Tazio murmured. His breath brushed her temple, carrying notes of juniper and bitter almond. “Is the perfume in this pit suffocating you, or is my aunt staring too hard again?” “The room is warm,” Lieve managed, her hand tightening around the vial hidden in her lace-trimmed reticule. Her stomach twisted into knots. Maresco’s instructions rang in her ears: *Slip this into his evening drink.* Nio’s breath had rattled in his chest this morning. The blue tint under her brother’s fingernails was darkening. “Warm?” Tazio turned his head. The lazy playboy facade thinned, exposing the fierce, watchful dark beneath his lashes. “No. You’re shaking.” Across the mezzanine, Count Orsini—a sleek predator with half his shipping lines swallowed by the southern floods—raised his paddle. “Four hundred thousand florins.” A ripple of murmurs cut through the chamber. Lady Cresta, perched two tables away in iron-gray lace, smiled thinly at Lieve. The expression was pure venom: *You do not belong here, scavenger girl.* “Four hundred and fifty,” someone countered from the private balconies. “Five hundred thousand,” Orsini snapped back, glancing straight at Lieve. He raised his glass to her, a smirking, brazen invitation that measured her worth as mere decoration on a Cresta arm. Tazio didn’t look at Orsini. He didn’t look at the stage. His dark eyes remained fixed entirely on Lieve, reading the tension in the set of her shoulders, misinterpreting her frozen silence as humiliation under the aristocracy’s sneers. “Let them look,” Tazio muttered, his tone dropping from performative levity into something low, rough, and frighteningly absolute. “Let them choke on it.” He raised his carved ivory paddle without breaking eye contact with her. “One million florins,” Tazio announced. The Atrium died into absolute silence. Even the downpour drumming against the glass roof seemed to mute itself. The auctioneer froze, gavel suspended midway through a descending arc. Lady Cresta stood halfway out of her chair, her pearls clattering against her bodice. “Tazio! Are you mad? That is naval reserve capital—” “One million,” Tazio repeated. He didn't blink. He leaned closer to Lieve, his hand sliding behind her neck, fingers sliding into her pinned hair, anchoring her to him in front of four hundred pairs of eyes. His grip was not gentle; it was fierce, frantic, an open declaration of ownership that made the air thin in her lungs. “Sell it to me, or I will buy the entire hall and burn the necklace on the pier.” “Sold,” the caller choked out, slamming the gavel down. “To the Cresta heir.” Tazio ignored the eruption of mutters, the venomous glares, the scandalous gasps. He leaned down until his lips brushed Lieve’s ear. “Nothing in this city touches you unless I permit it, Lieve. You think they can make you small? I will buy every stone beneath their feet before I let them look down on you.” A raw ache lodged in her throat. He was a fool. A reckless, brutal fool who mistook her treason for fragile pride. If he knew what she carried in her palm—if he knew who held her leash— “Excuse me,” she breathed, pulling back from his touch. Her skin burned where his touch had rested. “Lieve—” “I need air. The powder room.” She turned on her heel and pushed past the sea of silk and wool. In the shadowed corridor behind the mezzanine, away from the glittering chandelier reflections, she ducked behind a marble alcove housing an enormous potted fern, imported from the high mainland. Her hands shook without pause. She pulled out the small glass vial. The oily, iridescent toxin Maresco had given her swirled in the dim sconce light. *Incapacitate him. Save Nio.* *I will buy every stone beneath their feet before I let them look down on you.* “Idiot,” she choked out under her breath, rage and terror tangling in her chest. “Vain, ruinous idiot.” She uncorked the stopper with a trembling thumb and dumped the shimmering fluid deep into the black soil beneath the fern. The chemical hissed faintly against the damp peat, vanishing into the roots. She shoved the empty glass into the lining of her sleeve and stepped into the private gallery restroom, leaning heavily against the porcelain basin to run cold tap water over her wrists. She reached into her bodice and tapped the miniature brass comms disc tucked into her corset—the line connected to Nio’s room in the estate’s lower wing. “Nio?” she spoke softly, voice hushed. “Are you resting? Did the maid bring the boiled water?” Static crackled, followed by her brother’s thin, wheezing voice. “Lieve… yes. I’m fine. But the pain in my ribs… it’s spreading.” “Hold on,” she pleaded, pressing the brass disc harder against her skin. “Just hold on a little longer. The engagement contract clears the first transfer by midnight tomorrow. Once we have the money, we leave. It’s all a performance, Nio. Tazio doesn’t know. No one knows. We take the Cresta funds and we disappear across the bay. Just breathe for me. Please.” “A performance, is it?” A harsh click broke the silence. Lieve whipped around, snapping the comm off. Lady Cresta stood in the arched doorway of the powder room, her satin reticule clutched in claw-like hands, her face twisted in triumphant malice. “A fake engagement,” Lady Cresta sneered, stepping inside and letting the heavy oak door swing shut behind her. “A gutter rat swindling a million-florin family legacy with forged affection. I knew the boy was an utter degenerate, but to let a gutter-born leech siphon our naval treasury for her dying runt?” Lieve stood perfectly still, her spine locking into iron. “You misunderstand, Lady Cresta.” “I heard every syllable from that contraption,” the older woman spat, her lip curling. “The Board of Elders is seated in the east gallery right now. When I show them this—when I tell the patriarch that Tazio spent a fortune on a common fraud—you will be thrown into the deep canals in chains, and your miserable brother will be tossed onto the docks to rot before sunrise.” Lady Cresta reached for the brass door handle to turn back toward the gala. “Stop,” Lieve said, taking a step forward, calculations flashing behind her eyes—leverage, threats, violence, anything to keep the woman silent. Before Lady Cresta could pull the door open, a sudden commotion erupted outside in the main foyer. Shouts cut through the orchestra’s waltz. A woman screamed. Glass shattered against marble with a hollow, ringing crash. Lady Cresta frowned, hesitating, and yanked the door open. Lieve surged past her into the grand corridor, cold sweat beading along her temples as dread gripped her. A crowd of aristocrats had parted into a wide, horrified circle at the threshold of the Grand Atrium’s gilded entrance doors. Tazio was already there, dropping to his knees, heedless of the fine velvet trousers soaking up dirty runoff from the rain-swept entrance. In the center of the marble floor lay Nio. The boy was drenched, his thin clothes plastered to his frail frame. His skin was the color of curdled milk, his chest heaving in violent, agonizing spasms. With every ragged gasp, a foul, viscous black liquid tore from his throat, spilling across his lips and pooling over the pristine white floor—the toxic runoff of the flooded districts leaking from his very lungs.