The question hung in the air, heavy as wet wool, but Neva had already arranged the vacuous tilt of her chin. She parted her lips to deliver some sunny nonsense about mimicking pictures in discarded periodicals, when the south bay window exploded.
The reinforced leaded pane detonated inward with a crack like artillery.
Kestian moved before the first diamond of glass touched the rug. His coat swept outward; one heavy arm hooked Neva by the waist, dragging her down into the hollow beneath the walnut sideboard while his other arm scooped Barnaby against his ribs. He turned his back to the spray. The dull thud of a paving stone hitting plaster rattled the wainscoting, followed by the hiss of iron shearing down stone.
Dastran Manor’s pneumatic shutters slammed shut in rapid sequence—*thump-thump-thump*—plunging the parlor into pitch darkness, save for the emergency gas sconces sputtering to life with a sulfurous hiss.
Barnaby whimpered into Kestian's lapel. Neva sat on the floorboards, her knees tucked against the master's woolen vest, the heat of his chest radiating through her linen apron. He did not let go for three long seconds. When he finally shifted, his breath scraped rough against the roof of his mouth.
"Stay down," he rasped.
"You're bleeding," Neva said. The breathy, foolish cadence of her maid persona was completely gone. Her voice was flat, brisk, and dangerously steady.
A jagged spear of leaded crystal protruded through the heavy tweed of his forearm, dark red already pooling down the cuff toward his bare knuckles.
Kestian glanced at it as though it belonged to someone else. "Pneumatic seals hold for sixty minutes minimum. The perimeter steam-alarms are chiming. The pantry passage is on the reinforced interior spine. Get moving."
He tried to haul himself up, but his palms slipped against the parquet floor. Neva wasted no time asking permission. She caught him under his uninjured shoulder, taking half his weight with a wiry, desperate strength born of months hauling iron stockpots. The terrier trotted at their heels, tail tucked low, claws clicking on flagstones as she navigated the narrow servant corridor leading down to the manor’s stone belly.
The wash pantry smelled of lye soap, dried rosemary, and cool damp granite. Here, no windows connected to the smog-choked streets of Oakhaven. Only three-foot blocks of granite and a cast-iron stove.
She shoved him onto a low wooden bench beside the wash basins. "Sit. Keep your arm elevated."
"It is a scratch, Neva. I need to inspect the outer perimeter gates—"
"You will pass out from blood loss before you reach the front vestibule if that artery is nicked, Master Dastran. Sit still."
She grabbed clean white flour-sacking, shears, and a kettle of boiled water from the warming plate. Her hands moved with ruthless efficiency. With two quick snips, she slit his sleeve up to the elbow. Pale skin, scarred by older, faded burns, lay bared beneath her hands.
She gripped the glass shard. "Look at the wall."
He refused to look at the wall. He looked directly at her face—her dirt-smudged nose, the determined set of her mouth, the sharp, intelligent fire burning in her hazel eyes that made mockery of every simpering curtsy she had ever given him.
Neva pulled the glass out in one swift, clean motion.
Kestian hissed through his teeth, the muscles along his neck locking tight, but he made no sound. Neva pressed folded linen directly against the wound. Her thumb clamped down hard to stem the spurting flow. She poured carbolic wash over the edges, uncaring of how it burned him, then wrapped the linen with tight, interlocking turns that mirrored an aristocratic field medic’s splinting technique.
His breath rattled, rough and raw in the quiet room. His free hand reached out, hovering, before his blunt knuckles closed around the hem of her apron. He never pulled. He just held the rough cloth, as if anchoring himself against a current.
"You shouldn't have brought me down here," he murmured, his voice hollowed out, stripped of its aristocratic bite. "You should have let the glass take what it wanted."
"Do not talk nonsense," she replied softly, pinning the bandage with a steel clasp. "A stray brick from street rabble is no reason to abandon your wits."
"It wasn't rabble." Kestian looked down at his boots, his broad shoulders curling inward under old guilt. "It's the toll. The price due. A girl was crushed under two tons of carriage steel because my steam-brake failed on the viaduct. Her father wants flesh. He should have it. I ruined her life before it began. Every stone they throw at this house... I deserve it."
The raw misery in his voice sliced deeper than any shard of glass. Neva’s hands paused on his forearm. For months, she had told herself she was just playing a role, that this sullen, reclusive lord was merely an obstacle between her and survival. But feeling the tremor running through his massive frame, watching him invite his own destruction out of sheer, suffocating remorse, she felt something tight crack behind her ribs.
She leaned in, her voice low, dropping every pretense of being an uneducated kitchen girl. "No one deserves to be hunted in the dark, Kestian. Least of all by cowards who throw stones through parlor glass."
He lifted his head, dark pupils dilating, catching her slip—she had used his given name without title or deference. He offered no correction. Instead, his palm slid up from the apron, brushing the calluses on her skin with an aching, fragile hesitation.
A soft tap at the service hatch broke the stillness.
The terrier gave a single muffled woof. Neva stepped back, the mask snapping back over her features, though the air between them still hummed with friction. She cracked the hatch open.
Bria was squeezed into the laundry chute alcove, her round face pale beneath streaks of coal dust. She held a damp bundle of rags.
"Neva," Bria whispered urgently, looking past her to Kestian on the bench. "The street boys outside—my dead-drop courier caught the chatter before the sector bells went off. It’s Oryn Vespera’s crew. He sold off his last dry-dock shares to buy industrial munitions. He isn't looking for a settlement. He's looking to put Master Dastran in an iron box."
Kestian stood up from the bench, swaying slightly, his face hardening back into cold stone. "Tell the courier to stay clear. Vespera is my business."
"There's more, sir," Bria said, her voice trembling as she held out a heavy, sooty object wrapped in soiled silk. "The brick bounced down into the chute when the parlor casement shattered. The cook yelled for someone to douse it, thinking it was incendiary. It wasn't an explosive. It was a message."
Neva took the heavy package. A thick black silk ribbon bound the paving stone.
Kestian stepped up behind her, his hand resting on the small of her back—an unthinking, protective gesture as the room held its chill. "Let me see it."
Neva turned the stone over, unraveling the black silk. The fabric fell away, revealing an embossed wax seal stamped directly into the core of the binding tape to keep the message secure against the impact.
Neva stared down at the imprint, her pulse stalling.
Pressed deep into the crimson wax was not the crest of Oryn Vespera, nor the sigil of any lower-district union. It was an ivy vine coiled around a broken silver scalpel—the ancestral, private signet of House Relladon.
Someone was waging a blood vendetta against Kestian, and they were using the ghost of her ruined family to sign the death warrant.