This time, he made it farther than before. The sound of his hurried steps echoed down the hallway, quick and frantic, but it ended as all such things did—with Ember slamming him against the wall, her shoulder driving into his side like a battering ram.

The papers he’d hastily snatched up scattered like dry leaves, fluttering to the floor, but Ember didn’t spare them a glance. Her hands were already on him, dragging him to the ground in a tangle of limbs and frustration.

“Do I need to tie you up like a wild dog just to get you to sit still?” she growled, her breath hot against his ear.

“Has…” he wheezed, a pained smile still clinging to his lips, “anyone ever mentioned…you’ve got a terrifying temper, Lady Dreakart?”

“I’m sure plenty of people have,” she said, her grip unyielding. “When they find themselves in your company.”

But her gaze wasn’t on him for long. Her eyes darted down the hallway, her body tensing as she listened. A faint creak of wood. The distant hush of footsteps. Someone else in the estate had stirred.

They had been too loud, and now, the house wasn’t entirely asleep anymore.

Her grip tightened as the implications settled over her. It wasn’t fear, not exactly. She hadn’t done anything wrong. Penta had. But being caught like this—now—felt like it would ruin something delicate, something she hadn’t fully grasped but instinctively knew mattered.

Without a word, she snatched up the scattered papers, cramming them into Penta’s arms before hauling him into the nearest room. His protests were muffled as she shoved him inside, her hand clamping over his mouth the moment the door clicked shut behind them.

She pressed him back against the wood, holding him there, her palm firm against his lips as her own chest rose and fell, her breath loud in her ears. She strained to hear past the racing of her heart.

No one. No one is coming.

Still, she stayed frozen a moment longer, her body tense with the need to be certain.

Penta’s wide, alarmed eyes stared back at her. His hands twitched, the crumpled papers held against his chest. Slowly, she let him go, her hand sliding away from his mouth. He crumpled to the floor like a marionette with its strings cut, gasping for air.

“I…” he rasped, his voice still touched with his usual irreverence despite the situation, “I realize I’ve been joking a lot tonight, but if someone were to see this from outside, I really would look like the victim here. A poor, defenseless mouse caught in the claws of an overly zealous, sadistic cat.”

“I’m glad you realize,” Ember said, crouching beside him, her voice low, ears still straining for sounds beyond the door. The house had settled again, the faint stirrings of the night fading back into the stillness of sleep. Whoever had briefly awoken had returned to the embrace of dreams.

Still, she kept her voice quiet, her words heavy with meaning. “You are a mouse. A foolish one. And you’ve found yourself very much caught in my hands. I decide your fate. And even if you managed to slip away for a moment, you wouldn’t escape this estate. Trust me, I’ve tried.”

Penta coughed, shaking his head weakly. “Is that so? Well, I—” His next words felt short beneath a pained wince, and he touched his shoulder where a bruise must already be forming. “Damn, you really gave it to me good out there,” he wheezed, but despite the strain in his voice, his smile wasn’t far behind. “Is this is what they call ‘having your breath stolen’? My, Lady Dreakart, if this keeps up, I may develop feelings.”

She gave him a long, unimpressed look. “Would you mind taking this a bit more seriously?”

“Whatever could you mean?” he asked, raising an eyebrow that seemed genuinely curious. “Which part of my lady’s vigilant, nightly escapades have I not been taking seriously?”

Ember narrowed her eyes. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing…nothing at all,” he replied, holding up his hands in mock surrender. “Just that I’m thoroughly impressed by your boundless confidence, my lady. Truly. Your mastery of all things is almost as remarkable as your soft and nurturing touch.”

Her expression darkened. “Are you calling me naïve?”

“I would never dream of it,” he said, his sincerity so exaggerated it didn’t just border on farce—it stepped over it and danced on the other side. “To accuse the noble Lady Draekart—who doesn’t even know about the Aethermarks hidden beneath her own floors—of being naïve? Unthinkable.”

He shook his head as if scolding an unwise rumor-monger in the act, though, all his mock emotion drained from his voice as he continued, “Nearly as unthinkable as a lady of her station getting this close”—he gestured to the narrow space between their faces, enough for her to feel his faint breath on her chin—“to an unknown man in the dead of night. Understandable, of course, given his undeniable charm, but still. Who knows what sharp, pointy weapons he might have hidden beneath his clothes?”

Before she could protest, he jabbed a finger at her ribs, the touch light but deliberate. “Stab, stab. And oh, how tragic. Another young maiden lost to a misadventure in the dark.”

He didn’t smile or gloat. Instead, he sighed as he slumped back against the door, running a hand through his disheveled hair. “You know what? Yes, Lady Draekart, you are naïve. Painfully so. And it’s only your good fortune that I’m more of a gentleman than a scoundrel—though I won’t pretend it’s by a wide margin.”

Her gaze dropped briefly to her ribs, where his finger had just pressed. When she looked up, her eyes burned with cold fire. “If you’d tried something like that for real, I would’ve wrung your neck and cracked your skull before you could even retrieve your blade.”

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“And then we’d both end up dead on the floor.” Penta shrugged, unflinching under her glare. “I’m a nobody. You’re the daughter of a powerful ducal house. Some might call one loss more tragic than the other.”

She stiffened at that, just slightly. Enough to register the weight of his words, but not enough to concede anything. Her tone was steady, resolute. “Be that as it may, the facts remain the same. You don’t have a dagger, you are caught, and you’re not getting away no matter how fast you run. Even if you slipped past me, you wouldn’t get far.

She stood, tugging out her nightshirt to maintain some propriety. Noble blood did flow in her veins, even if she usually didn’t care for it. “At best, you’d reach Wilbur’s Perch, but you’d still be trapped until the winching tower runs again. We’d find you long before then. Unless…” Her eyes swept over him, weighing and measuring. “You’re planning to descend the wires directly? Is that truly possible?”

Penta raised an eyebrow so high it nearly disappeared into his hairline. “Wait, was that your scheme for escaping this place?”

Her silence betrayed her.

His laughter rang out, bright and sharp, like the crack of a whip in the still room. “Oh, sweet summer child. Not just naïve—the definition of naivety. You’d be torn to shreds before the tower had even slipped out of sight.”

“Then you’re trapped,” Ember said sharply, cutting off his laughter as he got to his feet as well. “There’s no leaving this estate until the platform comes back up. So…” She tilted her head, studying him with a faint scowl. “Where are you going?”

Penta, with the papers clutched haphazardly under one arm, eased the door open just enough to peer into the hallway. Satisfied, he slipped through without looking back. “Clearly not leaving, since you’ve made it abundantly clear that’s absolutely impossible.”

“It is,” Ember hissed, following close behind him. Her voice was hushed now, matching his. The silence of the estate had weight to it, a fragile peace neither of them wished to disturb. “Unless you plan to descend the wires, there’s no way to escape this place.”

“If you say so.” He shrugged, his steps slow and deliberate as his gaze darted down the shadowed hall. “Guess I’m retiring to my bed then, Lady Draekart. And I’d suggest you do the same. It’s late, and frankly, I think we’ve had enough excitement for one night. Goodnight.”

“Where would you even go?” Ember persisted, relentless. “If not the platform, then what? The Mistlands?”

He didn’t answer, and her scoff cut through the quiet like a blade. “Then you’re the naïve one. You’d last less time out there than trying to scale the wires.”

She spoke with a certainty born of a lifetime trapped within the bounds of this place. Beyond the estate’s sprawling grounds, beyond Wilbur’s Perch with its few hundred acres of orchards and farmland, the world ended—not figuratively, but literally. A wall of mist loomed at the edges of everything, a vast and shifting curtain that devoured all who dared set foot within.

They called it the Mistlands: the broken barrier between worlds, the graveyard of wanderers and fools. Beyond it lay nothing but whispers and death. Such was the life living on the surface.

“I told you, I’m going back to bed,” Penta said, his voice light with feigned exasperation. Yet as he veered left, heading deeper into the estate, Ember felt her skepticism harden.

“That’s the kitchen,” she pointed out, her eyes narrowing.

“And?” He stopped and turned to face her, his head tilted upward to meet her gaze. He grinned—a weary, crooked thing. “What, are you planning to join me? Share a bunk? I’ll warn you now, Lady Draekart, I like it a bit rougher than most girls can—”

Her glare could have frozen flame.

Penta sighed, running a hand through his hair. “Never mind. You’d handle it too well, and I’d end up the one dead by morning. So no, thanks. You head back to your nice, fluffy noble bed, and I’ll head back to mine.”

“In the kitchen?” Ember pressed on, crossing her arms. “Ginnis will throw you in the pot if he finds you curled up with the rats in the pantry.”

Penta glanced over his shoulder, the faintest flicker of something unreadable crossing his face. “Better the rats than—” He cut himself off, his grin returning. “Actually, never mind. I think I’ll take my chances. I’m feeling peckish anyway.”

“All the more reason you’ll get cooked once morning comes.”

Penta shrugged as he pushed into the dimly lit kitchen. The lantern they’d carried had been abandoned somewhere in the library, and though the rain had slowed outside, the heavy clouds left the room cloaked in shadows. Still, he moved with an ease that made Ember pause—just like her, he navigated the kitchen with the fluidity of a veteran midnight raider.

He made straight for a sack of potatoes, yanked it from its resting place, and dumped most of the contents into a basin before shoving the bag into Ember’s hands.

“Fine,” he sighed, “but if you’re going to hover, at least make yourself useful.”

She gave him a glare that could have stripped paint, but she didn’t resist. Soon enough, apples, wedges of cheese, and crusty hunks of hardened bread—Ember’s usual suspects—began to fill the sack.

She wasn’t paying attention, not really. Her hands moved on their own, catching various items, while her mind stayed fixed on deeper things. Her brow furrowed, and the sharp edge of her voice cut through the quiet like the point of a knife. “I’m telling you, going into the Mistlands will get you killed.”

She was certain.

“Your words, not mine,” Penta said breezily, sniffing a stick of salami. Satisfied, he added it to the sack.

By the time he was done, the bag hung heavy in her hands, stuffed near to bursting. He held out his arms to take it, but she tightened her grip instead.

“What are you so worried about?” He offered her one of his infuriatingly wide smiles, the sort that would have looked charming if it wasn’t so clearly meant to irritate. “I’m just heading to bed. Feeling peckish, remember?”

For a long, drawn-out moment, Ember simply stared at him.

“What?” he asked, his voice light with mock innocence. “You won’t be satisfied I’ll still be here in the morning unless you tie me to the mattress?”

“That would be reassuring, yes,” she said flatly, her grip on the sack unyielding.

Penta groaned, throwing his head back dramatically. “Fine,” he woefully conceded. “Mind if I use the restroom first, though? This time, I actually need to go, and I’d rather not do it in a bed I’m planning to sleep in. Unless, of course,” he added with a grin, “you’re planning to stand guard for that too.”

----------------------------------------

Emberlyth did stand guard. Outside the door. She was a lady.

A young woman with a thousand quesitons. And was it those thousand questions, tumbling through her mind, piling on top of each other like poorly stacked stones, that made her distracted? Was it questions she didn’t even know how to begin answering? Was it the needless racket he made, banging about and humming in there, that made her grateful for the eventual quiet? Or was it something simpler—something she didn’t want to admit.

Was Emberlyth painfully naive?

The one thing certain was: by the time the silence stretched long enough to gnaw at her nerves, she knocked on the door. Her fist sharp against the old wood. “Penta?” she called. No response. She slammed her shoulder into the door—once, twice—and then kicked it for good measure.

By the time the hinges groaned like a wounded animal, and the smoldering door sagged open, what it revealed was a room conspicuously empty. The window was open, curtains fluttering to a rain-scented breeze.

By the time she reached the sill, a lone figure was already darting across the garden below, moving not toward Wilbur’s Perch and its quiet, slumbering town, but toward the treeline ahead.

Toward the edge of the world.

“Burn in Blackfire!” Emberlyth spat.

Without thinking—without even setting down the sack of food still clutched in her hands—she flung herself out the window. The impact rattled her bones and sent a jolt up her spine, but she was already running by the time she felt the wet kiss of damp grass under her bare feet.

She wouldn’t let him get away that easily.