Chapter 12
Ember
Routine.
That’s the word for it, I suppose.
If you can call captivity a routine.
Three days. Maybe four. Maybe longer? Time’s started to blur inside these walls. London moves outside — car horns, rain, the low hum of life — but in here, the world folds down to the sound of footsteps, the clink of silverware, and the low murmur of men pretending not to watch me.
Every morning, breakfast like clockwork.
Rook sits at the head of the table, immaculate as ever — suit pressed, sleeves rolled to his forearms, eyes like ice chips weighing every detail of my existence.
He reads the paper while I pour coffee I didn’t make, asks me questions that sound harmless until I realize they’re traps.
“How did you sleep?” becomes “What did you dream?” and suddenly I’m explaining more than I meant to.
He never corrects me when I call him Caelum now. He just smirks, like it’s a test I don’t realize I’ve already passed.
Mateo’s worse. He likes to hover.
If Rook studies me like a chess piece, Vale toys with me like a coin he can flip between his fingers.
Every morning, he steals something from me — a mug, a spoon, a sip of my coffee — little thefts just to remind me he can.
He makes lunch, too. Always insists. Sometimes he eats with me, sometimes he doesn’t.
The first time, he brought grilled cheese and tomato soup, smirking like it was a joke.
Now he makes things that taste like home, even though I don’t remember what home ever really tasted like.
He watches me eat. Never says much. Just studies my mouth when I bite into something, and smiles like he knows what that does to me.
Wraith is… different.
He’s always there, quiet, lurking in the background like a shadow that doesn’t know how to fade.
I’ll feel him before I see him — the soft scuff of his boots, the shift in air when he’s standing too close.
He’s not cruel. Not kind, either. Just protective in a way that feels involuntary.
Like my presence rewired some part of him he doesn’t want to understand.
Saint’s easier.
Too easy.
He says grace before dinner, though I’m not sure who he thinks he’s praying to. He looks at me like I’m both temptation and absolution — like I might save him or ruin him, depending on how the light hits. Once, he handed me a glass of wine and said, “You remind me of penance.”
I didn’t ask what he meant, didn’t touch the wine. I didn’t want to know.
And Ash — Lysander — he’s the ghost in the machine.
He’s polite. Always so polite. He’ll ask if I need anything, if I’m sleeping, if I want tea — then disappear into his servers like he’s more comfortable with code than skin. But every so often, I’ll catch him watching me. Not in the way the others do. Not with hunger. With… curiosity.
I can feel it like static under my skin.
He knows something. I think he’s the only one who sees I’m not just adapting.
I’m preparing.
Together, they orbit like planets — each with their own gravity, pulling at different pieces of me. And me, I’m somewhere in the center, pretending it’s not working. Pretending I’m not starting to feel safe. That’s the cruelest part.
Not the captivity—the quiet.
Because the quiet feels almost normal.
They eat. They argue. They breathe. And every evening, I sit at their table, this fractured constellation of men who rule the underworld and somehow think dinner should be civilized.
It’s almost domestic.
Almost.
Saint serves the wine. Wraith passes the bread. Ash ignores them all. Mateo teases. Caelum presides.
Like some fucked-up family.
And me — the stray they dragged in, the variable they can’t solve — I’ve stopped flinching at the clatter of plates.
The first night I ate with them, I didn’t touch anything. Now I use their silver. I drink their coffee. I sit between Saint and Vale like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
And every time I catch myself doing it — playing along, smiling, eating, talking — I feel that slow, sinking horror in my chest.
Because it’s starting to feel less like pretending.
I hate that. I hate how my body adjusts to routine like it’s oxygen. How my mind catalogues each of them automatically — tone, mood, position, exit routes.
How sometimes I forget to think about escape.
Tonight, after dinner, I slip away early. My nerves feel raw. I tell Saint I’m tired, and he nods with that half-smile that always looks like forgiveness. Wraith watches me leave but doesn’t follow.
Upstairs, the hallway’s dim, lit only by the warm, flickering glow from wall sconces. I move quietly, though not quietly enough — the floorboards here are old, and this house has too many ears.
I reach my door, hand halfway to the knob—
“Ember.”
His voice is low. Smooth. Dangerous the way silk can strangle.
I turn.
Caelum’s standing at the end of the hall, jacket unbuttoned, tie loose around his throat. His sleeves rolled up, cufflinks glinting faintly in the light. There’s something unreadable in his expression — tired, maybe. Or something worse.
“You left early,” he says.
I blink, confusion giving way to something dangerously close to appreciation. “You noticed.”
He takes a few steps closer. Not fast. Not threatening. Just deliberate enough that I feel my pulse trip in my throat.
“I notice everything,” he says.
He stops a few feet away, close enough for me to smell the faint trace of smoke and bergamot on his skin. My body betrays me — I want to breathe it in, and I hate myself for it.
“It’s been three days,” he says. “You’ve adapted quickly.”
I lift my chin. “I’m surviving.”
“Is that what you call it?”
It’s the same tone he used in the bedroom the night he came back empty-handed. Measured, quiet, too calm for comfort.
“I’m making the best of a bad situation,” I answer.
He studies me. I hate how it feels — like he’s peeling me open layer by layer, too patient to make it hurt but too thorough to let me hide. “I don’t believe that,” he says finally. “You’re not the type to settle.”
I want to snap back, but I can’t find the words fast enough.
He takes another step, close enough now that I can see the faint shadow of stubble along his jaw. “You’ve changed the energy in this house,” he says softly. “They’re all watching you now.”
I meet his eyes. “And you?”
His mouth curves, just slightly. “I don’t need to watch. I already know what you’ll do.”
“Do you?”
“Yes,” he says. “You’ll stay. At least until you decide it’s more dangerous.”
He’s right.
And I hate that he’s right.
He brushes past me — doesn’t touch, doesn’t look back — just leaves the ghost of his cologne behind him as he walks away.
It’s only when I’m alone again that I realize my hand’s shaking on the doorknob.
Because he’s not wrong.
And that terrifies me more than any threat he’s ever made.
I wake to the sound of rain.
Soft, constant, the kind that makes London look like it’s been dipped in glass.
For a moment, I let myself pretend I’m anywhere else. My bed. My flat. My life before all this. Then the scent of coffee and smoke threads through the door, and the illusion shatters.
They’re awake.
By the time I make it downstairs, the kitchen’s alive with low conversation and clinking dishes. The morning ritual — their version of normal.
Saint’s at the stove, sleeves rolled, flipping something that smells faintly of cinnamon.
Wraith leans against the far counter, arms folded, watching the door like it might attack him.
Ash’s laptop glows on the table, his attention split between screens.
Mateo sits opposite him, nursing a mug and looking entirely too amused for someone who hasn’t said a word to me yet.
And at the head of the table — Caelum.
Perfect posture, unreadable face. His eyes flick to me once, just long enough to acknowledge that I exist, then return to the morning paper.
I clear my throat. “How long has it been?”
Mateo looks up, smirking. “Since what, querida?”
“Since you dragged me here.”
He takes his time answering, drawing it out just to see if I’ll push.
I do.
“Well?”
He sets his mug down with deliberate slowness. “Almost a week.”
A week.
I feel it in my bones — the claustrophobia, the walls pressing closer, the quiet stretching thin.
“Feels longer,” I mutter.
“That’s because you keep pacing,” Ash says absently, not looking up from his screen.
I shoot him a glare. “Maybe because I’m cooped up in a gilded cage.”
Mateo chuckles. “Gilded, she says. You’ve got silk sheets, three hot meals, and a shower that actually works. That’s luxury compared to where most people end up after crossing us.”
“Good to know the bar’s on the floor,” I grumble.
Wraith snorts, dark and quiet. “You’re not going anywhere.”
The way he says it — not cruel, not protective, just final — sends a pulse of irritation through me.
“I didn’t say I was,” I reply. “I just said I need air. Fresh, not filtered through your paranoia.”
That gets everyone’s attention. Even Caelum lowers the paper, folding it neatly beside his plate. His gaze pins me from across the table.
“You’re bored,” he says flatly.
“Trapped,” I correct. “There’s a difference.”
“No,” Mateo drawls, “there’s not.”
The air shifts. Five pairs of eyes, all different shades of power and danger, turn toward me — and I realize how quickly the room can turn from familiar to volatile.
Saint clears his throat softly, the sound like a bell cutting through tension. “The garden,” he says, voice smooth, calm. “It’s enclosed. Walled. You could walk there if you’d like.”
I blink at him. “You’re serious?”
“Completely,” he says. “A little air might do you good.”
Before I can answer, Wraith’s already shaking his head. “No. Not alone.”
Ash glances up. “She won’t get far. Every camera’s live.”
Caelum doesn’t speak. He’s just watching me — weighing, calculating, that faint curve of his mouth suggesting he’s waiting to see how I handle this.
Saint turns to him. “I’ll go with her.”
That earns a low grunt from Mateo. “You? You’ll let her sweet-talk you into believing she’s harmless.”
Saint just smiles, faint and maddening. “Perhaps I have faith.”
I cross my arms. “I don’t need a chaperone.”
“You’ll have one anyway,” Caelum says, his voice soft but absolute. “Saint’s offer is generous. Take it.”
My jaw tightens. “And if I don’t?”
“Then you stay inside.”
The silence that follows is sharp enough to cut. Saint doesn’t move. He just watches me — calm, patient, like he’s waiting for me to recognize that this is a test and the only way to win is to choose the lesser evil.
I exhale slowly. “Fine. The garden. With him.”
Mateo grins. “Look at that. Progress.”
I give him a look that promises violence. “Don’t push it.”
He raises his mug in salute, eyes glinting with mischief. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
I catch the faintest flicker of amusement cross Caelum’s face before he hides it again behind his coffee. Wraith mutters something under his breath that sounds suspiciously like a prayer for patience.
Saint steps away from the stove, wiping his hands on a towel. “Whenever you’re ready, little lamb.”
I roll my eyes. “Don’t call me that.”
“As you wish.”
But I see the ghost of a smile as he opens the back door, and for the first time in days, I feel cold air hit my skin.
It smells like rain and iron and something faintly green. Freedom, almost — except for the man standing beside me.
I step outside anyway.
Because sometimes, the smallest defiance is still a victory.