13. Zeir #2
Through the Kael meeting, through the Nyx orientation, through six hours of creative work that produced the best panel of her career—the paper.
Rare, impossible-to-find-without-effort Japanese watercolor stock.
Stacked neatly on the work surface. No note.
No announcement. No lingering near the supply station waiting for gratitude.
Either he has the most thorough HR department in the history of publishing or he stalked my Instagram process videos. Both options make my stomach do a thing I’m choosing not to name.
But first—Kael.
He walked her through the marketing plan with genuine creative intelligence.
Not patronizing. Not watering down her indie work for mainstream consumption.
Real strategic thinking—preserving the darkness that made Nightbloom distinctive while expanding its reach into markets she’d never had the infrastructure to crack alone.
She pushed back on three of his ideas. She was right every time.
“The horror demographic crossover won’t work.
” She tapped the projection slide. “Nightbloom readers don’t identify as horror fans.
They identify as literary dark fantasy fans who happen to enjoy visceral imagery.
You market it as horror, you lose the literary audience and gain a horror audience that’s going to be disappointed by the pacing. ”
Kael stared at her. Then grinned. Wide. Delighted. “You’re not going to make my brother’s life easier.”
“I wasn’t hired to make his life easier.”
“No. You were hired because you’re the best.” He stacked his presentation materials. “Don’t let him convince you otherwise.”
“He told me my colors were wrong today.”
“Was he right?”
“Annoyingly.”
Kael laughed. “Yeah. He does that. Gets under your skin with the eye of a man who’s been studying structure his entire life. You want to hate it. You can’t, because he’s right, and being right about art is the most infuriating thing a person can be.”
“You sound like you’re speaking from experience.”
“I’ve been his brother for twenty-seven years.
I’ve been speaking from experience since I could talk.
” He paused at the door. “For what it’s worth—he’s never set up a workspace like that for anyone.
Not in the eight years I’ve worked here.
The paper, the inks, the lighting adjustments. He did that himself.”
He left before she could respond.
Nyx was a different species.
Figuratively. Possibly literally—Lumi was still assembling that one.
The security orientation lasted forty minutes. Cold, precise, testing. Questions about confidential material access, breach protocols, authorized access to her files. Every query designed to probe not the answers but the hesitations.
“Who else has seen unpublished Nightbloom pages?”
“My colorist. My letterer. My lawyer.” A sigh. “Tessa, my assistant.”
Nyx’s eyes narrowed a fraction on the former. She didn’t ask the follow-up. The answer was in the way Lumi’s spine straightened.
“I’ve been burned.” Lumi held her gaze. “I don’t leave doors unlocked anymore.”
Three seconds of assessment. A single nod. Brief. Final.
“So do I get a security badge or a blood oath?”
The barest flicker at the corner of Nyx’s mouth. “Badge. For now.”
“Comforting.”
Nyx stood. Gathered her files. Left without another word.
The crossroads panel.
Building it beside him had been—she didn’t have a word for it.
Terrifying came close. Exhilarating was more accurate.
The way his structural instincts and her emotional instincts met in the center of the page without a word of coordination.
She anticipated where his layout led because she knew his instincts from his published work.
But he anticipated her emotional choices too.
Met her from the opposite direction with an accuracy that defied logic.
And then the moment after. His voice cracked on so have I and she’d turned her head and his face was right there and the light was doing cruel things and the distance between them collapsed to inches and her entire respiratory system staged a revolt.
She’d held his gaze for four seconds. Four seconds of eye contact that stripped the professional veneer off both of them and left her standing in front of a wet panel with her hand trembling and her heart slamming and the absolute certainty that if she didn’t look away, one of them was going to close the distance.
She’d looked away. Barely.
And then neither of them had moved. And he’d said because it might about the panel catching fire with the driest, most understated delivery she’d ever heard, and she’d laughed—a real laugh, startled out of her—and for a moment, the tension broke and there was a man standing next to her who was funny and sharp and making extraordinary work with her, and she wanted to stay in that moment and she wanted to run from it in equal measure.
Late afternoon. The building emptied around them.