Chapter 7 #2
Cassia turned the light on, illuminating the low-ceilinged space.
Shelves lined the walls, neatly stocked with preserves, pickled vegetables, biscuit tins, and fruits soaking in syrup.
Burlap sacks of grain and flour were stacked in the corner.
An old-style furnace sat at the far end, its iron frame blackened.
Ark exhaled slowly.
Ordinary—that was all it was. A perfectly ordinary storage room.
Then, why did his instinct scream otherwise?
Cassia walked him to the front entrance.
Outside, the winter sun was just setting, the last light bleeding out of the sky at half past five.
She pulled the door open, and the cool evening air was a relief.
He hadn’t realized how heavy the house’s magic had pressed against his skin until it lifted altogether.
His right hand, however, still throbbed.
She hesitated, studying him with a scrutiny that felt like a physical touch. He held still under it, letting her look her fill.
“Thank you for coming today,” she said.
“I was the one who asked to come, remember?”
Her grin flashed under the porch light, a brief, bright thing in the gloom. “What’s the next step?”
Investigating what lives in your basement.
The thought surfaced. Poking at it could solve problems—or raise new ones, far more dangerous than what they were already facing.
He filed the question away for later and adjusted his gloves instead, ensuring the leather fully covered the injury.
From an inner pocket, he produced a matte-black card—Vesper Briony, Esq. , and an address embossed in silver.
“The next step is due diligence.” He offered her the card.
“This is our lawyer’s address. Send her everything related to Starlight’s property—the original lease, Agmon Group’s acquisition notices, all of it.
Briony is exceptionally thorough, especially when it comes to real estate law.
If a loophole exists, she will find it.”
Cassia took the card, her fingers brushing the fine paper. “It’s not far from here. I’ll drop off the documents on my way home.”
“Good.” He felt the faint tug of a smile—real this time, not the practiced mask he usually wore. She was a fighter. He’d thought as much from the moment she’d screamed Alderrath’s name in the club. “I’ll be in touch.”
He turned to leave, but her voice, now laced with wary amusement, stopped him. “So, while your lawyer looks for loopholes . . . What does my part of this bargain look like? Should I be practicing my besotted smile in the mirror?”
Ark glanced back at her. The porch light illuminated the soft, rounded curves of her face, highlighting the defiant curiosity there. “It won’t hurt to be ready.”
She chuckled, folding her arms. “Vague, ominous, and terribly dramatic. You’re checking all the boxes, aren’t you?”
He gave her a final nod. “Good evening, Cassia.”
“Good evening, Ark.”
With that, he turned and crossed the street, the gate closing softly behind him.
Yulefrost revelry noise hit him first—the festival in full swing, laughter and music and the smell of mulled cider—but none of it proved a sufficient distraction.
His mind was still inside Starlight’s walls.
When he reached the large fountain in Eldryn Gardens, its cascading water reflecting the golden glow of the city’s festivities, he stopped. Slowly, he pulled off his right glove.
The night air bit at the exposed flesh. His palm was a raw, ugly mess of red and blistering skin. It pulsed with a deep, aching burn that felt more like magical poisoning than a simple burn.
Whatever resided inside Starlight hadn’t merely resisted him. It had recognized him as a threat, and attacked.
A slow breath left him, curling in the cold air as he flexed his fingers, testing the pain.
Interesting.
By the next morning, the pain in his hand had dulled, but the questions remained.
Ark made his way to the offices of Aegis & Ash.
The building sat on a narrow side street at the edge of the Elf District—just close enough to the centre to be convenient, far enough from the main thoroughfares to be forgotten.
From the street, it looked one bad storm away from toppling.
No sign marked the door. No nameplate announced the occupants. That was the point.
The interior told a different tale.
The foyer opened into a spacious room with exposed beams and dark panelled walls. Wards pulsed faintly along the edges of the room, visible only as a shimmer at the corner of vision. Bookshelves rose to the ceiling, crammed with ledgers, maps, and texts in languages that predated the city.
He crossed to his desk—a battered thing inherited from the building’s previous tenants—and pulled a heavy leather-bound tome toward him.
A few days’ worth of work waited, none of it urgent, but all of it demanding attention: acquisitions to review, artifacts to research.
And tonight, he had that event—a tedious affair Aegis & Ash had arranged weeks ago.
He’d been dreading it then. With his hand still healing, he dreaded it even more.
A ripple in the air, followed by a faint chime of magic, broke his reverie. A scroll materialized mid-air before him, landing with a soft thud on his desk. It was sealed with a distinctive splash of violet wax, imprinted with the stylized ‘VB’ that was Briony’s signature.
He broke the seal. The parchment unfurled, the ink sharp and precise.
Ark,
Miss Aura dropped off Starlight’s documents. Agmon’s acquisition is a masterclass in legal fortification. Their lawyers have built a flawless box around that property.
At first glance, the law is unlikely to help you, but I’ll keep digging. There might be something—a heritage clause, a land protection, some forgotten covenant buried in the archives.
—B
Ark let the scroll curl back onto itself, Briony’s words settling like a stone in his gut.
So, the law might not save Starlight. His gaze drifted toward the corridor. The locked rooms at the back held the things that fell through the cracks—objects with no paperwork, no status, no clean resolution. If the system wouldn’t help, one of them might.
The entrance door creaked open, and Ark turned to the noise.
Caius entered first, unhurried, pulling off his gloves one finger at a time. “You’re already at work, darling? I’m impressed.”
“I had a good reason to start early.”