The palace was finally still.

  The laughter had faded. The courtiers had retired. Somewhere, the last decanter was being sealed with wax and wiped clean of scandal.

  Fran stood at the railing of her guest room balcony, the shawl around her shoulders thin against the spring chill. Below, the lanterns in the gardens flickered low, casting long shadows over manicured hedges and moon-brushed marble.

  Her shoes were off. Her hair unpinned. The earrings — too heavy, too ornate — lay in a dish behind her.

  She didn't move when she heard the door open.

  She didn’t look.

  But her voice, when it came, was quiet and dry.

  “You’re not supposed to be here.”

  A pause. Then: “I know.”

  Gale’s voice. Even. Careful.

  He didn’t cross the threshold yet.

  She stayed where she was.

  Eventually, she said, “They’ll say I summoned you.”

  “They’ll say a great many things.”

  “Some of them accurate.”

  “Unlikely.”

  That earned him a faint twitch at the corner of her mouth — not quite a smile, but something near the memory of one.

  He stepped outside only when it became clear she wouldn’t turn him away.

  The silence between them was long and heavy, but not sharp. Just full.

  Then, finally: “Your… performance tonight,” he said, choosing the word with care, “was impressive.”

  “Convincing?”

  “Disarming.”

  She gave a soft huff of breath. “I felt like a fraud.”

  “You were watched. Weighed. Measured.”

  “I was a decorative blade on someone else’s table.”

  “You didn’t look like one.”

  “I felt like one.”

  Another pause.

  Then Gale said, more quietly, “You danced well.”

  “I didn’t step on your feet.”

  “You didn’t look terrified.”

  She let out a low breath. “Because you were there.”

  “And if I hadn’t been?”

  “I would have left before dessert.”

  “Shame. You would have missed a rather poetic meringue.”

  They fell quiet. The palace below was still — nothing but shadows and moonlight.

  Fran rested her forearms on the balcony railing, eyes half-lidded, voice dry. “They’ll spend tomorrow deciding if we slept together tonight.”

  Gale didn’t move. But something in the air changed.

  Fran didn’t look at him. “It’ll be the only thing they talk about. Not the dance. Not the introductions. Just that.”

  Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

  He was quiet a beat too long. Then, casually: “Then maybe we should let them.”

  That made her look at him. Slowly.

  “What?”

  He met her gaze, deadpan. “Let them believe it.”

  “By doing it?”

  “By staging it.”

  Fran blinked.

  Gale continued, tone light but precise. “A little magical noise. A few deliberate scuffs. A broken vase, a convincingly disheveled departure. Let them choke on their own imaginations.”

  She stared at him.

  “You want to fake sex.”

  “I want to weaponize their obsession.”

  “That’s madness.”

  “It’s politics.”

  “And theatrics.”

  He tilted his head. “I thought you liked performances.”

  She huffed once. “This is absurd.”

  “But effective.”

  She turned away, but didn’t retreat. Then: “You’ve done this before.”

  “Not quite like this.”

  “And what do I do?”

  “Lie down. Make a few convincing noises. Knock something over.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “You’re enjoying this.”

  “I’m planning.”

  “You think this will scare them?”

  “I think it will unbalance them.”

  Fran considered that. Then: “Will it work?”

  He met her eyes. Steady. Calm. “It will change the way they speak your name.”

  She looked at him for a long time. Then nodded once.

  “I’ll open the window.”

  Somewhere beyond the duchess’s door, a servant dropped a tray.

  Down the corridor, a minor noble froze mid-gossip.

  Because from behind the locked door of Frances Elarion’s guest chambers, hell had broken loose.

  It began with a gasp — sharp, startled, like a woman half-choked on something both exquisite and unexpected.

  Then the low thrum of a ward spell activating — one that blurred the air and thickened the sound, but did not quite contain it. A mistake? A choice?

  Unclear.

  What followed was not subtle.

  Thuds.

  Furniture scraping violently.

  A muffled cry — too low to be pain, too guttural to be polite.

  “Gods,” someone whispered outside.

  Then came the rhythm.

  A steady, unrelenting percussion of body against body — or so the sounds implied. Walls trembled. A porcelain vase — priceless, imported, probably symbolic — shattered with a scream that was not entirely from the vase.

  A pause.

  Then a long, drawn-out moan, perfectly paced, almost artful in its crescendo.

  It went on.

  And on.

  And on.

  “Is that—?”

  “Her Grace?”

  “Or her… advisor?”

  No one dared knock.

  A chair fell.

  Laughter.

  Then silence.

  But not peace.

  Because then began the incantations — whispered and fast, woven with illusion magic, distortion spells, and a particularly creative reverb charm that sent Gale’s voice bouncing off the walls with just enough throaty abandon to make a cleric blush.

  “Again,” his voice groaned — rough and ragged and very, very practiced.

  A pillow hit the wall.

  A second moan.

  Softer this time. More… triumphant.

  Somewhere, a guard bit down on his own fist.

  By the time it ended — if it could be said to end — the hallway was crowded with paralyzed staff, pale-faced ladies pretending not to eavesdrop, and two minor lords who would never again maintain eye contact with either the duchess or her advisor.

  The final sound?

  A low sigh. Smug. Spent. Too satisfied.

  Then the distinct creak of a mattress settling under victory.

  The air inside the room shimmered faintly with residual magic — heat still clinging to the walls like sweat on silk.

  Pillows strewn. One curtain torn, just enough. The scent of expensive candles and low-grade arson. A fine ceramic bowl lay split in half, perfectly bisected like it had died for art.

  Gale was slumped in a carved velvet chair, hair mussed, collar open, a faint sheen of perspiration on his throat. His coat had one sleeve half-off his shoulder, and the buttons of his waistcoat had long since given up.

  He looked devastated, in the way only a sorcerer with an overtaxed voice and too much pride could.

  Fran, seated elegantly on the floor, tossed him a glass of water. He caught it without grace.

  “That,” she said, throat raw, “was grotesque.”

  “That,” he muttered, sipping, “was a masterpiece.”

  “Please leave.”

  He stood with effort — knees cracking, pride intact. “Shall I limp? For added effect?”

  “Limp and never speak again.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  She turned away just before her face betrayed her. He didn’t miss it.

  At the door, he paused — hand on the knob, jaw set, eyes calm again.

  “Goodnight,” he said, not looking back.

  He left the door ajar.

  Fran sat alone in the chaos.

  She muttered, to no one: “That was disgusting.”

  And then, she laughed.

  Really laughed.

  For the first time in months.

  The corridor was too quiet.

  Gale stepped out into it like a man emerging from myth — pale, hollow-eyed, shirt wrinkled beyond repair, neck marked by artful smudges of ash and glamoured sweat.

  A few courtiers loitered just outside their doors, pretending not to have listened. A maid froze mid-step, silver tray clattering slightly in her hands.

  Lord Ederane Vaelir, young and smug and deeply unfortunate, stood by a sculpture alcove, eyes wide as saucers.

  He opened his mouth.

  Gale raised a single, trembling hand.

  “Don’t.”

  Then he walked past.

  Measured pace.

  No limp. Just the stride of a man who had done the impossible and would never, ever explain how.

  As he passed the chambermaids, one dropped a teacup. Another fanned herself.

  He didn’t acknowledge any of them.

  He reached his own door at the end of the wing, opened it, and stepped inside without a sound.

  Then, through the wood: “Fucking hell.”

  The hallway remained still for a long, long time.

  Until someone — no one ever confessed who — whispered: “What in the seven shrines did she do to him?”