Starling rode in through the north gate with the tired ache of the road still sitting in her bones. Her horse plodded obediently beneath her, its gait easy, as if it knew it was almost home too. She dismounted at the Crow Hall stable, handed the reins over to the boy there, and gave the mare an absent pat on the neck.
Inside the Hall, it smelled like oil and sweat, smoke and steel. Same as always. She let herself hope - just for a second - that Cade or Tenna or Ridge might be about. She didn't see them in the barracks. Not in the training yard either.
Damn. She didn't feel like being alone with her thoughts today.
Wren was in one of the offices, surrounded by paperwork and an air of restrained irritation. Starling gave her the chain, still looped and warm from the pouch at her hip. She said nothing. Neither did Wren for a long moment. She turned it over in her fingers, then counted out the coin.
"You made good time," Wren said flatly.
Starling nodded once.
"Clean?"
"Yes."
Wren's eyes stayed on her a second longer, too long. Something behind them, thoughtful, maybe disappointed. But she said nothing more, and neither did Starling.
The pouch of coin was heavy in her palm, so she turned to go. She made it as far as the steps out front before he appeared. Lucanis. Like he'd just melted out of the stone. He was very good at that.
She didn't falter. There were people around. Crows. Stable boys. Recruits. She kept her expression blank, her chin tilted down just enough to mark deference. Not too familiar. Not too cold. Just another little bird beneath a long shadow.
He passed. Except he didn't. He paused, just slightly, and spoke low, without looking at her.
"The estate. Tonight. Same time."
"Mm."
It was all she said. All she could say. And he moved on. She waited another second, breath tight, then turned for the street. Her home. Her bed. Food, maybe. A trip to the bathhouse, maybe.
--
Lucanis walked through the vaulted halls of the Crow compound, leather boots silent against ancient stone. He was here for other business - signatures, updates, something to do with an arms shipment - but his mind trailed stubbornly behind him, back to the front steps. Back to her.
Starling had looked... tired. A little worn. Her shoulders had carried the kind of weight that wasn't just road fatigue. She was good at hiding things - too good - but he had caught a flicker in her expression. A shadow in the eyes. Sadness, maybe.
Or perhaps it had been nothing. A trick of the light. His imagination. Still, it curled inside him like a thorn snagged on silk.
She hadn't said goodbye before she'd left. No word. No note. No clever little parting quip. If she had, he could have had her contract switched. Kept her closer. Where she belonged. Where she was safer.
He didn't like that she'd left. He didn't like that she hadn't warned them, how easily she'd vanished without so much as a look back.
Maker, if anyone should be melancholy, it was them, left behind, wondering where she'd gone, what street her boots had touched, who she smiled at when she passed. But he couldn't shake that curl of concern. She hadn't looked like someone triumphant. She looked like someone chasing something out of reach.
He forced the thought down as he turned the corner, nodding once to a passing handler, but it lingered in the pit of him, low and warm and unwelcome.
She was back now. That was what mattered. Tonight, she would return to the estate, and he'd see - clearly - what that look in her eyes had been.
--
The fire cracked low in the hearth. Another lavish spread laid across the table: roasted figs, blood oranges, and delicate cuts of lamb in rosemary sauce. Lucanis had prepared it himself, which was how Viago knew he was truly worried.
Viago leaned back in his chair, idly swirling wine in a glass. Lucanis stood at the balcony doors, arms folded, watching the street below like he could will her into appearing.
"She looked tired," Lucanis said quietly.
Viago tilted his head. "She always looks tired. She's a Crow. We all do."
"Not like that."
Viago didn't respond at first. He simply took a sip of his wine, let the flavour settle on his tongue, and then exhaled. Lucanis wasn't wrong. Starling had looked like something had peeled at the seams of her when he'd caught sight of her at the Hall. Not broken, but… worn.
He set the glass down. "She doesn't like killing," Viago said. "She never has."
Lucanis turned toward him at that. "She kills well."
"That's different," Viago said. "I can dance well. Doesn't mean I'd want to make a living doing it." A pause. "Though I might get better tips."
Lucanis didn't smile. Just stared at the flames as though hoping they'd explain something.
"She's still soft," Viago continued. "Not weak, don't look at me like that. Just… young. There's still a piece of her that flinches. She hasn't hardened to it yet."
Lucanis exhaled slowly. "She will. Or she'll break."
"Neither option is particularly charming, is it?" Viago stood and crossed the room, brushing invisible dust from the cuff of his sleeve. "She's got a good heart. I think she's trying to keep it. She shouldn't have to bleed it out one contract at a time."
Lucanis's jaw ticked. "You know we can't pull her from it."
"No," Viago agreed. "No one leaves the Crows." He paused a moment. "But maybe we can give her something to come back to. Something that doesn't take."
Lucanis turned to him finally, studying him. Something flickered between them, agreement, maybe. Or resignation. They both knew what the world did to soft things.
Viago returned to his wine, his smile faint and sad.
"We'll feed her. Make her laugh. Let her sleep. And become enough to keep the worst parts from swallowing her."
And tonight, they would not ask her for pieces of herself. They'd simply keep what she gave and guard it.
The door opened with the quiet efficiency the staff here were trained for, and in she walked, light on her feet, that usual shimmering mix of mischief and moonlight trailing behind her like a silk veil. Simplicity suited her: a pale dress hemmed just above the knee and soft sandals laced loosely around the ankle. She looked like she belonged barefoot in a garden, not dripping blood in the dark.
"You're late," Viago said, but his tone was all warmth.
Her full lips curled into a grin, the practised, effortless kind she wore like armour, and she drifted into the room like she hadn't left at all.
He caught her by the waist before she could slide past the table and guided her down into a chair. Her legs folded up underneath her almost immediately, like a little crow perched on a windowsill. He poured her wine and set the cup within reach, watching her with that particular softness that always curled in his chest when she was here, when she was herself.
But there was tiredness around the edges. A faint drag to her limbs, an extra second in the blink. No one else would notice. But he and Lucanis knew her and had spent an inordinate amount of time watching her. And they could see through it.
"Mission went well?" Viago asked, pouring himself another glass.
"Always." Her shrug was casual, her voice smooth. She took a sip, eyes bright with something unreadable. "Anything exciting happen while I was gone?"
Viago hummed, swirling the wine in his cup. Then, in that deliberately casual tone of his, sunlight laced with shadow:
"You left," he said. "Didn't even say goodbye."
Starling blinked. For a moment - just one - she looked genuinely surprised. Maybe even… confused. She hadn't thought it was something they'd notice, much less mind.
Her brow knit, the faintest crease between her eyes, that wariness crawling in just behind the mischief.
"Was I supposed to?" She asked, her voice lighter than the question deserved, carefully casual.
Viago leaned forward, resting an elbow on the table and swirling the wine in his cup again, slow and smooth. "It's just good manners, Starling."
His tone was calm. Pleasant, even. But there was something measured beneath it, something that tugged at her attention.
Her lips parted like she meant to offer a quip, a shrug, or something evasive. But her brow only furrowed deeper, and that clever mind of hers clearly started running over the why of it. Why this mattered. Why he would care.
Because she didn't know, did she? She didn't know the others hadn't lasted long enough to be missed.
Did she think they wined and dined all the Crows they laid with? That Viago spent long hours searching rooftops and alleys to see where the last one had vanished to? That Lucanis would have his steward bring out the rare wine, the fine glassware, the plush pillows in that particular room - just because she was next?
She thought she was another page in a book already written. She had no idea she was the story.
"What do you know," he said, gently, "about the others?"
Her eyes lifted to his. Still wary. Still searching.
"Not much," she said after a moment. "They don't talk about it much anymore."
Viago nodded, then smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. "They don't talk because there's nothing to say."
He reached for a candied almond, then offered the bowl across the table. She took it absently, distracted by the thoughts brewing behind her eyes.
"We never took them to the bathhouse," he said mildly. "Never asked what their favourite place was. Didn't have meals brought. Didn't tie them up so they couldn't leave. Didn't want them to stay."
A flicker of something moved through her. Surprise, certainly. Hesitation. Perhaps even discomfort.
"You're not the same," Viago said simply. "And you should stop pretending you are."
There was no venom in it. Just the truth.
Lucanis hadn't said a word, but his eyes had barely left her. He was watching. Measuring her.
Viago watched her closely, watched the flicker of thoughts as they passed behind those pale green-grey eyes. It was rare to see her mask slip, rarer still to see her fumble. But there it was. A twitch at the corner of her mouth. A breath drawn to speak then stifled. Another try before it closed again.
How rare. How telling.
He didn't interrupt her struggle.
Lucanis hadn't moved either, still silent at her side, gaze fixed and sharp. But Viago… Viago was amused. Not unkindly, no, his smile tilted softly at the edges, something fond in the corner of his mouth as he leaned back and folded his arms.
"Look at you," he murmured, more to himself than to her. "You've got a thousand little masks, don't you?"
Her lips pressed into a firm, thin line, and for the first time since walking through the door, she looked troubled. Not bored. Not tired. Not sarcastic. Troubled.
Viago's amusement dimmed but didn't disappear. He reached for his wine glass, took a sip, and let the silence settle between them with all the weight of a stone dropped into water.
"You think it's safer," he said finally. "To be like the others. To pretend you're one of many. Replaceable." He leaned forward, the shadows of the chandelier catching in his eyes. "But it isn't safer, is it?"
Lucanis's voice, when it came, was low and certain, "It just makes you easier to leave."
That got her. A flicker of something sharp in her eyes - hurt, or fear, or both - but she didn't look away. That was what Viago liked about her most.
He set the glass down with a soft clink and rested his arms on the table, gaze unwavering.
"We see you, Starling," Viago said. "Whether you like it or not." His voice was still silk, still smooth, but the steel beneath it was unmistakable. "And we don't let go of what's ours."
--
Starling had heard the stories. Quietly, around corners. Sometimes in whispers after someone left, or disappeared. Beautiful women, clever men, brief flares of heat and indulgence before things ended. Cleanly, or not. Sometimes those flames were snuffed out. Sometimes they burned themselves to ash.
They didn't do permanent. Not really.
They wanted her now. That was clear. That much, at least, wasn't a lie. Viago's smile might glitter with charm, but his eyes didn't wander. And Lucanis... Lucanis never looked away. Not when she was moving. Not when she was still.
But they didn't do permanent. Maybe they were just playing at permanence. Maybe they even believed it.
But people changed their minds all the time. Lust cooled. Obsession waned. And when it did, it would end. That was the way of things. They'd had others before her. They would have others after.
Still. They wanted her. And that… meant something. Right now, anyway. So maybe she could let herself have this. For a while. Enjoy the way they looked at her, touched her, fed her, and kept her. Let herself be wanted like that. Even if they didn't mean it forever.
Because by the time she found Zevran…
It would likely be over anyway. A natural end. A clean one, maybe. She wouldn't have to break anything. Wouldn't have to say why. Just… let the inevitable happen.
They'd be bored by then. Surely. And she wouldn't let herself miss them.
She leaned back slowly in her seat, her fingers brushing the edge of her wine glass.
"Right," she murmured, voice quiet and dry.
They could wrap her up in silk and charm and dark possessiveness. They could believe she was theirs. She'd see how it played out.
And when it was time to leave, it would change nothing. Leaving them wouldn't be the end of the world. And by the time it happened, they might have already left her anyway.
--
Lucanis watched her. Her little "Right" sounded like someone agreeing to a losing bet. Light, dry, maybe even a little amused. But it wasn't belief.
He knew what belief looked like. It didn't sit back with a shrug and a sip of wine like that. It didn't wear a faint, weary smile like she already knew the ending and was humouring the rest of them by staying for the next act.
She was accepting it, yes. But she wasn't believing it.
Lucanis leaned back in his chair, watching her the way a hunter watches a too-clever animal sniffing at the edge of a snare. She thought she was safe. She thought she was still choosing how this ended.
That was fine. He could work with that. She could think it wasn't real. She could believe she was still free to go whenever she wanted.
He'd said nothing since Viago dropped that line - We don't let go of what's ours - but he hadn't needed to. His silence carried weight. And pressure. He knew she felt it. She always felt him watching. Even when she didn't meet his eyes.
She hadn't bolted. That was something. She was still here. Still seated. Still talking to them like she didn't realise it was already done. There was time. And time was all he needed.
He'd peel back her careful mask one thread at a time. Wear down her certainty. Make her laugh. Make her come. Make her need. Because she was already halfway there. He could see it in the way she always leaned into Viago's touch, in the way her sharp little barbs softened when she was tired.
And when she believed it - truly believed it - that she was theirs, there'd be no shrug. No smirk. There'd be surrender.