Frustrations of a Self-Proclaimed Villain Lord

Chapter 89: The Grand Duke Interrupts a Performance (2)

"You should conserve your strength."

"For interrogation?"

"No. For regret."

Arthur pressed his boot down a little harder, and the conductor bit back a sound.

Good.

Abi’s fingers moved over the red threads, slowly, not tearing, untangling. The first thread loosened from Toma’s wrist, and a faint note escaped, not sung by the boy but by the air around him, sounding like a door opening somewhere far away. The second thread came free, the red bell above him trembling. The third, and Toma’s body stiffened.

I placed one hand on the back of his chair. "Breathe," I said.

He tried. Failed. Tried again. Succeeded, barely.

The fourth thread snapped loose, and with it came a whisper, a woman’s voice. "Again."

Toma began shaking. I’d heard enough. My aura pressed into the chair, not into the boy, into the object holding him. The wood cracked, the silver nails beneath the armrest loosened, and the last threads went slack. Abi caught them before they could recoil into the bell.

Toma collapsed forward, and I caught him. He weighed almost nothing.

That annoyed me. Children should not weigh like apologies.

Bell ran onto the stage despite Arthur’s attempt to stop her, stopping only when she saw Toma in my arms.

"He’s alive," I said.

She nodded quickly, as if afraid any stronger reaction would be punished.

"Good," I added. "You may cry after we leave the hostile building."

Her face crumpled, then she laughed once, a small, broken sound that made Arthur look as though someone had stabbed him. He turned toward the conductor, and I didn’t stop him from glaring. A man needed hobbies.

Abi lowered the captured red threads into a small glass jar. The red bell above the chair had gone dull, its surface clouded from the inside.

"Can it still ring?" I asked.

"Not for him."

"And for others?"

His expression darkened. "Possibly."

"Then we take it."

Father landed on the stage from the balcony with far less drama than I had. Show-off. He examined the conductor. "Grey gloves."

"Yes."

"Halwen?"

"Probably."

The conductor’s eyes flickered. There it was. Father noticed too, his smile warming, a dangerous expression.

"Not the only one," Father said.

The conductor looked away. I crouched beside him. "Halwen Grey is a title."

Silence.

"Convenient for cowards."

His jaw tightened. Ah. People were so easy sometimes.

"Who currently holds the name?" I asked.

He smiled through the blood on his lip. "You think you have time to ask?"

I looked around the stage. The bells had stopped. The array was fractured. The children were alive. The old recital hall had failed to open whatever door it had been preparing.

Time, for once, felt cooperative.

"Yes," I said. "I do."

His smile returned. "The third has already opened."

"People keep saying that. Yet I keep seeing closed rooms."

"You stopped the stage," he whispered. "But the invitation was never here."

Abi went still. My father’s eyes sharpened. I stared at the man.

"Where?"

He laughed, then began choking, not from Arthur’s earlier blow. Something black moved under his skin.

A self-silencing seal. Of course.

"Abi," I said.

His hand flashed forward, violet light catching the seal at the man’s throat. For three seconds, the conductor convulsed, then the black line stopped spreading. Not gone. Stopped. The man’s eyes rolled back, and he lost consciousness.

Alive. Barely.

"How rude," Abi said.

"Can he still speak?"

"Eventually."

"That’s better than never."

Father stood and looked toward the orchestra pit. "Skandar."

I followed his gaze. The bone baton had rolled beneath the first row of seats, and near it, something had been scratched into the floor, not a symbol, not a ward, a message, the writing small, carved hastily but clearly.

If the prince lives, the door finds another witness. If the child remembers, the road remains.

The child. Which child? Toma? Bell? Spiro? Adrien’s pale-haired memory? I disliked all the options.

Arthur carried the unconscious child while Bell walked close beside Toma, who now leaned heavily against a Sonomi knight. The child who’d bitten Arthur earlier had finally stopped attempting to assault rescuers and had fallen asleep against the captain’s shoulder.

How trusting. Or perhaps simply exhausted. Both were unfortunate.

Abi lifted the red bell from its casing and sealed it in violet light. The bell did not ring, which made me more suspicious. A bell that had been quiet too long was either harmless or planning something. Experience suggested the latter.

We exited through the service corridor, since the front hall had become too structurally offended by our passage to trust it. Outside, the Capital’s evening light had turned copper, the Conservatory looming behind us, silent, not defeated, silent.

Arthur’s men brought the conductor out bound, gagged, and wrapped in enough aura thread to insult a Sonomian tailor. Father oversaw the removal of the children with his usual calm precision. Bell refused to leave Toma’s side. Toma couldn’t speak, but his fingers stayed wrapped around her sleeve.

I allowed it. Sometimes dignity meant letting children hold on to whatever made standing possible.

A shadow approached and bowed. "Your Excellency. Message from the estate."

I took it. Mother’s seal. Short. Efficient. Terrifying.

Marcellus has confirmed the Conservatory was not the final site. Caldus identified the phrase "another witness." The third instruction requires an audience of authority. The likely target is not a ritual chamber. It is the coronation rehearsal.

I read it twice, then once more. Of course. The Conservatory had been practice. The chapel had been tuning. The palace had been tethering. But the coronation rehearsal would gather nobles, clergy, military officers, imperial blood, temple bells, public prayers, and enough political pressure to make a ritual hide in plain sight.

A perfect audience. How utterly rude.

Father read the message over my shoulder, his expression cooling. "The rehearsal is tomorrow."

"Yes."

Abi looked at the sealed red bell in his hands, then toward the palace district. "Then we have less than a day."

I folded the message. The children were alive. The Conservatory had been interrupted. The conductor had been captured. But the third instruction was still crawling toward a stage far grander than this burned little hall.

Fine. If they wanted an audience of authority, they would have one. Unfortunately for them, I had excellent seats.