The rain outside the mansion did not fall so much as it hammered, a steady, rhythmic drumming against the high leaded glass of the east wing.

The rain outside the mansion did not fall so much as it hammered, a steady, rhythmic drumming against the high leaded glass of the east wing. Inside, the house was silent—the kind of engineered silence that cost millions to maintain.

Saurin Vosa was on his way to his study to review the shipping manifests for the Drazza alliance when he heard the noise.

It was faint, coming from the old servant washroom tucked beneath the servant stairwell—a room that smelled of damp lye and stone, rarely used since the central plumbing had been updated five years prior. A dry, scraping sound, followed by a heavy thud, as if someone had collapsed against the tile.

Saurin stopped. Hand on the brass hilt of his cane, his eyes narrowed.

His instincts had kept him alive through two turf wars, a poisoned dinner in Naples, and an ambush on the harbor bridge that had left his younger brother dead. He did not ignore noises in his own house.

He stepped off the plush corridor runner onto the cold slate floor, his boots making no sound. He reached the narrow door of the washroom, where a sliver of weak yellow light leaked through the gap at the bottom.

He pushed the door open.

The smell hit him first. Not the sharp tang of soap or bleach, but copper. Warm, thick, unmistakable copper.

Saurin’s hand dropped to the pistol hidden beneath his tailored jacket, his mind instantly racing through possibilities: an assassin, a breach in his security, a traitor caught mid-flight.

What he saw made him freeze.

Vesna—the girl Casian had been instructed to dismiss—was slumped against the low porcelain sink. Her face was paper-white, her dark hair plastered to her forehead with cold sweat. Her thin uniform dress was soaked through at the waist, a dark, spreading stain of crimson blooming against the faded cotton.

Beside her, trapped between her trembling knees, was Vuk.

The beast that had nearly taken the thumb off a trained handler two months ago was completely still. The dog’s ruined head was laid flat across her thigh. He wasn't growling. He wasn't bare-toothed. His golden, bloodshot eyes were fixed on the door, watching Saurin, but his heavy tail gave a single, slow thump against the blood-stained tile.

In Vesna's small, trembling left hand was a short curved blade—a servant’s paring knife, slick with dark red.

"Don't..." she rasped, her voice barely a whisper, her lips blue from shock. "Don't... hit him. It wasn't... him."

Saurin took a step forward, his eyes scanning the narrow room. He saw the broken glass on the floor—a shattered vial of dark liquid. He saw the deep, jagged puncture wound on the dog’s flank, where something had been brutally cut out. And he saw the small, wax-sealed cylinder lying in the pool of blood near Vesna's boots.

"What is this?" Saurin's voice was low, like grinding stones.

"The... the wash," she panted, her eyes rolling back slightly as her body fought the blood loss. "The cook... gave me the wash for him. It smelled... strange. Sweet. Like bitterly crushed almonds. I... I tried to wipe it off him, but he had already licked his coat..."

She coughed, a wet sound, and gripped the dog closer. Vuk whined—a high, pathetic sound that Saurin had not heard since Radu was alive.

"He was poisoned," she whispered, her strength fading fast. "A slow burn... in the gut. I had to... cut the abscess... bleed the vein in his leg to flush it... before it hit his heart."

"You cut him?" Saurin looked at the dog. The wound on Vuk's flank was clean, bound tightly with a strip of torn bedsheet. The dog had let her slice into his flesh without tearing her throat out.

"He let me," she breathed. "Because... I asked him to."

Then her eyes rolled completely back, her grip on the paring knife loosened, and her small body sagged sideways toward the bloody floor.

Saurin moved without thinking. He dropped his cane, crossed the narrow space in a single stride, and caught her before her head hit the hard porcelain edge.

She was light—far too light for a girl who worked sixteen hours a day carrying coal and linens. Blood smeared across the lapel of his hand-tailored suit, warm and terrifyingly slick.

Vuk surged to his feet, his ears flat, a low rumble starting in his chest—not at Vesna, but at Saurin.

"Quiet," Saurin snapped, his voice carrying the absolute command of a man used to ruling men and beasts alike. He didn't look at the dog; he kept his eyes on Vesna's pale face. "You want her to live? Then stand down."

The dog stopped. He sniffed Saurin’s blood-soaked knee, let out a shaky breath, and lowered his head, falling into step right beside Saurin as he lifted the girl into his arms.

Saurin walked out of the washroom carrying the clumsy maid, his dog pacing silently at his heels.

He didn't take her to the servants' quarters in the attic. He didn't call the house physician who owed his salary to the Vosa family. He carried her up the main grand staircase, straight into his personal suites, and kicked the doors open.

"Casian!" Saurin roared into the quiet hall.

A moment later, the major domo appeared at the end of the corridor, his face impeccably composed—until he saw the blood covering his master's front, the dying girl in his arms, and the killer dog trotting beside them like a loyal guard.

For the first time in ten years, Casian lost his color. "Sir—"

"Get Dr. Aris. Now," Saurin commanded, placing Vesna gently on his own king-sized bed, uncaring of the silk sheets soaking up her blood. "Tell him if she dies before sunrise, I will personally feed his hands to the harbor crabs."

Casian stared at the girl, his eyes wide. "The girl? But... she was supposed to be gone by—"

"I said now!" Saurin screamed, a sound so raw it rattled the glass fixtures in the ceiling.

Casian bowed frantically and fled down the hall.

Saurin turned back to the bed. He reached down and picked up the small wax-sealed cylinder he had scooped from the washroom floor with his free hand. He cracked it open with his thumbnail. Inside was a tiny scroll of paper, covered in precise, encrypted numerical script.

It was a route schedule. A list of guard rotations for the wedding night. And at the bottom, stamped in pale blue ink, was the personal seal of Lord Drazza—his prospective father-in-law.

The poison hadn't been meant to kill the dog out of cruelty. The dog was an alarm system. Vuk bit strangers; Vuk barked at shadows in the east wing. To enter the house quietly on the night of the wedding, the Drazzas needed the dog dead.

And the girl—the quiet, clumsy, forgettable girl from the Dovat Quarter—had stopped them.

Saurin looked down at Vesna. Her face was still as marble, her breath shallow and rattling. Vuk rested his heavy chin on the edge of the mattress, his dark eyes never leaving her face.