Headlock.

He’d tried chasing after Juno, but the second he stepped into the corridor alone, Juno had simply… vanished.

His own footsteps echoed off the polished floor, sharp and hollow, bouncing back at him in a rhythm that didn’t quite match his pace. The sound almost mimicked another set of steps—lagging half a beat behind.

He stopped. Listened.

Silence.

When he turned, the hallway behind him was empty, still, like it had never been touched by human presence.

Then he faced forward again—

—and froze.

A maid stood a few paces ahead, hands folded neatly in front of her, head tilted just enough to make her smile seem unnatural. She didn’t move. She didn’t speak. Just stared, as if waiting for him to say something first.

Gideon stared back, jaw tightening. Slowly, he pivoted—

Another maid stood behind him. Same folded hands. Same eerie, porcelain smile.

His pulse thudded hard in his ears as the truth settled in. Totally fucked.

He cleared his throat. “Hello, ladies. Are you here to escort me to the dining room?”

No answer. Not even a blink. Their chests didn’t rise. Didn’t fall.

He shifted his gaze back and forth between them, but the hallway was too long, his field of vision too narrow—he couldn’t keep both in sight at once.

“Uh… Juno said you were rounding up the racers for an announcement. He needed to get something, and he told me to go ahead.”

Nothing. Their stillness pressed in on him like walls.

He took a slow step forward. “Anyway… if you ladies don’t need anything—”

The maid ahead slid sideways into his path with a movement that was too smooth, too deliberate.

A dry laugh slipped from him, more a reflex than amusement. 

“You’re not here to escort me, are you?”

He dragged a hand down his face, trying to ignore the way his stomach knotted.

The maid in front stepped closer.

Step.

The sound cracked against the silence, louder than it should have been.

Step.

It echoed, each footfall hammering the still air, until she was only a few feet away.

Her face was perfect, serene, and utterly wrong. No breath. No blink. Just that smile.

When she finally spoke, her voice was warm but empty, as if the words were pulled from somewhere far away.

“The dining room is the other way. Follow us.”

The maids didn’t walk beside me—they shepherded me, their footsteps perfectly in sync with mine. Each time I slowed, so did they. Each time I sped up, they matched me, neither speaking nor breaking their unnerving smiles.

When we reached the dining room, the heavy doors swung inward without a sound.

On the far end of the massive table sat Vassier, hands folded over the polished wood, his eyes sharp as glass. Maids and butlers lined the walls on both sides, evenly spaced, their perfect posture giving them the look of mannequins waiting for orders.

On the opposite end—closer to me—Sylvaine sat stiffly, her gaze flicking toward the empty chair beside her. The silent hint was all I needed. I slid into the seat.

“What’s happening?” I murmured.

“I don’t know. It’s been silent the entire time,” she whispered back.

I glanced around. Every maid faced forward, eyes straight ahead, hands folded neatly. Not a single movement.

“Where is Juno?”

Vassier’s voice cut through the silence like a knife through glass.

I fought not to flinch. “He said he went to get something. I figured he’d be here before me. You can even ask the maids that escorted me.”

Vassier’s gaze shifted from me to the two who’d brought me here. They’d already blended into the line along the wall. Without breaking posture, they gave the smallest, most synchronized nod I’d ever seen.

Vassier sighed. “No matter. We can start without him.”

“We can?” Sylvi and I said at the same time.

His lips curled faintly. “We can…”

A knife appeared in his hand, spinning idly between his fingers, the steel catching the light with each turn.

He inhaled, about to speak—

—but the dining room door opened.

Every head turned toward it.

Step.

Each footfall echoed in the suffocating silence, heavy and deliberate.

Step.

His singed cloak stirred faintly, as though a breeze passed only for him.

Step.

The mask he wore had no openings for eyes—only a single horizontal slash of black across the fabric.

He stopped halfway down the table, perfectly between Vassier at one end and Sylvi and me at the other.

“Exidus?” Sylvi blurted.

“Silence.” The voice was low, resonant, carrying weight even without volume.

He surveyed the room, head turning slowly—from Sylvi, to me, to the army of maids along the walls—before finally locking onto Vassier.

A faint sound slipped past the mask, almost a snort.

“Hmph.”

Eighteen maids. One Vassier. Two people who need to get out—three, counting me.

In his right hand, a butter knife. In his left, the power to end this with a single word.

The table stretched between us like a battlefield, only instead of soldiers, I had seconds. Nine of them.

The door was five feet from me.

Gideon and Sylvi were about four feet from where I stood.

If I used the Pythagorean theorem, I could calculate exactly how far they were from the exit—

—but that thought shattered under the sharp snap of fingers.

Vassier’s fingers.

“OH!” I barked before I could stop myself. It startled a few of the maids, and it bought me a sliver of attention. Nine seconds had passed.

“What do you think you’re doing,” I said flatly, my voice filling the silence before he could give an order.

His eyes narrowed. “I could ask you the same.”

He opened his mouth to say more, but I didn’t give him the light of day. “I’m not asking what you’re doing—” I shifted my gaze toward Gideon and Sylvi, “—but the racers.”

He sighed, leaning back in his chair like this was all tedious. “I’m simply showing hospitality in my own home.”

“You call planning their murder hospitality?”

A flicker. Almost nothing. But I saw it—he winced. One to zero.

“Excuse me?!” Sylvi blurted. “What the hell are you—”

“Silence.” The word came out automatically, heavier than I meant it to. I’d completely forgotten she didn’t know the plan.

I kept my eyes locked on Vassier. “And for such a minuscule reason as well…” I pulled a chair from the table and sat without asking, boots landing on the polished surface with a satisfying thud.

“These racers may very well have saved this city. Yet you plan their execution because they are close to discovering its secrets.”

Silence. Even the air felt like it was holding its breath.

Vassier set his knife down with deliberate care, leaning forward so the light caught the edge of his smile. “I’m not exactly sure what you mean…”

“Is me entering with little retaliation not proof enough of my importance?”

“Or maybe you entered long before anyone noticed,” he countered, voice as calm as glass over deep water.

His eyes sharpened. “You were in the library, weren’t you… Exidus?”