POV: Dorian
The letter had been opened before it reached him.
Not obviously. Whoever did it was skilled — the seal had been lifted clean and pressed back down with the kind of careful heat that left no visible marks. Most people would not have noticed. Dorian noticed because he had learned to notice things like that the hard way, years ago, when not noticing had cost him everything.
He read the letter standing up. He did not sit down for things like this anymore. Sitting felt like settling, and settling felt like something he could not afford.
Countess Isolde Fenwick wrote the way she did everything — beautifully, warmly, with a knife hidden in every third sentence.
Dear Dorian. Word has reached me of your upcoming marriage. How wonderful. I confess I am surprised — a baron's daughter seems a modest choice for a man of your standing. I do hope you have considered the match carefully. Some connections carry more weight than they appear. I would love to discuss it over dinner when you are next in the capital. Do come soon.
He read it twice.
Then he held it over the candle on his desk and watched it burn.
Isolde already knew. That was the thing that mattered. She had eyes everywhere — in every courier station, every inn along the northern road, every servant in every house that was worth watching. The letter being opened before it reached him meant she had someone inside Ashenmoor. Someone close enough to intercept his mail.
He had suspected it for months. Now he knew.
He needed to find that person before they found out what he knew about Verity.
He went to check on Emmett — not because he was worried, he told himself, but because if Isolde had a spy inside the castle then knowing where Emmett was at all times was simply sensible. He knocked on the boy's door. No answer. He pushed it open. Empty, book left open on the bed, bird feather tucked behind the ear of a small carved horse on the shelf.
Dorian stood in the doorway of the empty room for a moment.
He did not like not knowing where Emmett was. He would not call it fear. He would call it strategic awareness. But his chest did a tight uncomfortable thing until he heard a sound from outside — a voice, and then a laugh.
Emmett's laugh. He followed it.
He found the garden door slightly open and stopped before he touched it.
Through the gap he could see them — Emmett sitting on the broken bench with his bird book, and the girl beside him. They were talking. He could not hear the words clearly, just the rhythm of it — easy, back and forth, comfortable, like people who had known each other for years instead of twenty minutes.
Then Emmett said something and Verity said something back and Emmett laughed.
Not his polite laugh. Not the careful, quiet sound he made when adults said things he was supposed to find funny. His real laugh — loud and sudden and completely unguarded, the kind Dorian had not heard from him in months. Maybe longer.
Dorian stood at the garden door and watched.
Something moved through his chest. He had no name for it. It was not quite pain and not quite warmth and it sat in a place he had kept locked for so long he had almost forgotten the lock was there.
He made himself step back before either of them saw him.
He went to his study. He sat at his desk. He looked at nothing for a long time.
He was not a man who let himself want things. Wanting things made you predictable. Predictable men got hurt. He had learned that at twenty-six, when someone he trusted had come for him in the dark, and he had survived it, and he had rebuilt himself around the one rule that kept him safe: want nothing. Expect nothing. Give nothing that can be taken.
The second letter from Isolde was on his desk — delivered an hour ago, unopened. He had planned to burn it too.
He opened it instead.
He read it twice.
His blood went cold.
It was short. Shorter than the first. Just two sentences, without the warmth this time, without the beautiful wrapping.
I know what the girl carries on her left hand. If you are wise, you will end this marriage before she understands what it means. If you are not wise — well. You know what I am capable of.
He set the letter down very carefully.
Isolde knew about the Seal.
Which meant she had known about Verity long before he had. Which meant the attack on the road was not a warning — it was a first attempt. And the spy inside Ashenmoor was not just watching his mail.
They were waiting for a second chance.
He was on his feet and moving before he finished the thought.