Marianne retreated to the basin, splashing her face with water so cold it felt like needles against her tired skin. She took a deep breath, forcing her expression into a mask of serene indifference, hiding the tremors in her legs beneath the heavy folds of the midnight silk.
She pushed open the towering obsidian doors of the private dining hall. The room was a cathedral of frost and silence. High, narrow windows looked out onto the swirling violet mists of the afterlife, but inside, the air was perfectly still. Zoe Holiyos Liffender sat at the head of a long table carved from a single slab of translucent quartz. He was not reading, nor was he looking at the view; he was simply sitting, his hands resting flat on the table, waiting.
The sound of Marianne's slippers against the stone floor seemed deafeningly loud. She approached him, her gaze fixed on the silver tray, and placed it before him with the precision of a clockmaker.
Zoe didn't look up at her. He leaned forward slightly, the steam from the winter-grain porridge rising to meet his cold, marble features. He picked up the silver spoon, turning it over in his fingers as if inspecting it for a microscopic flaw.
"The nectar-pears," he said, his voice a low, dangerous velvet. "They are sliced at a three-degree angle."
Marianne remained still. "As instructed, Sovereign."
He dipped the spoon into the bowl, lifted a single ribbon of fruit, and let it drop back into the grain. "Instruction is for the mediocre, Marianne. I requested ribbons, not translucent bandages. The fruit has begun to oxidize. It has been sitting for exactly four minutes and twelve seconds since it left the heat."
He pushed the tray away—not with violence, but with a slow, agonizing flick of his fingers that sent the silver sliding across the quartz.
"It is cold," he said, his eyes finally lifting to meet hers. They were like frozen oceans, searching for a crack in her composure. "Do you think because I pulled you from the bridge, I will settle for the lukewarm efforts of a tired murderer? You are here to serve, not to offer me your fatigue in a bowl."
Marianne clenched her jaw, her heart thundering. "I can prepare it again."
"You will prepare it until it is correct," Zoe commanded, leaning back into the shadows of his high-backed chair. "And lady? If I see that bead of sweat on your temple again, I will have the guards take you to the ice basin before you reach the stove. You are in the High Court now. Act as if your soul depends on it—because it does."
While Marianne faced the freezing judgment of the Sovereign, the violet mists of the 2nd Hello swirled around the "Gallows Clock."
Gerry was walking toward a shortcut through a narrow alley when a high-pitched, mechanical whine cut through the thick air. She looked up, squinting through the gloom. Streaking across the sky was a small, rusted aeronautical machine—a "Sky-Sled" powered by a flickering core of soul-energy. It was a rare sight in the 2nd Hello; such machines were reserved for the elite or the truly desperate.
As it descended low enough to avoid the weeping pipes, Gerry gasped. Sitting in the pilot's seat, his single hand gripping the controls with white-knuckled intensity, was Shetan. His dragging half was tucked into the cockpit, his face a mask of manic, wide-eyed triumph as he soared over the mud that had trapped him.
The Sky-Sled banked sharply toward the glowing lights of The Velvet Noose.
Gerry stopped in her tracks, her mouth hanging open as she watched the machine vanish into the haze. "That little crawler..." she hissed to herself, a mixture of jealousy and disbelief twisting her features.
In a realm where everyone held onto their possessions with a death-grip, a Sky-Sled cost more than credits. To afford a one-way flight to a club, Shetan would have had to barter away the only thing that kept him from the gutters.
"He sold his room," Gerry whispered, a cold chill settling in her chest. "He sold his shelter for a single night of music."
She looked at the clock. 7:58 PM. Shetan would make it to the club, but by morning, when the violet sun rose, he would have nowhere to hide from the elements of the 2nd Hello. In this realm, the Corrupted would always trade their future for a moment of forgetting.
The doors of the club were made of heavy, weeping willow-wood that bled a thick, sweet-smelling resin. As Shetan crashed his Sky-Sled into the designated landing dock, he didn't care about the damage to the machine. He tumbled out, his dragging half scraping against the polished floor, and hauled himself toward the entrance.
The interior of The Velvet Noose was a kaleidoscope of artificial joy. Violet lanterns cast a soft, forgiving glow over the mangled forms of the guests, blurring the lines where their bodies were broken. Music—a haunting melody played on harps made of silver wire—pulsed through the room, vibrating in Shetan's single lung.
"A glass of Lethe-Wine!" Shetan roared at the bartender, slamming his last remaining credit on the bone-carved counter.
As the cold, shimmering liquid hit his throat, the phantom pain of his missing half began to recede. For the first time in an eternity, he didn't feel like a crawler; he felt like a king. Around him, others who had bartered away their futures danced on unsteady legs, their faces fixed in ecstatic, desperate grins. They knew that when the music stopped, the streets would be cold and their beds would be gone, but in the 2nd Hello, the present was a drug they couldn't stop taking.
Back in the High Court, the atmosphere was far from festive. Marianne stood over the stove for the third time, her knuckles white as she gripped the silver ladle. The nectar-pears had been discarded twice already—once for being too thick, and once because she had let a single drop of condensation from the lid fall into the bowl.
She was no longer just tired; she was vibrating with a cold, focused fury. She realized that Zoe wasn't just testing her cooking; he was trying to see if he could break the spirit of the "Devil Killer" using nothing but a spoon and a bowl of grain.
She approached the quartz table again. The silence was even heavier than before. Zoe hadn't moved; he looked like a statue of the North Wind, waiting to blow her away.
"Attempt number three," Zoe remarked, his voice like the slide of a blade. "The grain looks... acceptable. But the air in the room is thick with your resentment, lady. It seasons the food more than the salt does."
He took a bite. The hall went silent. He chewed slowly, his eyes never leaving hers. For a moment, a flicker of something—perhaps satisfaction, or perhaps just a deeper level of calculation—passed through his gaze.
"It is passable," he said, setting the spoon down. "But your hair is out of place. A single strand has escaped your braid. In my presence, perfection is the only currency."
He stood up, his towering frame casting a long, icy shadow over her. "You have escaped the ice basin for now. But lunch must be served in four hours. It will be Glacier-Crab with Empyrean Broth. If the broth is cloudy, you will spend the night in the basin. No exceptions."
As he walked past her, his velvet cloak brushed against her silk gown. The touch was freezing, yet it sent a jolt of electricity through her nerves. She turned to watch him leave, her jaw set.
"I won't break," she whispered to the empty, frozen hall.
"We shall see," Zoe's voice drifted back from the shadows of the corridor, though he hadn't turned around. "Everyone breaks eventually, Marianne. Even the devil."