Sabine pulled slightly at the hem of her blouse, a nervous tic she rarely allowed herself. Her eyes scanned the desk in front of Viktor, lingering on the papers he had been working on. She raised a brow.
"That laugh," she said softly, trying to sound light but failing, "made me a little nervous. Thought you might throw something or storm out the room."
She crossed her arms, watching him. "Guess you've changed a bit. Or maybe just worn out."
Her voice dropped slightly as she nodded at the desk. "So... what is all this?"
Viktor finished laughing, the sound dry and bitter, as he finally looked down at the work he'd been avoiding— shaking his head. Then he looked down at the papers on his desk, the mirth quickly draining from his expression. "Freedom papers," he said simply. "Finalizing the names. The last set before the routes change."
Sabine nodded slowly, her mouth opening as if to respond—but no words came. She hesitated, fingers brushing against her skirt. Her gaze darted to the pile again, and her throat tightened.
Curiosity overtook caution. She reached forward and carefully lifted the stack. Her eyes scanned the pages—one by one—until her breath hitched.
There. Ayoka's name.
Not just once, but on several pages—her status, her lineage, conditions marked in careful legalese. On one form, her name had been written, then crossed out. Then rewritten. Then crossed out again. Sabine stared at the pen strokes, her heart twisting. It wasn't a mistake. It was a war.
She hadn't expected to see her there at all. And certainly not this many times, in so many states of half-existence. Viktor had tried. Stopped. Tried again.
Dragons, she'd heard once in an old myth, had a terrible habit of guarding what they loved until it withered under their claws. They didn't mean to hoard hearts—they just didn't know how to let them fly.
And Viktor, born of that stubborn lineage, was no different.
Majority of the time, people made the mistake of thinking dragon hoards were all about gold and glittering things. But it wasn't always treasure. Sometimes it was people. Memories. The past. That's why she warned the girls so many times—never fall too deep for something with fangs and fire in its blood.
She wished she could've told Ayoka his true nature. But then again, true nature didn't mean you always followed it. It could explain a few things, sure. But it was never an excuse for how one acted. Viktor could be better. He was trying. But the hoard in his heart wasn't made of gold—it was made of fear, and love, and the kind of longing that made even freedom feel like a risk.
She was about to ask for Ayoka's freedom.
And maybe, just maybe, talking it through like this—getting him to look at it not as loss but as transformation—might convince him to let her go. There were options. Sabine had kin further west, and friends scattered in ports beyond. If Ayoka and Malik left the country, headed to Paris or even London, they'd have a chance at something freer. Something quieter. It wouldn't be perfect, but it'd be possible.
France had once offered refuge to children like Malik—boys too light, too dark, too complicated for America's comfort. Britain had its ghosts too, but there were still alleys and fogs that swallowed names instead of lynch mobs. Sabine had read the letters, heard the jazz, seen the stories carved in postcards: Black GIs who stayed for love, babies born between cultures, lives that bloomed far from Southern soil.
Sometimes, when she let herself dream, Sabine imagined Viktor showing up years later in Montmartre or Soho. Maybe Ayoka would be working in a jazz bar, or reading in a corner bookstore. And maybe then, without chains or contracts, he could finally fall in love clean.
It sounded like a story with soft pages and gold-tipped edges. But reality had teeth. And fairytales rarely survived border crossings.
She didn't trust any land entirely, but she trusted movement. And she trusted possibility more than cages dressed as care.
Sabine spoke plainly, voice steady despite the heat curling in her chest. "Ayoka needs to be free, Viktor. You know it. I know it. Once your brother's debt is cleared—and it will be—you'll release everyone else without a second thought. You've planned for that. You've built the routes, made the arrangements. Ayoka ain't part of that contract. She's the one person this house keeps like breath in its throat—and that's not safety, that's ownership."
Then she tapped the stack of freedom papers—lightly, deliberately. Her fingers found Ayoka's name and hovered over the line meant for a signature.
Then she tapped the stack of freedom papers—lightly, deliberately. Her fingers found Ayoka's name and hovered over the line meant for a signature. Again. And again.
She took a breath, bracing herself. For all the times she'd warned the girls not to get too close to men like Viktor, this moment still burned.
He was meticulous, always had been. Good with paperwork, precise with names and dates. So why, of all people, was he messing up so badly on Ayoka's?
Sabine wanted to believe there was more to it than cowardice. So she pushed aside everything she knew about him—all the rumors, all the history, all the warnings—and tried to see him fresh. Clean slate. No claws, no hoard. Just a man with a pen and a decision.
She knew better than most how easy it was to hold power and call it protection. Freedom hadn't spared her from that temptation. Not as a woman. Not as someone born into a system that taught even the well-meaning how to bind with good intentions. She'd seen high-society matrons and dirt-poor sharecroppers clutch their grip on other people's lives like it was a birthright. The class didn't matter. The habit did.
This kind of ownership dressed itself in care. In duty. In trembling signatures and postponed promises. She'd lived long enough to know that being freed didn't make you righteous, and writing a name on paper didn't make you brave.
Sabine's gift was a blessing and a curse—a pull toward people's turning points. She tried not to interfere more than she had to, but the threads always found her. Still, part of her wondered when she became so entangled in his.
And Viktor, for his part, glanced up with a quiet sigh, thinking—not for the first time—how the hell does she always find me like this? He could be hiding in a swamp halfway to perdition, and she'd crawl out the reeds like judgment in silk. Was it magic? Was it instinct? Or did the gods simply like watching him squirm under her spider-eyed scrutiny? Either way, he was convinced Sabine had been stitched from stubbornness and spite just to ruin any illusion of peace he might briefly entertain.
Viktor nodded once, sharply, but his eyes burned. And Sabine stepped back again, letting her final words sink into the silence.
Then she smiled, just faintly—half a tease, half a dare. "Make no mistake, sugar. You could always come visit us. Even stay awhile. Lord knows we'd make room." Her voice dipped, carrying a warmth not unlike the pull of an open hearth on a cold morning. "But tell me this, Viktor—why do you hesitate so bad when it comes to that signature?"
She leaned forward slightly, eyes glittering. "I could go dig through the threads and find the answer myself. But I'd rather hear it from your mouth first."
He looked away, shoulders slumping as though the weight of his own words pressed down on his spine. "From freedom that might kill her," he muttered, almost to himself. His hand hovered near the ink bottle, but he didn't touch it. "From a world where her name isn't safe. From people like Genevieve..."
He paused, the corners of his mouth twitching downward—not quite a frown, more like regret given shape.
Sabine blinked, watching the man in front of her unravel thread by thread. "You think keeping her here, owned, will keep her safe?"
Viktor turned away, shoulders tense as if bracing against a storm. He reached for the whiskey decanter but changed his mind halfway, hand faltering midair. "It's not just her," he said in a less than confident tone "Malik is lightskin,clever and soft-eyed. He'll be hunted, Sabine. You know that. Paper won't stop a bullet or a mob with nothing better to do."
He turned back toward her slowly, guilt dragging at every line of his face. "She's not light like you. She won't pass like you might, in the wrong crowd."
Sabine's lips tightened. Her voice, when it came, was low and sharp. "You think I don't know what my people go through? You think I ain't seen how some of us vanish when we get too free for comfort? You think I don't carry stories on my back like scars?"
He swallowed hard, jaw clenched. "I didn't mean—"
"You meant exactly what you said," Sabine cut in, not cruelly but cleanly. "But I know what you're getting at. It's different for women, yes. But this ain't just about skin or safety. This is about what you fear more—losing her, or letting her be more than what you protected."
Viktor looked down at the paper again. Her name blurred. Not because his vision faltered—but his courage did. The power he hold into his hand was so easy to abuse if done wrong.
He thought of stories whispered through generations—of the spirits in Russian folklore who haunted crossroads, demanding choices that bound souls to fate. Of the tales Sabine told, the real ones, about children born too light or too dark for the safety of their century, chased by mobs and monsters alike. And the boy. Malik. Lightskinned and lovely. That was enough for people to hate him.
Freedom wasn't just parchment. It was peril. A name on the wrong tongue could become a curse, and even a freedwoman could vanish beneath a lie. Viktor clenched his jaw. He knew the history. Knew the lore. But none of it mattered more than this one moment—this one line—and the price it carried.
He didn't answer. His eyes stayed fixed on that single line waiting to be signed, as if it might suddenly vanish and relieve him of the choice. His fingers played absently with the stamp in his hand, rolling its weight back and forth across his palm. Just one seal. Just one motion—and Ayoka would have her freedom, at least on paper.
But would it be enough?
In his mind, he played out the path: the right channels, the letters to old friends, the passage north. He'd prepared all of it. Built her escape like a craftsman carving a hidden door. And yet… part of him still hesitated. Because parchment might protect her, but oceans might save her.
If he truly wanted her safe, he'd take her out of this cursed country, far from rumors and ownership and names twisted into chains. Yet that choice—like all true ones—cost more than ink. It cost the part of himself he wasn't ready to lose.
Sabine stood still in the lamplight, her expression unreadable. The scent of old paper and worn leather clung to the air. Between them, an invisible thread stretched tight—honor, betrayal, compassion, restraint.
"I understand," she said finally, voice low. Then, with a sudden softness that hinted at an old dream, Sabine stepped forward and placed a hand on the table. "You could bring your brother too," she added. "My people would watch over them—her and Malik both. It wouldn't be perfect, but it'd be safer than this." Her voice took on a rhythmic cadence, almost like prayer.
With graceful deliberation, Sabine lifted her arms—and from beneath her blouse, four more emerged, folding out in smooth, practiced motion. All six hands began weaving. Thread shimmered from her palms—spun silk laced with protective charms—and she began to knit a coat for him, each movement as careful as a spell.
"You'll need it," she said simply. "For the cold truth ahead." She didn't offer to look into the future for him—though she could. The web was always there, tugging at her fingertips, threads of might-be and will-be coiling just out of reach. But Sabine knew better. Fate, in all its tangled beauty, still bowed to free will. That's why most cultures called it a web—not a line. Unless, of course, you were one of those mother-cursing Greek deities with their snipping scissors and no time for nuance.
The air turned colder. A ripple of shadow gathered near the fireplace, and from it stepped the Shadow Man, dressed tonight in theatrical black, his smile a crescent moon of wicked amusement. He strolled behind Viktor and Sabine like a stage manager watching two leads fumble their cue.
Sabine rolled her eyes. "Oh, wonderful. The devil's in attendance."
"And the angel pouts," the Shadow Man cooed, swirling a phantom cane. "Can we all pretend this isn't about your shared affections for the same fragile girl-child who burns too brightly for both your palms?"
Sabine didn't even turn. "Careful, shadow. I still have salt laced in my silk."
The Shadow Man leaned back, chuckling. "You know I could unravel the threads for you. Tell you what's waiting at the end of this decision Viktor. Sabine aint the only one who can play with fate. Though, I am enjoying this little show you are putting on."
Viktor stood silently, caught between them. They were like reflections in a darkened mirror—opposite sides of the same whispered question. A man flanked not by good and evil, but by the price of knowing too much. Sabine and the Shadow Man, they mirrored each other more than they'd ever admit. Wisdom and mischief. Sacrifice and shadow. Depends what you pay, the saying went—and what you get in return. They weren't so different. Just different at the cost.
The Shadow Man leaned close, his breath cold as frost, whispering in a voice wrapped in silk and threat. "Viktor, while you sit there lost in your noble bullshit. Heroes sign the goddamn paper. And you? You fucking love how she burns.Why try to be that hero of this story. You known it is not safe for her and Makil until yall leave." He gave a sideways glance at Sabine, a smirk curling like smoke.
Sabine flipped him off with a slow, elegant gesture, not even bothering to turn around. Viktor didn't speak. His eyes burned. His jaw clenched. Between them, the desk sat quiet—save for one paper, unsigned He reached forward, but his hand trembled. Not from fear. From choice.
Sabine's gaze softened slightly, but her jaw held firm. She didn't move, didn't blink, just stared at him with the quiet hope of someone who'd seen too many men flinch at the final step. She was giving him one more chance—one last thread to grab. "You don't get to call it love," she said, her voice low and threaded with a kind of weary grace, "if you chain it down."
The Shadow Man clapped his hands once, slow and echoing. "Bravo. Beautifully said. Shall we see if he listens, or does what men always do—wait too long until it's someone else's tragedy to clean up?"
Viktor didn't answer. His hand hovered over the seal.
Sabine stepped back, her voice now like silk being torn slowly. With the final thread in hand, she brought the woven coat to completion—an elegant design, rich with protective sigils and shadow-kissed embroidery, the colors echoing Viktor's preferred palette of obsidian, ember, and deep indigo. She held it up once, inspected it with the discerning eye of a craftsman, then walked to the wall and hung it on a polished hook just beside the desk—within reach, but not forced upon him. A gift. A ward. A quiet hope stitched in silk and intent.
She gave one last look to the Shadow Man, who grinned like a curtain call, then faded into the wall. Sabine walked away with the grace of a woman who knew the storm had not yet passed—only circled wider. And Viktor? He was still staring at the page, wondering whether freedom meant more than letting go.