Auther did not tell Viola where they were going.
He dressed carefully instead, choosing clothes that felt strange on his body—dark layers tailored too sharply for a boy who had spent most of his life either training or nearly dying, a collar too high, a coat too clean, and when Viola looked him over with open suspicion and asked where exactly he thought he was taking her, he only smiled and told her to trust him just this once.
She scoffed.
Lana, watching from the doorway, shoved Viola forward with a smirk that promised trouble. "Go," she said lightly. "If he embarrasses you, I'll laugh later."
Viola glared at her, then at Auther, then finally sighed as if agreeing to something deeply inconvenient. "If this is a trap," she warned, "I'm throwing you through the nearest wall."
"That's fair," Auther said, already walking.
The dining room was small, quiet, lit by warm lamps instead of chandeliers, the kind of place meant for conversation rather than spectacle, and when Viola took in the table laid with care and the pastries arranged like offerings rather than desserts, she immediately narrowed her eyes.
"What are you wearing," she asked flatly, sitting anyway. "You look like a noble who lost a bet."
Auther pulled out her chair for her, unbothered. "Good. I was worried you'd say I looked competent."
She snorted despite herself.
Dinner unfolded slowly, awkward at first, then easier, the food grounding them in a way neither of them commented on, and somewhere between the second course and the wine Auther finally produced the bottle he'd been saving, dark glass etched with silver runes.
"Wishes," he said, pouring. "Apparently it's terrible sober."
Viola raised a brow. "That's the worst endorsement I've ever heard."
They drank anyway.
They laughed more than they meant to.
They forgot, for a while, about poison and veins and limits and waiting.
By the time the bottle was half-empty Viola was leaning back in her chair, eyes sharp but unfocused, the tension in her shoulders finally loosening, and she stared at him like she was trying to decide whether to be angry or honest.
"You're an idiot," she said suddenly.
Auther smiled. "I was hoping you'd noticed."
She scoffed, then stared into her glass. "Do you really think I was born like this?" she asked, voice rougher now. "Strong. Fast. Untouchable."
He didn't answer.
She didn't wait.
"I was an orphan," she continued, words spilling easier now that she'd started. "Family took me in when I was small. Cute. Easy to feed. Then I started growing. Too fast. Eating too much. Breaking things without meaning to. They decided I wasn't worth the cost."
Her fingers tightened around the stem of her glass.
"They left me," she said quietly. "Because I was inconvenient."
Auther listened, chest tight, because no matter how many lives he'd lived or comforts he'd known, this was something he could not pretend to understand, and when he reached for her hands it wasn't dramatic or grand, just instinctive, grounding, real.
She looked at him then, eyes bright and unfocused and searching.
"Why are you so desperate to like me," she asked, almost accusing. "People call me a monster."
He didn't hesitate.
"You are," he said gently. "You're my monster. Got that?"
She blinked.
"And honestly," he added, smiling softly, "I think monsters are cool."
The words hit harder than any compliment ever could.
Her face flushed instantly, anger evaporating into something dangerously close to flustered, and before she could think better of it she leaned forward, intent clear, breath warm, lips close enough that he could feel the moment tipping.
Auther stopped her.
Not roughly.
Just enough.
He pressed his forehead to hers instead, voice low and steady. "I don't take kisses from intoxicated women," he said quietly. "Not even you."
Viola froze.
Then she laughed, sharp and embarrassed and very much alive.
"You're impossible," she muttered, leaning back.
"Probably," he agreed.
They sat there a while longer, hands still close but not touching, the night stretching comfortably around them, the word monster no longer sounding like a wound.
And for the first time since power had entered his life, Auther felt like strength wasn't something he needed to chase.
Sometimes, it was something you earned by staying.