Mara leaves, and the silence sits wrong. Too deliberate. I pace once, twice, then stop when footsteps approach.
One knock.
"Miss Quinn?"
Not Cassian. The cadence is lighter.
"Your escort to the midday interval."
"Who sent you?"
"The Council."
A pause. Then a soft, satisfied exhale.
The golden-eyed heir.
"Open the door, Seraphina."
"No."
"You can refuse," he says calmly. "But if you do, Enforcement will come instead. And they won't knock."
I open the door.
He smiles like he's greeting a guest, not a liability. "Better."
He walks beside me without waiting for permission. Delegates nod to him. Avoid looking at me too directly. Not disrespect—calculation.
"Everyone here watches you," he says. "They want to know if you'll break early."
"I'm not breaking."
"Good," he says. "But they're not betting on strength. They're betting on pressure points."
We enter the courtyard. Two heirs already there: the scarred one and the restless one. Both straighten almost imperceptibly when I appear.
The political heir angles his body toward me. "Ask your questions."
"You won't answer."
He shrugs. "Sometimes people don't need answers. They need reactions."
Before I respond—
"She shouldn't be with you."
The scarred heir steps in, voice stripped of patience. His eyes track how close the political heir stands.
"Let her choose," the political heir says.
"She's not choosing under your influence."
Their stares lock—quiet hostility, not the loud kind. The trained kind.
I step back without meaning to.
They both notice.
The political heir shifts first. "Fine." He gestures at me. "Do you want to stay with him or walk with me?"
"I'm not choosing."
"Then someone will choose for you," the scarred heir says. "That's how this estate works."
A cold fact, not a threat.
Before I can reply, the political heir adds, "You should know what happened in the West Wing."
The scarred heir's jaw snaps tight. "Not here."
"She asked," the political heir says. "And she should understand the stakes."
"I didn't ask," I correct.
"But you thought it," he replies.
I hate that he's right.
He steps closer—still polite, but the air tightens. "Someone tried to leave last night. A servant helped them. Both were caught."
My breath stutters. "Caught how?"
The scarred heir cuts in. "They're alive."
It's not reassurance. It's damage control.
The political heir tilts his head. "Alive, yes. But not useful anymore."
The restless heir mutters something under his breath—disgust or annoyance, unclear.
I swallow hard. "What does 'not useful' mean?"
"No access to corridors," the political heir says. "No communication. No movement without supervision."
Locked down. Silenced. Vanished inside the estate without actually dying.
"And Cassian?" I ask.
"He handled the breach," the scarred heir says. "He'll report directly to the Council."
The political heir's mouth twitches. "You should understand what that implies. They send him when they want a controlled response. Not a loud one."
"So they're hiding it," I say.
"Of course they're hiding it," the political heir replies. "If word spreads that people are trying to escape, the Selection loses stability. And stability matters more than any of us."
The scarred heir steps closer, tone lower. "This isn't about scaring you."
"Yes, it is," the political heir counters. "Fear keeps her careful."
He turns to me. "And careful keeps her alive."
My chest tightens. I need air, but there's none here that doesn't feel owned.
The scarred heir notices. "Come on." His voice softens—not kindly, just less sharp. "There's a service corridor behind the pavilion. Fewer eyes."
The political heir blocks the slight angle of escape with a single step.
"She goes where the Council expects her to go," he says. "Her schedule doesn't include disappearing into back corridors with you."
"It doesn't include being cornered by you either," the scarred heir snaps.
A beat.Both assess each other.Both assess me.
The restless heir pushes off the railing and joins them, expression flat. "Stop circling her like she's bait. Council wants her functional for the next phase. If she's rattled, it slows the rotation."
The political heir snorts. "You suddenly care about efficiency?"
"I care about not cleaning up chaos for the rest of the week," the restless heir says. "Pick your positions and hold them."
It's the first time any of them have spoken to each other without pretending I'm not the subject.
"What's the next phase?" I ask.
Three heir heads turn toward me at once.
The scarred heir answers first. "You'll be assigned to controlled environments with each sector."
"No heirs," the political one adds. "Just their people."
The restless one cracks his knuckles. "They'll push you. Watch where you bend. Where you break."
My pulse jumps. "Break from what?"
All three heirs fall silent, though each for a different reason.
Then the political heir answers:
"From being yours."
My breath stumbles. "What does that mean?"
He studies me—not kindly, not cruelly. Just accurately.
"You belong to no one yet," he says. "And that makes you unstable property."
The scarred heir winces at the word property.
The restless heir doesn't react at all.
I force the words out. "And if I don't break?"
The political one smiles with no warmth. "Then the Selection becomes interesting."
Mara appears at the entrance, pale. "Miss Quinn—Council summons. Immediately."
The heirs' expressions shift—subtle, alert, assessing the change in stakes.
"What now?" the restless heir mutters.
But I already know.
Cassian is back. And whatever happened in the West Wing wasn't finished.It was the beginning.
The heirs watch me as Mara reaches for my arm.
And for the first time since arriving, I sense it clearly:
They're not just reacting to me.
They're repositioning around me.
The Council changed the rules again.