"It is necessary to be a great feigner and dissembler."
***
I grabbed a fresh piece of parchment and started drafting a letter. The scratch of quill on paper filled the silence between us.
"We need to make this official," I said without looking up. "Tomorrow I'll request an audience with my father. I'll explain that my upcoming time at the academy has made me realize how... inadequate... I am at managing basic responsibilities."
Lyra watched me write. Her red eyes tracked every stroke of the quill with that intensity she never bothered to hide when we were alone. Firelight caught in those eyes and made them glow like coals.
"You'll present yourself as incompetent," she said.
"Worse. Helplessly dependent." I paused mid-sentence, quill hovering above the parchment as I looked up to meet her gaze directly. In the world outside these walls, I'd never commit such a breach of protocol. Servants existed in a noble's peripheral vision, acknowledged only when needed, then dismissed from consciousness. Eye contact suggested equality, and equality was anathema to the social order. But here, in this sanctuary of conspiracy, those artificial boundaries dissolved.
"Think about it," I continued, setting the quill down to gesture with ink-stained fingers. "What kind of threat could a noble possibly be if he can't dress himself without assistance? If he visibly trembles at the mere thought of managing his own daily schedule? If something as trivial as selecting his own meals sends him spiraling into a state of paralyzing anxiety? They'll dismiss me before I even open my mouth—just another pampered, broken scion, utterly incapable of independent function, let alone representing any conceivable danger."
"They'll see what you want them to see," she murmured. Something like satisfaction crept into her voice. "A harmless shadow. A footnote in someone else's story."
"A pathetic child who needs a nursemaid," I agreed. I went back to the letter with renewed focus.
Every phrase was designed to make a self-respecting noble cringe. I let my handwriting waver in places, made the script shaky where a nervous hand might lose confidence. The whole thing screamed "anxious mess who can barely compose his own correspondence."
Perfect.
"The beauty is that it serves multiple purposes," I continued. The plan was solidifying in my head as I talked. "You get positioned at the academy as my dedicated handler. I cement my reputation as harmless to the point of being pitiable. And my family gets another reason to dismiss me as irrelevant."
I signed the letter with a flourish and set it aside to dry.
"The more they underestimate me, the more room I have to move. The lower their expectations, the less they watch."
Alex from three months ago would have been horrified. That version of me still had pride. Still thought dignity was something you could afford when people were trying to kill you.
Current me knew better. Pride was a luxury. Survival was not.
"There will be resistance," Lyra observed. Her tactical brain was already running through obstacles. "Lady Vivienne won't want to lose a servant to your 'frivolous needs.' She'll argue the academy has staff. She might even claim that managing on your own would build character."
"Let me worry about Lady Vivienne." I watched the ink settle into the parchment. "Your job is to be ready. Know your role. Prepare your performance. Wait for your cue."
I stood and walked to the window. The moon hung heavy and silver in the sky, well past its peak. Late enough that any reasonable person would be asleep. Which meant this conversation needed to end before someone noticed candlelight under my door and started asking questions.
Time to send her off and hope she doesn't do anything too creative while I'm sleeping. Though with Lyra, "creative interpretation" seemed to be her default setting.
"That's enough for tonight," I said, turning back toward the desk. "You should return to your quarters before—"
"Master."
One word. It stopped me cold. Something in her voice made the hair on my neck stand up. That primitive alarm system that evolution gave humans to detect predators.
She'd risen from her chair. Hands clasped behind her back. Picture of a dutiful servant. But her tone said something else entirely.
"Yes?" Neutral. Careful.
"When you speak to your father tomorrow. When you make yourself appear weak." She took a step closer. I could see fire behind her composed expression now, that internal furnace she kept banked in public but let blaze when we were alone. "I want to watch."
Of course you do.
Because watching me humiliate myself in front of my family is apparently your idea of a good time. Or a religious experience. With Lyra, honestly hard to tell the difference.
"That can be arranged," I said slowly. I studied her face for clues. "Though I'm not sure why you'd want to see it. It won't be pleasant. I'll be groveling. Begging. Probably describing my own inadequacies with metaphors that would make a court jester wince."
"Because," she said. Her voice dropped to just above a whisper. "It will be beautiful."
I stared at her.
Beautiful. She thought watching me grovel would be beautiful.
Either she had a seriously twisted sense of aesthetics, or she understood something about my plan that I hadn't fully grasped myself. Saw some hidden artistry in the performance I was preparing.
Or she was just that devoted to the idea of serving me that any expression of my will became inherently attractive.
Which was... concerning.
"Lyra." I kept my voice flat. She needed to hear this clearly. "Tomorrow, I will grovel before my father. I will beg him for a leash so the world can see what a helpless dog I am. I will paint myself as so fundamentally incapable that the only solution is to assign me a keeper."
I looked directly into her burning red eyes.
"And you, my dear Lyra, will be the one holding it."