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He spun again. The whiskey bottle in his other hand sloshed with each step.

“What’s the phrase?” he mused, tapping the bottle against the mirror. “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice…” He trailed off with a bitter laugh, spinning away from the glass and throwing back a long drink. The liquor burned.

He was spiraling. The signs were all there—loud, messy, with no fucks left to give. Just like the gossip rags liked it.

He should’ve been smarter by now. He always trusted the wrong people. It was a pattern, a Shardsdamn curse he couldn’t seem to break.

Maybe his instincts were just rotten, wired wrong from the start. How else could he explain this constant need to bleed from the same wounds over and over? How many knives had to be handed out and subsequently buried in his back before the lesson stuck?

It wasn’t just bad luck. It couldn’t be. No one failed this consistently without something being fundamentally broken.

A throat cleared behind him.

“Holy shi—” Kato stumbled back. “Damn it, little brother. You move quieter than a debt collector from the Sunken Purse.”

Standing in his doorway, Skye merely arched a brow, eyeing the bottle of whiskey in his hand. The room reeked of mirthroot. “Looks like we started early today.”

Kato waggled the bottle in offering. “Want some?”

Skye gave a curt shake of his head. “Maybe after breakfast.”

“Suit yourself.” Kato spun again, nearly losing his balance but not his grip on the blunt, taking another deep pull. He caught sight of his reflection in the mirror and turned slightly, pulling his shirt open to admire the ripples of hard-edged muscle. “Look at this,” he said, giving his abs a slap. “That’s what happens when you go a week on nothing but whiskey and spite. Call it the Kato cleanse.”

The music swelled, each note building upon the last. Kato’s eyes lit up as he pointed toward the crystal radio. “Wait—wait for it,” he said, holding up a finger for emphasis. “This part? Absolute perfection.”

It rose and rose, the music practically shouting,Feel something, damn it!And Kato did. He threw in a spin for good measure, moving with the careless precision of someone who had long since abandoned the concept of shame. Hips swaying, feet tapping, he launched into an improvised routine—half-dance, half-defiance, all energy.

As the melody peaked, he glanced at Skye, only to find him standing there, arms crossed, his expression teetering between amusement and outright disbelief.

Kato paused mid-spin, whiskey bottle swinging lazily from his fingers as he spread his hands. “What?”

Skye shook his head. “Nothing. It’s just… sometimes I look at you, and I see Taly. I find it… unsettling.”

Oddly enough, that made him feel better. “You know, I think I’ve got a blonde wig around here somewhere. I could really lean in.”

“Why do you have a blonde wig?”

“It’s better if you don’t ask.”

The music suddenly cut off with a sharppop, followed by a faint whiff of burnt ozone. Sparks flew from the crystal radio in the corner, glowing briefly before fizzling out.

A muffled voice floated through the wall. “Fixed your volume problem.”

Skye leaned against the doorframe. Where Kato’s eyes were smudged with dark circles, his brother’s looked disgustingly bright and rested. His hair was combed instead of sticking up in wild peaks. “Why don’t you just move into the townhouse already? We have plenty of empty bedrooms.”

Kato scoffed. “And have to listen to the sound of you and your lady love consummating your moral superiority day in and day out? No, thank you.” He gestured broadly with his blunt, sending a trail of smoke curling into the air. “I value my personal space.”

If Skye arched that damn brow any higher, it was going to take flight. “More like with proper privacy wards, you wouldn’t be able to inflict yourself on anyone.”

“Amen, my brother,” another voice added, low and grudging, filtering through the barracks’ paper-thin walls.

“Oh, you’ve got opinions?” Kato said, banging on the wall as loud as he could. “Well, guess what? I’ve got noise. How do you like that, huh?”

A chorus of muffled groans echoed from the other side.

He turned back to his brother. “What are you even doing here? Did you set an alarm just so you could come judge me at sunrise?”

“Kato, if I wanted to judge you, I’d do it from a more comfortable position. Like my bed. Which, for the record, had better company in it than what I left it for.”