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I went still. Not from shock—I didn’t let myself be shocked—but from something colder.

She shouldn’t be here. My wards should have turned her away. No one was supposed to be able to walk in.

But she had. Like the rules had never applied to her.

“How did you—” I started, then bit the words off. Didn’t matter. She was here.

Marigold tilted her head, utterly unfazed. “The dead things see through illusions. They prefer truth.”

“And you keep showing up where you’re not wanted.” The words came out sharper than intended.

My fingers tightened around the violin’s neck.Truth.A dangerous word. One I had spent years perfecting the art of avoiding.

“Truth is overrated,” I said smoothly, but my voice wasn’t quite as steady as I wanted it to be. She wasn’t just listening to the music—she was listening to me. I didn’t like the way that felt. Exposed. Real.

“Is it?” She gestured to the instrument I still clutched like a shield. “That didn’t feel like a performance.”

A flicker of something too real passed through me. I reached for my usual charm, my practiced indifference. “Everything is a performance, darling. Some of us just do it better than others.”

But Echo betrayed me. My treacherous familiar, shifting her scales to that deep violet that always emerged around Marigold.Her tiny skeletal mouse scampered to the windowsill, studying Echo with unnerving intelligence.

“Why this piece?” she asked, but there was a blade in her voice now, hidden beneath curiosity. “It’s not exactly what I’d expect from you.”

“Then maybe you don’t know me as well as you think you do,” I said, then deflected. “You know it?”

She moved into the moonlight like it had been choreographed, the highlights in her honey-blonde hair catching every glint—and I despised the way my gaze followed.

“My mom used to hum it while cleaning houses. On the bad days, when bills were piling up. Said it reminded her that beauty could exist even in hard times.”

Something twisted in my chest. I had spent the afternoon watching her command magic in a way that had made even Rivera pause, and now, she spoke like this—like she wasn’t even aware of how her words landed.

“It was just a piece I learned for performance,” I lied. “But it wasn’t perfect enough for Mother.”

She turned to face me, and for the first time, I didn’t want to meet her eyes. I could feel her seeing through me again.

“Maybe that’s why you play it up here,” she said softly. “Where no one can judge if it’s perfect.”

My fingers traced familiar patterns on the violin’s polished surface, seeking comfort in its familiar weight. “Why are you really here, Grimley? Come to mock the pampered heir’s secret hobby?”

“I followed the music.” Her gaze was steady, challenging as she had stepped closer—just enough that the space between us felt like a choice.

I should tell her to leave. Should send her back with a smirk and a cutting remark, let her know exactly where she stood. Because this was dangerous.

And yet—I didn’t want her to leave.

I could take her right now. Pull her against me, kiss her hard enough to make her stop looking at me like that—like she saw past every carefully crafted lie, and wasn’t afraid of what lay underneath.

But she would know the truth. And that was why I didn’t move.

Without speaking, I lifted the violin back to my shoulder and began to play.

This time, I didn’t fight the defiance in the melody. The strength. The edge that had nothing to do with technique.

Marigold sank onto the couch, listening in a way that unnerved me—like she wasn’t just hearing the music, but the pieces of me I usually kept buried. The ones she had been pulling to the surface since the moment she arrived.

Echo and her mouse watched from the windowsill in something like an uneasy truce, while magic hummed clean and pure around us.

By the time the last note faded, she was already standing. She moved toward the door without a word, but at the threshold, she paused. When she looked back at me, something in my carefully constructed world trembled.