The ballroom behind them eventually recovered.

That was the disturbing thing about powerful people.

Given enough money and enough wine, almost anyone could normalize violence in under twenty minutes.

By the time Seraphina lowered the pistol from beneath Lucien’s jaw, the orchestra had resumed playing softer music inside House Vespertilio. Guests drifted carefully around shattered crystal while servants replaced bloodstained tablecloths with fresh linen as though murder simply counted as poor event management.

Lucien looked entirely unsurprised by this.

“You should leave before they attempt another assassination,” he said.

Seraphina slid the pistol back beneath the slit of her dress.

“You say that like it’s routine.”

“For this room? It is.”

Rain continued drifting sideways through the broken balcony windows, cool against overheated skin. Somewhere far below, Prague traffic moved steadily through midnight streets while distant sirens echoed near the river.

Normal city sounds.

The kind that made catastrophe feel strangely private.

Seraphina turned away from the ballroom entirely.

“I need air.”

“You’re standing outside in November.”

“I noticed.”

Lucien followed her anyway.

Of course he did.

—

The streets around the opera palace had mostly emptied by the time they reached ground level.

Rain soaked the city in silver reflections beneath gas lamps and blurred traffic lights while water rushed steadily through old stone gutters.

Neither of them spoke for almost an entire block.

Not awkward silence.

Crowded silence.

Too many unfinished thoughts moving beneath it.

Seraphina walked slightly ahead with her heels in one hand and black dress hem damp against her legs, clearly past the point of caring about elegance. Lucien remained beside her at an easy pace, coat darkened by rain he didn’t seem to notice.

The city smelled cleaner after storms.

Wet stone.

Coffee.

Cigarette smoke drifting from late-night bars.

And underneath it all—

blood.

Not literal.

Historical.

Prague always smelled faintly haunted after midnight.

“You were going to shoot me,” Lucien observed eventually.

“You were being irritating.”

“That usually earns sarcasm, not attempted execution.”

Seraphina glanced sideways at him.

“You leaned into the gun.”

“You noticed.”

“Yes, because that’s deeply unwell behavior.”

A quiet laugh escaped him then.

Small.

Real.

Gone quickly afterward.

But she heard it.

And somehow that disturbed her more than the violence earlier had.

Because laughter humanized people.

And she was trying very hard not to humanize him.

They crossed beneath an old cathedral archway where rainwater cascaded steadily from cracked gargoyle mouths overhead.

Lucien slowed slightly beside her.

“You still think Matthias deserved saving.”

“I think he deserved answers.”

“He chose money over morality.”

“That doesn’t justify murder.”

Lucien looked ahead toward the empty street stretching downhill beneath rain and amber streetlights.

“You say that like morality survives long enough to matter in wars.”

The sentence hit harder than she wanted it to.

Mostly because lately she wasn’t sure the Church believed in morality anymore either.

She kept walking.

“You always do that.”

“What?”

“Talk like you’ve already seen the ending.”

Lucien considered the question quietly.

“I usually have.”

That was the problem with him.

Not the violence.

Not the danger.

The honesty.

It arrived without performance.

Without trying to impress her.

And every time she started categorizing him cleanly as a monster, he said something painfully human by accident.

Rain darkened strands of pale hair loose from Seraphina’s braid while they crossed a narrow stone bridge overlooking black river water below.

Lucien watched her adjusting the soaked fabric of her sleeve.

“You should’ve let someone treat the bite.”

“It stopped bleeding.”

“That wasn’t my concern.”

She looked toward him sharply after that.

Lucien immediately shifted his attention toward the river instead.

Coward.

The realization arrived unexpectedly enough that it almost made her smile.

Not because he feared her physically.

Because he kept saying things that sounded too close to caring, then retreating from them before they fully existed.

The thought lingered longer than it should have.

“You knew my mother.”

The words came out before she decided to ask them.

Lucien’s expression changed almost imperceptibly.

Not surprise.

Memory.

Rain tapped softly against the bridge railing between them.

“Yes.”

Seraphina’s pulse slowed slightly.

“How?”

“She worked with the Order.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“No,” Lucien agreed quietly. “It isn’t.”

She stopped walking then.

Lucien continued another step before noticing and turning back toward her beneath the rain.

Streetlight gold caught briefly against wet black fabric and pale skin.

Too beautiful.

Still too beautiful.

It irritated her every time.

“You keep doing that,” she said.

“Doing what?”

“Acting like you know things about my life nobody else does.”

Lucien stayed quiet.

That silence felt worse than lying.

“My mother died during a vampire raid,” Seraphina continued. “That’s what I was told.”

The rain seemed louder suddenly.

Lucien’s gaze held hers for a long moment before shifting away toward the cathedral towers looming over the city skyline.

“Did she?”

The question landed like ice water.

Seraphina stared at him.

“What does that mean?”

Lucien rested one hand lightly against the wet stone railing beside him.

“It means your Order edits history aggressively.”

“That’s not about history. That’s about my family.”

“Yes,” he said softly. “Exactly.”

Something tight pulled sharply beneath her ribs after that.

Because part of her had already started suspecting it.

The hidden archives.

The torn pages.

The Church symbols beneath Prague.

Every answer lately seemed built around omission.

“My father said she died protecting civilians.”

Lucien’s jaw tightened once.

“She did protect people.”

“From vampires?”

Silence again.

And there it was.

The hesitation.

Small.

But devastating.

Seraphina laughed once under her breath.

Not amused.

Just angry enough to feel unsteady.

“You know,” she murmured, “most people would simply lie better.”

Lucien looked back at her then.

Rain slid slowly down the side of his throat beneath the open collar of his coat.

“I tried lying to you once already.”

“When?”

“The first night in Prague.”

Something in his expression softened briefly afterward.

“Turns out,” he said quietly, “you notice too much.”

The compliment shouldn’t have affected her.

Unfortunately, it did.

They stood there too close beneath cathedral bells and rainwater while the city breathed quietly around them.

No weapons drawn.

No ballroom politics.

No screaming monsters.

Just tension stretched painfully thin between two people who should not have understood each other this easily.

Lucien stepped closer first this time.

Not predatory.

Careful.

Like someone approaching something already half-broken.

Seraphina didn’t move away.

That was the problem.

Rain clung to his dark hair in loose strands across his forehead while his gaze drifted slowly toward her mouth before returning to her eyes again.

The movement was subtle.

Barely there.

But she noticed.

Of course she noticed.

“You should hate me,” she said softly.

Lucien’s expression turned almost unbearably tired after that.

“I’m trying.”

The honesty hit her harder than any flirtation could have.

Because nothing about this felt smooth anymore.

It felt inevitable.

Which was worse.

Seraphina became suddenly aware of everything all at once:

his hand against the bridge railing beside her;

the cold radiating faintly from him through rain-damp air;

the way he kept looking at her like memory physically hurt;

the fact that she was no longer afraid when he stood this close.

Lucien’s fingers brushed lightly against the wet fabric near her wrist.

Not grabbing.

Testing.

Asking.

And God help her—

she almost leaned toward him.

Then the cathedral bells rang.

Loud enough to split the moment cleanly in half.

Both of them froze instinctively as midnight thundered across Prague from every direction at once.

The spell shattered immediately afterward.

Seraphina stepped backward first this time.

Breathing unevenly.

Lucien looked away toward the cathedral towers with visible frustration before slowly dragging one hand through rain-soaked hair.

Somewhere nearby, a tram screeched along wet tracks.

Reality returning.

“You should go,” he said quietly without looking at her.

Seraphina stared at him for another second longer than necessary.

Then turned and walked back into the rain before she could make a worse decision.