“My lord, I’ve brought the two guests,” Vega said, voice like a thin blade sliding from a sheath.

“Mm. Thanks, Vega,” I hummed, a low note under the lamplight.

While I pondered how to mend the jarring discord in Ferrel’s crown, Vega eased the door open and ushered the guests in like dusk slipping through a gap.

On the way, she’d shown me the surveillance. Eil pried at Nivifar with questions stiff as a dull knife on ice, and still got answers—an absurd little miracle under a cold moon. He did say one thing right.

I don’t herd my companions onto forked roads painted with chalk.

“Which side do you pick?” and “Choose for yourself”—that’s for would‑be allies at the city gate. Once their will walks into my camp, that road closes like a drawbridge.

I poached Nivifar from the humans, but I won’t make her butcher humans on a blood‑slick stage. If others carry no weight in their hearts about killing, why force her onto that altar? I’m not that brat who snarls, “Pick your mom or me,” nor that fool who needs oaths of fealty chanted like incense, again and again, to sleep.

When I use people, I don’t suspect them. I’m not paranoid, counting daggers hidden in every sleeve under torchlight.

Read a comrade’s stance and mind, and you don’t need fake scales of balance. I hand assassinations to Vega, the blade in velvet; Nivifar does idol shows under bright lamps. They shouldn’t stew over, “Should this one die?” or “Should this intel be handed over?” like moths circling a candle.

What Nivifar knows is all “harmless to say,” a gauze curtain rather than a lock. The Skyward Launcher can be mentioned; I don’t need her to know its true bones. That’s care, or gentleness, like a shawl over shoulders, not trust weighed on a ledger.

Still, she needs a lesson. Even if speech is fine, pick your line in the sand and stand there.

So I had Vega haul in these two unlucky specimens by the scruff, like cats pulled from a rain barrel.

Eil always seems a little afraid of me, a shadow that stuck since the Sword Saint pilgrimage.

Either way, I should play my part—a lord whose secrets got stolen, a mask lit by cold fire.

Often—really, most times—anger isn’t anger. It’s a banner raised where anger is allowed, a red pennant in public wind, marking your line so the other side feels the weight.

“I’m Demonfolk too; darkness doesn’t blind my sight like fog. So why skylights everywhere?” I let the words fall like pebbles in a pool. “Mr. Eil, Ms. Julian—because my beloved, the other lord of the Endless City, the Divine Being across from me, the Queen of Infinite Radiance—she loves light. She loves finding me in light each time she comes. So I cut skylights for her, like windows carved into dawn.”

I shoved the papers across the desk; pages skittered like dry leaves. Just enough for the show of ire. That’s the scene’s pivot—note it, ink thick as night.

In public I wear a mask, so my deadpan doesn’t have to sweat. With the right angle and light, I lift my head under shadow, and they swear they read meaning in my eyes like stars behind smoke.

I spend little effort; water runs downhill the same way.

“Ferrel—she loves everyone evenly, ugly and beautiful alike, like rain over roofs. Death before her eyes saddens her, a gray bruise on dawn. I won’t kill you this time. When you see her next, offer thanks like a flower at a shrine.”

“But what you did—” Julian started, a spark that wouldn’t catch.

“Thank you for your grace,” Eil said, and the words fell like coins onto stone.

Eil dropped to one knee, gratitude pressed to the floor, a contrast sharp as steel; Julian held it cold as frost.

—Correction. Julian wasn’t ungrateful. She wavered like a reed in wind, saw Eil kneel, then mirrored him in the same posture, armor creaking like old wood.

She just hadn’t settled which mask to wear before my gaze.

Warriors can act too… their acting just sucks, stiff as painted boards.

So she wants to match Eil’s stance. I can guess what Eil and Vega whispered on the road, words like lanterns bobbing in fog.

“This isn’t grace,” I said, weighing the phrase like iron on a scale. “Demonfolk don’t talk like that to those who fish for praise. Human, we don’t accept ‘grace’ as payment covering cost. I priced the act of killing you and judged I’d lose more. Got it?”

“Thank you for your grace,” he repeated, stubborn as a knot.

“Don’t you think I want someone to bleed right now, a cut to vent the storm? Knowing that, why flaunt a provocation like a red flag?”

“If your lady hears of this grace, she’ll be pleased,” Eil said lightly, a blade wrapped in silk.

“Hmph. If you’d used that sense before, you wouldn’t have needed to step into the Endless City, whose gate yawns like a maw.”

Eil has a silver tongue. Spy work wastes him; he’d do better as my comic foil on a little stage under paper lanterns.

I shook my head smiling, then let out a deliberately creepy, adolescent villain laugh, a crow caw I never use. I beckoned Vega, standing like a shadow by the pillar.

“Vega, take our guests to tour the Skyward Launcher, the tower that points at the sky. Then—their lodgings in the human quarter are cramped like boxes. Reassign them to rooms that breathe.”

“As you will. But letting spies get a look…” Vega bowed, timing precise as a metronome, offering counsel like a straight man’s cue.

“Until I pass judgment, Mr. Eil remains our guest,” I said, each word a rule nailed to wood. “Go. As long as he doesn’t act as a spy, I, as the master of the Endless City, will indulge a guest’s curiosity—as long as he isn’t a spy.”

I said it twice because it matters, bells tolling in an empty hall.

The Savior Demon King Army of the Endless City still files Eil under “guest.” That’s a line I penned in ink that dries like obsidian.

You never know if the next spy will be a stubborn fool whose skull is stone. This one reads the room; let him live, until he doesn’t, blade sheathed in velvet.

“Executing without warning is mere tyranny,” I said, words ringing like hammer on anvil. “The Endless City will be a utopia forged by iron law. I don’t make rookie mistakes.”

“‘But what if our plan leaks?’” Vega intoned, flat as a script read into a cold wind, the line a crack in a jar.

Vega was getting annoyed, voice monotone, face solemn and blank, more and more like a looping automaton under lamplight. Sometimes she refuses to play along; gears click without oil.

Looks like she’s already dropped the veil and shown Eil and Julian her true face. No need to drape it here.

But performing is one of my pleasures, a stage itch. A maid’s refusal won’t dampen my mood; the curtain stays up.

I cleared my throat like a soft drumbeat and kept playing the role I wanted, a lord framed in shadow.

“Hey, Vega, if a suspected spy can pass intel under tight watch, a net with no knots, is your so‑called perfect plan truly perfect?”

“‘Indeed, indeed. Monitoring, control, investigation—my designs are flawless,’” she replied, words ticking like clockwork gears.

“Then do it now. Intelligence has a shelf life, like fruit under sun. Hide it now, but after ‘that day,’ the tale will be over.” I turned to Eil, a smile thin as a crescent. I like this guy; I like people who know the measure like a calligrapher knows stroke weight. “When that day comes, Mr. Eil, I’m eager to read your memoir. Bring me two—one signed for the shelf, one for reading.”

Let me think… how do you shoo a fly again, a buzz you don’t have?

Few insects dare near someone holding power like a crown; I’m rusty at the annoyed shooing gesture.

I flicked my hand, a breeze through reeds, telling the kneeling pair to rise and go.

Vega led them out and, after a bow, drew the door closed like a lid on a quiet well.

A note: the Endless City is built on concepts like stones that listen. I can tune the “soundproof” concept in walls and doors; I set it to absolute silence now, snow falling in my ears.

“Ferrel, satisfied now?” I asked into the hush, voice a bell under velvet. “See—no one died for it. Also, won’t you come down?”

Ferrel had been sprawled atop the ceiling chandelier, glittering like frost; she slowly shifted her weight down. The chandelier’s high; she landed on her backside, a thump like a drum.

She dislikes changing the world’s given rules, so she barely uses her authority. At least remember you have wings folded like night—you can fly, okay!

“Haha, falling is fun too,” she laughed, silver bells scattering.

“Most human tailbones disagree,” I said, dry as parchment.

I sighed, breath like steam in winter, left the armchair, moved to the desk, and helped my girlfriend up.

“As you see, I lost nothing, and I pursued nothing. The rule of the world is to avoid loss before it happens, to mend the roof before rain. So next time—”

“Mmhm. Andor will kill Eil. I know,” she said, like a blade waiting in the wings.

“As long as you don’t press it,” I answered, letting dust settle.

“Since you’ve said it, next time, before choosing, Eil and Julian should be ready to die, feet on the cliff’s edge,” she murmured, eyes like deep water.

I shrugged and let Ferrel’s line drift like smoke.

A Divine Being’s love and mercy gaze at a different horizon than humans do, sun rising over a far sea.