Chapter 259: Chapter 259: The Perfect Cover

“A BEST FRIEND,” Grayson whispered, the words sounding like a foreign language. “I had a human best friend who bought me a… a vineyard? And I told him my parents died on a boat?”

Grayson stood frozen, his eyes fixed on the empty doorway. He looked like a man who had just been told the moon was made of blue cheese and he was responsible for the monthly rent.

He slowly looked down at his soot-stained hands, then at his brothers, and finally at Mailah.

“A yacht, actually,” Carson corrected, helpfully leaning against a charred bookshelf. “Very tragic. You always did have a flair for the dramatic, Gray.”

Grayson ignored him, his brow furrowed in deep thought. “He seemed… annoyingly cheerful. And he knew my name. He knew my business. He even knew about…” He glanced at Mailah before snapping back to his brothers. “Are there more surprises? Should I expect more humans to walk through the door next? Or perhaps a collection of vintage stamps I’ve forgotten about?”

Carson grinned, his eyes dancing with mischief. “Well, since you’re asking, maybe you fathered a few children without us knowing. There could be a whole army of mini-Graysons out there in preschool, demanding expensive Scotch and refusing to nap.”

Grayson’s eyes flashed a dangerous, icy silver. “Carson. If you say one more word, I will personally ensure your next dream involves being chased by a giant, hungry Tacocat.”

Mailah felt her face heat up at the mention of her shirt, but she couldn’t help but feel for Grayson. He was an ancient demon prince, a creature of shadow and power, and he was currently being bullied by his own past.

“Enough,” Lucson said, stepping forward. He was the only one who still looked remotely put-together, despite the soot on his lapel.

He looked at Grayson with an uncharacteristically serious expression. “Grayson, look around you. This library is a disaster. The Ember Sigil is screaming inside that safe. And it’s not because of enemies at the gates.”

“It’s because of me,” Grayson said, his voice flat.

“Yes,” Lucson agreed. “It’s because you are divided. Part of you wants to be the monster, and another part of you—the part that James knows—clearly enjoyed his existence in the human world more than you cared to admit.”

Grayson opened his mouth to argue, but Lucson held up a hand.

“As much as we want to find out every secret of the life you don’t remember, we have to focus on the issue at hand. The fire tonight? That was a warning. If you don’t learn to control your internal temperature, you’re going to burn this entire estate to the ground.”

Lucson paced the charred remains of the rug, his voice taking on the tone of a professor.

“First,” Lucson began, “we are moving the Sigil. It’s too dangerous here. This estate… well, strictly speaking, Grayson, you don’t own it for now. We do. You’re essentially a guest in a house that’s currently acting like an oven.”

Grayson looked offended. “I am a Prince. I am not a ’guest’.”

“You’re a guest with a very high heating bill,” Mason rumbled from the corner, still clutching the fire extinguisher.

“The point is,” Lucson continued, “The Ember reacts to your emotions. When you feel like the Prince—angry, hungry, powerful—the Ember wakes up. It wants to be released. To keep it dormant, you need to learn to relax. You need to be… boring.”

Grayson stared at him. “Boring?”

“Human,” Mailah whispered, stepping closer to him.

Lucson nodded toward her. “Exactly. James’s appearance is actually a welcome distraction. He’s the key. To ground the Ember, you need to go back to your usual life. The one you had before you lost your memories. You need to manage your company. You need to sign those ’permits’ James was whining about. You need to spend time with humans, doing human things, and thinking human thoughts.”

The look on Grayson’s face said it all.

If Lucson had suggested he spend the next century scrubbing floors with a toothbrush, Grayson probably would have preferred it.

“You want me,” Grayson said, his voice dripping with venom, “to sit in a board room? To talk about… ’permits’? To pretend that I care about the price of real estate while a literal piece of my soul is trying to melt through a safe?”

“Yes,” Lucson said firmly. “The more you act like the James Webb version of Grayson, the more the Ember will settle. It’s about balance, brother. If you stay here and brood like a dark king, you’ll turn into one. And that is exactly what the High Council wants.”

Grayson turned his back on them, walking toward the large windows that looked out over the dark grounds. The tension in his shoulders was visible, a cord of muscle that refused to unknot.

Mailah watched him, her heart aching. She saw the Prince, yes—the power, the arrogance, the danger. But she also saw the man from the dream. The one who had kissed her with such desperate hunger, not for her “essence,” but for her.

She walked up behind him, her feet silent on the soot. “Grayson?”

He didn’t turn around at first.

“They’re right,” she said

He turned then, his eyes searching hers.

“I don’t know how to be that man anymore,” he admitted, his voice so low only she could hear. “The memory is gone. James looks at me and sees a friend. I look at him and see a liability.”

“Then let me help you. Again,” Mailah said. She took a brave step forward, closing the gap between them. “I knew that man, too. He was stubborn and grumpy, but he was… real.”

Grayson’s lips twitched. “Stubborn and grumpy?”

“The worst,” she teased, a small smile breaking through her worry.

Grayson reached out, his thumb brushing a smudge of soot off her cheek. The touch was electric, sending a spark through her that felt more powerful than any magical fire.

“If I do this,” Grayson said, loud enough for his brothers to hear, “if I go back to this… ’company’… I am not doing it for the permits. I am doing it to keep the Council away.”

He looked at his brothers, the Prince returning to his voice. “You move the Sigil as soon as possible. But I am not staying in some human apartment. If I am to live like a ’human,’ I will do it on my own terms.”

The next hour was a whirlwind of supernatural efficiency.

While Grayson and Lucson argued over which “human” clothes were acceptable (Grayson insisted that anything without a high collar was peasant-wear), the other brothers were busy preparing the Sigil for transport to its next home.

Mailah went back to her room. Shadow was already there, sitting on the edge of the bed.

The cat’s tail wasn’t twitching with the urge to run; instead, she looked toward the window, her eyes fixed on the dark tree line of the estate.

“The brothers say it’s too dangerous, Shadow,” Mailah whispered, sitting beside her. “Valerius has his ’eyes’ everywhere.”

Shadow let out a soft, low sound that seemed to vibrate with worry. Mailah reached out to stroke the cat’s fur, but her eyes landed on the silver letter opener on the nightstand.

Who to trust?

Downstairs, the library was still a smoky mess, but the mood had shifted from panic to a cold, calculated tension.

“The perimeter is crawling,” Mason rumbled, his voice low as he stared at a series of monitors he’d pulled up on a laptop. “Valerius hasn’t sent an army, but he’s tightened the net. Small crows, shadow-wraiths… even a few human ’consultants’ are parked at the end of the driveway.”

“He knows we are hiding something,” Lucson said, his face pale in the glow of the screen. “If we try to drive out of here with a lead-lined trunk that screams magical energy, he’ll hit us before we reach the main road. We have to be smarter.”

Grayson leaned against the desk, his arms crossed. He looked tired—not the kind of tired sleep could fix, but a deep, soul-weary exhaustion. “So, we wait?”

“We wait,” Ravenson confirmed. “We need time to find a way to the place so hidden that not even the High Council can sniff it out. That place doesn’t exist on any map. Until then, the Sigil stays in the safe, and we stay in the house.”

“However,” Lucson added, a small, knowing smirk touching his lips. “You, Grayson, cannot stay hidden. You have a reputation to maintain. And more importantly, you have a mask to wear.”

Grayson’s eyes narrowed. “What does that mean?”

“You have a company to run,” Lucson said.

Grayson let out a groan that sounded like a wounded animal. “I went to that office once after I lost some of my memories. I almost burned the building down because a man in a bad tie wouldn’t stop talking about ’synergy.’”

“You have to,” Lucson insisted. “Maybe it will also be the perfect cover to move the sigil out of here.”

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