Chapter 26: Growing Ambitions

The courtyard seemed to stretch deeper the further we walked, like the bowels of some monstrous beast that had swallowed an entire carnival and never quite digested it.

I strolled at the center, Brutus looming like a parental shadow to my right, and Dregan trailing on my left with the smug bounce of a man who had won his fight, and his dignity, by tearing another man’s trousers open in public.

The whispers followed us still—hushed names, lewd laughter, muttered nicknames that felt like perfume sprayed just for me. Every one of them tasted sweet, decadent, and intoxicating.

Brutus, of course, didn’t share my enthusiasm. His gaze was set forward, steady, like a soldier trudging through enemy terrain, except the enemies were all staring at me as if my skirt might fall off if they just concentrated hard enough.

I half-considered letting it.

That would liven the place up at least. But Brutus’s hand occasionally brushed my shoulder, a reminder that he was there not to enjoy the spectacle but to keep me from becoming one.

How boring.

Dregan, meanwhile, thrived in the chaos. He greeted strangers like long-lost cousins, slapped backs so hard men nearly toppled, and shouted jokes that left women wheezing with laughter and men fumbling their belts nervously.

He was the type who could turn a funeral into a drinking contest and a drinking contest into an orgy, and by the look of it, he’d already begun. Gods help me, I liked him. He was filthy in the way I was filthy, only shorter and with more beard.

The deeper we went, the more the space changed. The stalls thinned. The laughter softened. In its place came something quieter, sharper, like the hush of conspirators whispering in church pews.

A section of the courtyard opened into what could generously be called a bar: planks nailed together into a counter, barrels stacked behind, and a handful of stools missing more legs than they kept.

The air smelled of sweat, mildew, and whatever passed for liquor down here—fermented despair, by the scent of it. Conversations here weren’t bawdy shouts but careful hisses. Men leaned too close, hands hiding mouths, coins sliding as if the walls themselves had ears.

We slipped in. Or rather, Brutus slipped in, all stone and silence, and I tiptoed like a thief in a brothel, certain that every eye might pierce me.

Dregan didn’t bother—he strolled openly, whistling, which earned him a glare from Brutus and a grin from me. The bar’s atmosphere was different, heavy, and even my tongue felt the weight of it. This wasn’t a place for showmanship. This was where men lost fingers for looking at cards too long.

And then there he was.

At the far corner, framed by the smoke and lamplight, sat a man who looked as if God had designed him specifically to be unamused by me. Tall, wiry, silver hair slicked back like he’d wrestled it with grease until it surrendered.

His glasses were cracked—one lens fractured into a spiderweb pattern that somehow made his eyes look colder, sharper, as if he could see through the break straight into your soul. His clothes were prison rags like everyone else’s, but he wore them differently: neat, tucked, precise, as though he were still waiting for a board meeting that had been rescheduled indefinitely.

He was mid-transaction with some jittery creature of a man—a scrawny thief by the look of his twitching hands and darting eyes.

Coins lay between them, and as I watched, the silver-haired man calmly pushed half back with two fingers. His voice was low, but I caught the tone: deliberate, patient, the way one explains math to a stupid donkey.

The thief protested, waving his hands, until the man leaned forward, murmured something too low for me to catch. Whatever it was, it landed like a blade between the ribs. The thief’s face drained of color, his eyes going wide with a horror so raw it almost made me shiver. He froze for half a heartbeat, then scrambled away on trembling legs, leaving his dignity, and his coins, behind.

I clapped softly. “Oh, I like him. Intimidation without effort. Nothing sexier.”

The man turned then, his eyes fixing on me with the unblinking calm of a judge. There was no warmth there, no mirth. Just calculation. Brutus inclined his head.

“Loona. Dregan. This is Atticus. He’ll be handling our finances.”

Finances. In prison. The very word made me want to laugh, but I restrained myself, if only because Atticus’s stare suggested he’d balance the books using my entrails if I made the wrong joke. His mouth was a straight line, his posture flawless even on the broken stool.

He extended a hand.

I took it of course, and instead of shaking, I bent low and kissed his knuckles with all the flourish of a debutante at her first ball. Then I spoke.

“Charmed, darling. I don’t often entrust my money to men, but I’ll make an exception for one with such stern cheekbones.”

Atticus blinked once. His lips quirked. Not a smile—no, never a smile—but something adjacent, like the faint recognition of humor in the way one recognizes moldy bread. He released my hand without comment, and I swore I heard Brutus exhale through his nose like a man praying for patience.

“You’ll find I’m efficient,” Atticus said calmly, his voice smooth, deliberate. “Numbers do not lie. Nor do I. Your work will bring income. I will turn it into power. Nothing else matters.”

“Oh, I like him even more,” I whispered to Brutus, batting my lashes. “He talks like a funeral dirge but looks like one good orgasm away from enlightenment.”

Atticus ignored me. Entirely. He gathered the coins, stacked them with geometric precision, and tucked them away.

When I tried again—sliding onto the stool beside him, leaning close, whispering, “So tell me, do you balance more than books?”—he merely tilted his head as if observing a toddler smearing jam on the wall. Not annoyed, not amused, simply acknowledging existence without indulging it. Gods, that was infuriating. I adored it.

Dregan, of course, found it hilarious. “Oh-ho, you’ve met your match, Loona. This one’s immune. Like trying to get a priest drunk!”

I sniffed. “Oh please. I’ll crack him eventually. I cracked Brutus, didn’t I?”

Brutus muttered something suspiciously close to “barely,” but I let it slide.

We left the bar not long after, coins squared away, arrangements settled. Brutus led us out back through the hushed stalls, and toward a darker section of the courtyard. The air thickened, heavy with a powdery scent that clung to the tongue.

Ashdust, they called it—a drug, a ritual, an incense of rot and lust. The deeper we went, the stronger it became, until even I, with my nose trained for sin, had to wrinkle it. But beneath the smoke, there was another smell, stronger, sharper, undeniable.

Sex.

Not the sweet, perfumed kind whispered about in noble courts. No, this was raw, brutal, musk-heavy sex. Sweat, spit, and the iron tang of bodies colliding like weapons. It hit me like a wave, curling my lips into a smirk before I even saw the tent.

It loomed ahead: a canvas structure dusted gray, patched with crude stitches, sagging at the corners. From within came grunts, cries, the snap of chains. The ashdust curled from its seams, drifting like the exhale of some sleeping beast. Brutus walked straight in, no hesitation, as if strolling into a bakery.

I followed, naturally. Dregan too, though with the gleeful jitter of a man heading into a tavern brawl.

Inside was… art.

She stood in the center, tall, broad-shouldered, muscles cut from stone and lined with scars like a sculptor’s signature. Her blonde hair hung to her shoulders in sweat-damp strands, framing a face both furious and radiant. Her eyes burned molten gold, as though some god had poured liquid sun into her skull.

And she was naked. Entirely. Her body was the kind of body that made both men and women reevaluate their life choices mid-breath.

At her knees knelt a man—collared, chain in her fist. His face was buried between her thighs, slobbering, tears streaming, his muffled moans somewhere between joy and despair. She yanked the chain hard, pulling his head back, and spat down at him with a snarl that could’ve melted iron.

“Pathetic,” she growled. “Can’t even lick without crying. You disgust me.”

The man whimpered, which only made her sneer deepen. She wrenched the chain again, dragging him until his neck bent at a painful angle. His sobs echoed against her skin. Whether they were sobs of bliss or misery, I couldn’t tell. I wasn’t sure he could either.

I leaned against the tent pole, fanning myself. “Well,” I murmured, “and here I thought this was a drug den. Turns out it’s a theater. Front-row seats to Les Misérable Cunnilingus.”

Dregan howled. Brutus sighed. The woman’s eyes flickered toward us for a second, molten and sharp, and in that single glance I knew: this was no ordinary player in our little prison carnival. This was someone dangerous. Someone glorious. Someone I was already desperate to know.

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