Chapter 123: Chapter 123: Follow through. (1)

Gregoris had left Rafael sleeping and moved soundlessly through the suite until he reached the wardrobe room.

The lights stayed low. The house stayed quiet. Even the air felt trained to keep the noise to a minimum.

He changed with the same precise efficiency he used for everything that mattered. The charcoal silk came off without hurry. A crisp white shirt went on, each button done cleanly. Black dress pants, with a sharp crease. Black stone cufflinks, cool and unremarkable until they caught the light and reminded you he never wore anything that could be grabbed, bent, or used against him.

He shrugged his coat over his broad shoulders and took his dress shoes in hand, refusing to let the sound of them announce him.

Then he returned to the bedroom.

Rafael was still asleep, hair a dark spill over the pillow, mouth slightly parted, one hand curled like he’d been reaching for warmth even in dreams. The sheets were half twisted, soft evidence of restless comfort. His scent – his and Gregoris’s together – filled the room in a way that made Gregoris’s chest tighten, quietly, like a vow renewing itself without words.

He stopped at the side of the bed.

For a moment he only looked, expression unreadable, as if committing the sight to memory for whatever violence the day would ask of him.

Then he leaned down.

His hand slid to Rafael’s cheek, gentle enough not to wake him, thumb stroking once over the soft skin there. He kissed him carefully.

Rafael shifted with a faint sound, half-asleep, instinctively turning into it. His fingers found Gregoris’s wrist, closed around it like he already knew the shape of him in the dark. Even asleep, he reached.

Gregoris kissed him again, just as softly.

“Sleep,” he murmured, the word barely breathed, the kind of command that sounded like care.

Rafael didn’t open his eyes. He only hummed the smallest agreement, and his grip tightened once before loosening again, reluctant even in unconsciousness.

Gregoris stayed there another heartbeat, forehead hovering near Rafael’s, as if he could borrow calm from him.

Then he straightened.

He took his shoes, stepped away without a sound, and left the bedroom quietly, refusing to wake anything that mattered.

—

The gala at the manor of House Crystal was over the top, as per usual.

Gregoris moved through it like a man walking through a theater production he hadn’t agreed to attend. Too much light. Too much ether woven into the air for the sake of spectacle. Too many people pretending that extravagance was the same thing as power.

A whale – an entire true-to-size whale – made of damn blue ether floated above the central ballroom, shimmering and obscene. It arced lazily through the air, then ’breathed,’ a perfect fountain of water that rained down into a mirrored basin while the crowd applauded like they hadn’t just witnessed the equivalent of burning currency for a joke.

Gregoris huffed under his breath, unimpressed.

Gabriel would lose his mind at this, he thought, with the kind of cold fury that made him terrifyingly efficient. An emperor’s consort looking at wasted ether and seeing the work it could have done in a station, a ward, a hospital, a border outpost… anything real.

But Gabriel wasn’t here tonight.

Gregoris was.

And he wasn’t here for whales.

He let the laughter and music slide off him, a polished surface that didn’t catch, and scanned the room with the quiet intent of a man who didn’t need to raise his voice to end someone’s evening.

Delphine would be here. She loved an audience. Loved a stage. Loved being watched.

He moved past nobles with practiced indifference, past clustered debutantes and their mothers, and past old men too greedy to age with dignity. He accepted no drinks. Returned no bows. He offered only the bare minimum of acknowledgment required by etiquette, and even that felt like generosity.

Someone tried to speak to him – an eager count with too much perfume and not enough sense.

Gregoris didn’t slow. He didn’t even turn fully.

“No,” he said, and the single syllable had enough weight to make the man forget his own name.

He continued forward, eyes cutting through the glittering crowd.

A flash of pale hair near the west gallery. A laugh too sweet to be real. A cluster of women in Crystal colors, orbiting the center like decorative fish.

And there – near the edge of the ballroom where the ether whale’s shadow didn’t quite reach – was Delphine.

She stood with a glass in hand like she belonged to the room more than the room belonged to itself, posture relaxed, smile practiced, gaze moving across guests as if selecting them from a catalogue.

Gregoris’s steps didn’t change.

But the air around him did.

A slight tightening. A subtle shift that made people glance up without understanding why their skin had prickled.

Delphine’s smile faltered a fraction as she noticed him.

Then it returned brighter, warmer, and perfectly false.

Gregoris stopped in front of her and looked down at the glass like it offended him on principle.

He lifted his eyes to hers.

“Delphine,” he said.

Her lashes lowered and rose again, delicate theater. “Your Grace. What a surprise. I didn’t realize you enjoyed—”

“I don’t,” Gregoris interrupted, calm.

The silence around them sharpened.

He stood there in black, cut from restraint and authority, and let the truth settle on her like a hand at the throat.

“I’m looking for you,” he said.

Delphine’s smile held, but her fingers tightened on the stem of her glass. “How flattering.”

Gregoris’s gaze didn’t move from her face. “Sometimes I wonder if you really have a short memory, or if you’re simply more inclined to live… dangerously.”

“What is life without a little danger, Gregoris, hmm?” she asked sweetly. “You would know better.”

“I do,” Gregoris said. His voice stayed mild. “Which is why I know you did this intentionally.”

Delphine’s eyes glittered with amusement, like she’d been waiting for him to say it. “Did what?”

He let a smile form and so wrong on his face that it instantly cleared space around them. Nobles drifted away without looking like they were drifting away. Conversations softened. Laughter died on tongues. Even House Crystal’s ridiculous ether whale felt quieter, hovering above them like it had developed shame.

“You thought my warning was a bluff,” Gregoris said.

Delphine tilted her head. “Warnings are only useful if you intend to follow through.”

Gregoris’s smile didn’t widen. It sharpened. “I always follow through.”

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