Chapter 135: Chapter 135: Kill the ghost

Rafael went still.

Layle’s voice stayed even, but there was a vein of fury under it. “She never filed the addendum. Never brought it before the ether registry.”

Rafael’s mouth pulled tight. “So it didn’t bind.”

“It existed,” Layle said, tapping another page. “But it wasn’t sealed. There’s a difference. Unfiled documents are just ghosts. Useful if you know where to look, but easy to bury.”

Rafael’s breath came shallow. “You found it.”

Layle nodded once. “In the registry vault. The one with the ward lattice.” He didn’t say how he’d gotten access because he didn’t have to; heirs learned which doors opened for them and which doors they had to pry. “It was logged as received ten years ago, and then it just… stopped. Like someone pressed a hand over its mouth.”

Rafael’s eyes burned. “She didn’t just control me alive. She controlled me after.”

Layle’s jaw flexed. “Yes.”

Rafael looked down again, scanning the ether-ink. The letters shimmered like a living thing, the clause layered in legal phrasing and magical intent.

“So what did he leave me?” Rafael asked, his voice controlled.

Layle slid the page forward. “A trust fund. And tuition to the Academy – enough to get you out of her hands the moment you turned eighteen.” His mouth tightened. “Father tried to buy you distance. That was the point.”

Rafael’s gaze stayed on the ether-ink, on the old seal that should have been anchored ten years ago.

Layle continued, quieter. “She never let it happen. The rebellion broke out, Damian took the throne, Parliament was a storm of new laws and old knives, and the registry offices were drowning in emergency filings. Mother used the chaos like a curtain.” He tapped the margin where the filing date should have been. “She shoved you somewhere she could reach you whenever she wanted, and she told everyone it was for your safety.”

Rafael’s jaw clenched. “Of course.”

Layle inhaled once, then flipped to the next page with a care that said he’d already memorized every sentence he hated. “Her clause is attached to her portion. Not Father’s. She can’t touch Father’s trust once we seal it, so she made her own a leash.”

He paused.

“Her clause is that you have to marry…” Layle’s eyes flashed with something ugly. “A candidate from her list, to access what she left you.”

Rafael’s posture shifted without him meaning to – spine straighter, expression cleaner, the imperial secretary snapping into place like armor. “How much is it?”

Layle slid the folder to him.

Rafael skimmed. Fast. Efficient. The way he read reports that decided budgets and deployments. His mouth twitched once, not in humor.

Then he huffed. “I don’t care.” He closed it with a controlled thud. “Let the cousins take the money. I married a duke and the emperor’s hound. If she thinks pocket change from the grave is going to steer my life, she’s delusional.”

Layle didn’t contradict him.

He just watched Rafael for a second too long, then nodded once, slowly.

“It isn’t enough,” Layle said.

Rafael blinked, thrown by the agreement.

Layle’s expression was calm, heir-calm, but his eyes were sharp with the same protective rage he usually hid behind charm. “It’s not enough to matter to you. That’s exactly why she wrote it like this.”

Rafael’s brows knit. “What do you mean?”

“She didn’t write it for the money,” Layle said. “She wrote it to keep a hook in you. Something she could make the vultures fight over, something she could force me to arbitrate, something that would drag your name into a courtroom and make you look like you were scrambling for scraps.”

Rafael’s lips thinned. “So it’s a scandal clause.”

“Yes.” Layle’s smile was brief and humorless. “A reputation bomb. With a ribbon.”

Rafael leaned back, eyes narrowing. “Then we just… don’t touch it.”

Layle shook his head. “If we ignore it, the trustee gets to start making noise. He’ll file petitions. He’ll ’request clarifications.’ He’ll leak just enough to the press to make it sound like you’re being disinherited for moral reasons.”

Rafael’s gaze went cold. “Let him try.”

Layle’s eyes held his. “He will. And you know what Mother counted on?” He tapped the folder once. “That you’d be too proud to argue over money. So you’d walk away, and she’d still win because she’d turn your silence into a story.”

“This is low even for her.”

The voice came from over Rafael’s shoulder, deep and calm in the way storms were calm right before they decided to be weather.

Rafael jerked, pure reflex, and hit solid heat. Gregoris had appeared like he belonged to the house more than the air did, one arm sliding around Rafael’s waist to catch him without jostling, without asking, without ever admitting it was protection.

“Gregoris!” Rafael hissed, half fury, half the humiliating spike of relief his body insisted on.

Gregoris didn’t look at him. His eyes were on the folder, on the ether-ink seals and the warded vellum, as if he could smell Delphine’s fingerprints in the spellwork.

Layle’s brows lifted, not startled so much as resigned. “Do you ever announce yourself?”

“No,” Gregoris said simply.

Rafael glared up at him. “You’re not a ghost.”

Gregoris’s hand tightened once at his waist. “I’m a problem.”

Layle made a sound that could have been a laugh if he’d found any of this funny. “That’s one way to introduce yourself into inheritance negotiations.”

Gregoris’s gaze flicked to Layle at last. “You said the trustee will leak.”

Layle’s jaw clenched. “He will.”

Gregoris’s expression didn’t change, but the temperature in the room did, the ether in the walls humming faintly like it recognized a predator deciding where to place his attention.

“He can try,” Gregoris said.

Rafael’s eyes narrowed. “Gregoris—”

Gregoris spoke over him, still looking at Layle, tone flat with certainty. “Without Delphine, the nobles won’t talk the way you think they will.”

Layle blinked once. “They always talk.”

“They whispered under her shadow,” Gregoris corrected. “Because she offered them safety.” His gaze cut briefly to Rafael, then back. “That safety is gone.”

Layle’s expression shifted, calculating.

Gregoris continued, unhurried. “No one is going to start a public morality story about a duke and his spouse when the Emperor’s hound is sitting on the other end of the leash.” His mouth barely moved, but the threat was there anyway. “They won’t risk it. Not now.”

Rafael’s face heated. “I’m not his…”

Gregoris’s thumb pressed at Rafael’s side, a silent warning to breathe.

Layle studied Gregoris for a moment, then gave a small, begrudging nod. “You’re right about the nobles. They relied on her as a shield.”

Gregoris’s gaze stayed steady. “They relied on her as an excuse.”

Layle’s mouth tightened. “The trustee isn’t noble enough to ignore fear.”

“He’s noble enough to be stupid,” Gregoris said. “But not stupid enough to throw himself under the Emperor’s tank.”

Rafael swallowed, torn between irritation and the fact that Gregoris was… right. Delphine had been a permission structure. A patron saint of malicious courage. With her gone, courage turned back into cowardice quickly.

Layle exhaled. “So you think the leaks won’t happen.”

“I think,” Gregoris said calmly, “that if he leaks, it will be small.” His eyes narrowed. “And small stories die if no one feeds them.”

Layle’s gaze flicked to Rafael. “And do you want to feed it?”

Rafael’s jaw set. “No.”

Gregoris’s arm tightened around him. A wall at his back.

Layle flipped the folder closed, decisive. “Then we do this clean. We file Father’s addendum immediately and make Mother’s clause irrelevant. That kills the trustee’s leverage before he gets to perform.”

Gregoris nodded once. “Good.”

Rafael looked up at Layle. “How fast can we file?”

Layle’s eyes sharpened. “Today.”

Gregoris’s gaze went to the window, already mapping routes, threats, and names. “Then we don’t waste time.”

Rafael felt the weight of Gregoris behind him and forced himself to keep his voice even. “Gregoris, sit.”

Gregoris paused, like the idea of sitting was an insult to his entire existence.

Layle’s mouth twitched. “Please. For the sake of furniture that didn’t do anything to you.”

A beat.

Then Gregoris moved and took the armchair across from them, posture still predatory even at rest. His gaze never left the folder.

Rafael exhaled through his nose and sat back down, dragging his mind into order.

Layle opened the folder again and slid it closer. “All right,” he said, voice steady. “Let’s kill a ghost properly.”

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