Chapter 62: In the Moment

At Paramount’s base six’s quarters, Haven Velanora was serving her punishment with all the enthusiasm of someone who had no choice. She had lied to get out and see Scar and been caught, and was now facing the consequences.

The lie hadn’t even been complicated. It was a simple request, a brief illness for time to recover at home.

But her father had a gift for making small mistakes feel large, and so she had been stripped of her training and her duties as a Moon Killer and handed a mop instead.

The truly irritating part was that the lie had been unnecessary. Leonard, her captain, was a reasonable man, honest with him, and he would have let her go without a second thought.

But something had stopped her. Not guilt, not fear, but something closer to unease. If pressed for the right word, ’shy’ might have been the most accurate, embarrassing as that was to admit.

Scar was everything to her, and that was precisely the problem. The idea of Leonard knowing just how desperately she had wanted to see him was its own kind of unbearable.

But there was something else sitting wrong with her. Robin. The pest. The one who followed her everywhere and worshipped the ground she walked on as though she hadn’t made it abundantly clear that she found him insufferable.

Robin was an excellent liar, genuinely talented, almost impressively so. The bastard could wriggle out of duty for days at a time, sometimes stretching it to a full week, and face absolutely no consequences for it.

His absence said enough. Robin was out there somewhere, enjoying whatever freedom his latest lie had bought him, completely unbothered. When she found him, she was going to drain him of every strategy he had.

She had no intention of stopping at one lie, she just needed to get better at it. And somewhere beneath all of that, the real reason pushed through. Scar had been in a dire situation lately, if her memory served her right, and she was running out of patience to check on him.

Scar must constantly fight against a history he didn’t partake in, she couldn’t cower while the one she was supposed to protect suffered.

Currently, she was done with her job and leaned back against the wall, watching as her mates moved back and forth, chatting in pairs and enjoying each other’s company.

Haven didn’t have many friends, not by accident, but not entirely by design either. Still, obscurity had never been her problem.

Her reputation alone saw to that, and the legendary Inheritance she wielded made sure no one forgot it. Everyone knew her name. Whether they had the nerve to say it to her face was another question.

Each base was structured around four sentinels, and tucked beneath each one were dining halls and a few resting rooms, modest spaces meant for swift rests when emergencies demanded it.

Functional, unassuming, and exactly where Haven had been spending her time recently.

She knew better than to expect anyone to confront her—her reputation and cold nature made sure of that. But gossip was a different beast.

Gossip required nothing but a willing mouth and an audience, and she had assumed she’d at least earn that much.

’She lied her way out of duty.’

’Really? And here I thought she was always busy.’

’Impossible of her.’

The kind of murmurs she’d half prepared herself not to care about. But no one even bothered. Not a single soul gave a damn.

While her mind wandered, a familiar voice got her attention.

“Isn’t the sun a little much for you, my lady? I’d hate to see you turn lobster-red.”

From the far corner of the wall, Robin emerged. Hands in his pockets, pace unbothered, a smile sitting quietly on his lips like something he hadn’t meant to wear.

“Speak of the devil… and they appear.” Haven sneered.

“People have been acting erratically at the outer edge of Paramount. I suspect a Scarlet Kin, likely reacting to malevolent energy. We’ve both been stationed there before; that place reeks of blood and violence. This time, Heri and her group didn’t return. They are all dead.”

Word had reached her. The scale of it pointed to one thing, a Hostile-level threat Daywalker, exactly the kind of thing that would have had her moving days ago.

But her punishment still had days left on it, and wanting to go wasn’t the same as being able to. She’d made her peace with that. Mostly.

“Explain yourself. Were you properly stationed there, or did you fabricate your way out of duty?”

There was Robin, standing before her with that smile, the one that never quite managed to be innocent, tinged as it always was with something a little too warm, a little too deliberate.

“Did you miss me, my lady?”

Haven sighed incomprehensibly.

“I want specifics. How do you construct your lies so convincingly?”

Robin’s brow furrowed. He held the moment, waiting on whatever Haven was going to say, before giving up on it and leaning back against the wall.

“The way you’re talking, it’s like I’m just a liar to you. Is that really how you see me?”

Hmph.

“That’s exactly what I meant.”

Haven didn’t know what he was playing at, and that bothered her. What she did know was Robin was a liar, insufferable by nature, and hardly subtle about it.

The whole base knew. And even if they didn’t, he had lied to her personally enough times to remove any doubt she might have otherwise extended him.

Something bothered Robin. It sat visibly on him as he tilted his head upward, gaze drifting to the sky, dark hair catching whatever moved in the air behind him.

A smirk followed, slow and private, like a thought he hadn’t decided to share yet.

“I suppose I should’ve known. You’re blunt as ever. Not even my looks can earn me a little leniency?”

Haven’s confusion worsened. What was he talking about?

She’d heard the Robin beauty discourse more times than she cared to count. It had never landed.

Whatever people saw in him consistently escaped her, probably because Scar existed, and once you had that reference point, it wasn’t a fair comparison.

Sometimes she wished Scar carried more fame, just so people would have something real to measure beauty against. But none of that answered what Robin had actually meant by what he’d said.

“Be direct. Do you actually believe your looks are enough to purchase my loyalty?”

Ironically, her words were enough for Robin to burst into laughter this time.

“One day, your perspective of me will shift… when you begin to serve me.”

Haven exhaled deeply.

“Are you going to tell me your methods or not?”

Robin locked eyes with her and frowned.

“Hold on… I think you’d be an excellent addition to the course. You’d gain the same advantages I do… though that won’t stop me from making you my servant. Still, if you agree, you won’t have to lie about anything much longer. You’ll be free to do as you please.”

Huh?

“What do you mean?”

Robin reached for her shoulder. He didn’t get there. Haven’s hand caught his before it made contact and sent it back where it came from.

“Call it a movement if you like. It’s just a group of liars trading tips on how to lie better.”

Haven’s expression darkened. She wasn’t going to claim brilliance, but that had sounded off even to her.

One liar in her life, Robin, was already more than enough to manage. A whole gathering of them? That was the kind of environment a person didn’t walk out of the same.

“Forget I asked. I’ll be just fine.”

The moment she spoke, Robin’s smile appeared like it had been waiting for the cue. He left on it, offering only a few words.

“Take your time and think about it. I’ll be here when you’re ready to talk.”

Haven settled back into her solitude, the conversation with Robin dissolving from her mind almost immediately.

There were more important things to think about. Specifically, what lie would work this time. The truth was still off the table, that hadn’t changed and wasn’t going to.

“Anyway—

What was this sudden shyness about? She had never been one to care about such trivial things…

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