The office smelled of fresh cut oak and old money; windows looking over Meridian Row like a promise already bought. Aedon stood behind the desk with a map unfurled and a pen between two perfectly manicured fingers, the kind of pen that kept its own account. She did not look up when Léonie closed the door, because she already knew the small, theatrical sound Léonie made entering when the woman wanted to play.

Léonie wore a pendant at her throat the size of a thumbprint, set in hammered gold that caught the light in concentric lines. She stroked the chain with two fingers and hooked the other hand on the corner of Aedon’s desk as if checking the grain. “Found it at an estate sale in Massachusetts,” she said, mouth working the words more than was necessary, the phrase almost a dare. “Older than old money. Came with  certifications stating it was before concern over blood this or conflict that, and a contract that it never be sold back to a member of the family. No matter how much they offered.”

Aedon set the pen atop her pad and looked up then, slowly. For a breath, the thoughts she had regarding the map before her quieted. At the far side of the office, the news about the bank manager flickered on the glass wall: an image, an accident scene, a name. Aedon’s jaw tightened; she let a hand hover over the pen and did not pick it back up. “You bring relics to me now,” she said. Not a rebuke so much as a note.

Léonie smiled, pleased by the flatness. “You always said you liked a thing that could be appraised and feared. This one may be both.” She leaned closer. The pendant was a disk scored with tiny markings, lines so fine they read like strained handwriting. The gem itself was deep red. “The catalog listed it as a talisman for doorwatch. Whoever owned it believed it kept crossings closed.”

Aedon let the words land between them. The bank manager’s photograph on the television beyond—so ordinary—began to look like a hinge. “Doorwatch,” she echoed. “So it keeps doors shut. Or makes sure the wrong people don’t cross. Or both.”

“Or it’s a pretty forgery and you’ll laugh,” Léonie said, watching Aedon with that half‑smile that trusted none of the city and only enough of its appetites to be dangerous.

Aedon did not laugh. She took the pendant with two fingers, the back of her hand brushing skin above Léonie's cleavage, and turned it, as if appraising it for threat. It was heavier than it looked. Up close the markings shifted in micro‑angles, an effect like oil on water; the piece resisted being read. For a second she thought she saw, reflected in the chip, a wet alley and the slash of police tape. “And something with it mentioned Hellisia?”

“‘Elysian, actually. But we both know the origin of that,” her eyes were alight smug glee, “is Hellisia. The singular root of legends.”

“You bought it?” she asked.

Léonie shrugged. “I outbid three old men who thought it costume. I thought of you.” She smirked, the chain taught as Aedon held the pendant. “Oh,” she said as almost an afterthought, “there was a Canon member at the bidding.”

“Are you certain?” She watched the other woman’s smirk grow wider. “The same from the alley?”

“No, this one was different. But they always have the same tailor.”

Aedon’s mind, a room of many doors, opened small drawers: property liens tied to a shipping yard; a charter flight whose manifest had gone quiet; the bank manager who handled escrow. Meridian Row had its private files—accounts, contacts, people who made sure it stayed Meridian Row.

“Where did the sale take place?” she asked.

“Old auction house in the docklands. The estate cleared last month. Catalogued to a collector with ties to the canal guild. Nothing in the registry.”

Aedon pressed the pendant between thumb and forefinger and pushed it back to rest again Léonie’s chest, her fingers lingering gently against the other woman’s skin. “Leave it with me for a week,” she said. “Quietly. I’ll have my people check provenance. If it’s what you claim, it’s a thread.”

Léonie cocked her head as she reached up to unfasten the chain, her mouth again working overtime. “If it’s a thread, will you pull?”

Aedon’s laugh was low. “I will see who’s tied to the other end.”

Leaning in, Léonie kissed the corner of Aedon’s mouth — possessively — and straightened. “Don’t let the board smell desperation,” she teased as she set the pendant on the desk. “They’ll start selling the good chairs.” 

"That's why it pays to own everything," Aedon countered.

"Is the gathering still on for this weekend?"

Considering the red gemstone, she didn't look up. "We have to see the new items the tourists have collected. That's the entire point of the Row."

"Bring them to us." With a smirk, Léonie turned on her heels and moved back toward the door. 

Aedon watched her go, the pendant’s weight a private debt. Then her eyes drifted to the television. Outside, the city kept moving; inside, a file had been nudged. The alley’s thin blood had a habit of turning small oddities into long accounts.

The camera shop in the Foundry was small and cramped, the air thick with fixer chemicals and old paper. Juno’s fingers trembled as they tightened around the camera, the weight of it familiar, grounding. The damage from the alley had been easy to fix — a cracked lens, a bent shutter. They’d spent hours, as if they could repair more than just the machine, and yet they hadn't used it in the month since the alley other than a bird here or a flower there. The pictures came out wrong.

Their apartment was the same way: walls papered with photos, a darkroom carved into the bathroom, shelves sagging under the weight of manuals and film canisters. A shrine to control. To something tangible. Because if they could capture a moment, they could keep it from changing. Keep themselves from changing, while at the same time they struggled to give form to themselves.

Nat wanted them to photograph her. Nude.

Juno’s pulse spiked, their throat tight. That had been before the alley. Before the blood, before the laughter that wasn’t theirs, before the way their hands had moved without them.

«She still wants you, you fool.»

“I didn’t ask you,” Juno hissed, their voice raw. They adjusted their glasses, the frames digging into their temples. “What almost happened — I wasn’t strong enough, and—”

«But we were.»

Juno slammed their palm against the counter, the glass display rattling. In the reflection, Fuckerina’s grin split their own face, a too-wide smile, teeth too sharp, horns curled. Juno looked away.

“Look,” they muttered, “`Rina, I don’t know what this is, what you are, but—you fuck with people. Do you even get that?”

Silence.

Juno exhaled, shaky. They wiped their palms on their thighs, then lifted the camera again, pressing the viewfinder to their eye. Closed the other. Imagined:

A room painted in Natsuko’s blues — deep cobalt. A cube at the center, draped in lighter fabric, like the sky before a storm. Nat sitting atop it, lit from behind, her silhouette sharp as a blade. Maybe Juno would tell her to tilt her head, just so. Maybe Nat would laugh, and Juno would forget how to breathe.

Their finger twitched on the shutter.

Then—

«You’re going to take pictures of her like she’s some fragile thing?» Fuckerina’s voice was oil in their ear, slick and cloying. «Like you don’t want to taste her?»

Juno’s stomach twisted. “Shut up.”

«Why? You know you do. You’ve been aching to for years. Remember that time she leaned over your shoulder. Her breath on your neck. The way she smelled—»

“Stop.” Juno’s voice cracked.

«—like cloves and honey and a hint of nail polish—»

The camera slipped in Juno’s grip. They squeezed their eyes shut, but the memory was there—Nat’s lips brushing their ear, her fingers tracing the spine of a photo-book, the way she’d laughed when Juno had stammered something about lighting.

«You’re terrified she’ll see what you really are.» Fuckerina’s voice dropped, almost gentle. «That’s why you hide behind this toy.»

Juno’s arm snapped out.

The camera tumbled through the air, smashing into a shelf of tripods. The clatter was deafening—glass shattering, metal bending, the sound of something irreparable. Juno stood frozen, their chest heaving, hands clenched into fists.

For a long moment, they stared at the wreckage.

Then—

«Coward.»

Their knees nearly buckled. Gripping the edge of the counter they pressed their forehead against where the glass met metal frame, the cool smoothness grounding them.

“What if I ruin it?” they whispered.

Fuckerina’s laughter echoed in their skull, dark and knowing. «Darling,» Rina purred, «what if you already have?»

Juno flinched. Because it was true. Because every time Nat looked at them, Juno felt the weight of what they were hiding — the voices, the violence, the way their own hands had moved in the alley first. The way they wanted to move now.

And Nat — sweet, steady Nat — would she run? Would she stay?

Juno didn’t know.

But they knew this: while they were tired of being afraid, they were more afraid of the monster.

The voice chuckled. «She's one, too.»