That was when a new puzzle piece arrived, sharp-edged, gilded, and grinning. Her name was Miss Genevieve Addison, and she floated into the manor on a cloud of white lace, sugared perfume, and the sort of practiced grace that could smother a fire while smiling. She was a Southern belle carved from porcelain and iron, with honey‑blonde curls coiled like a crown, cheekbones sharp enough to cut, and a voice that could slice sugar cubes into quarters without ever raising an octave.

She was not cruel, at least not in ways that left bruises. She did not scream, slap, or grab. But her kindness had boundaries made of glass, and her silences rang louder than scolding. She arrived with two handmaids in tow, each cloaked in moon‑dyed fabric and never more than three steps behind her. Her wings, delicate and veined with a faint opal shimmer, were folded so elegantly they resembled a bell‑shaped gown cascading behind her. Only when she turned did it become clear that the wings were real.

Genevieve hailed from distant royal fae blood, though few knew which court or kingdom she once called home. Whatever power threaded through her lineage clung to her like perfume, elegant and dangerous. Rumors raced ahead of her through the manor, whispered behind trays and half‑closed doors. Some claimed exile. Others said she had left by choice. When she arrived, she put it plainly, like a belle sipping sweet tea. “I came to see the fool who spends royal coin on swamps and shadows.”

Her voice dripped molasses and menace in equal measure. The way her eyes flicked to Ayoka with every turn of her polished heel told the truth. She had not come for Viktor. She had come to examine the new pet, the dark ribbon of rumor now tied around his name.

She toured the manor like a queen measuring a throne she had already outgrown. Every glance was a cut, every blink a dismissal. Her smile carried velvet‑coated daggers, and every word came braided with suggestion and scorn. The staff called her a true lady of the house, but Ayoka knew better.

There was something venomous in Genevieve’s sweetness. She was not here to reclaim a man. She was here to take the measure of her competition, to see if the rumors were worth bleeding over. Yet Ayoka felt nothing. Not fear. Not offense. Not even curiosity. She held her posture steady and played her part, but Genevieve did not stir her the way real danger did.

Let the woman look. Let her walk pretty circles around Viktor’s world. Ayoka had seen sharper smiles on wolves and better lies dressed in cotton.

“She won’t find anything she knows how to break,” Ayoka thought, eyes forward. “I wasn’t made for her rules.”

Ayoka was introduced only once, “a domestic girl helping care for the grounds,” the title spoken with deliberate plainness. Genevieve nodded with the faintest curve of her lips, the sort of smile reserved for children one does not intend to remember. She requested a room on Ayoka’s floor, and Viktor, silent but compliant in her presence, granted it. That was the first sign. His posture bent slightly near her, his voice careful, his gaze sharpened. Genevieve did not demand obedience. She drew it from the bones.

For three days, Genevieve drifted through the manor like a perfume that refused to fade, clinging, suffocating, overstaying its welcome. She wandered into rooms she had no claim to, lingered in hallways she had never known, and spoke of the southern heat as though it had personally offended her. Her eyes passed over Ayoka more than once, but she never spoke her name.

Until the second morning.

Ayoka, barefoot and half‑distracted, cradled Malik as she moved down the east hallway. It was a simple moment, a fragile breath in the day. Then Genevieve appeared at the far end, framed by light like the ghost of something that still had claws. Her gaze found the baby and stopped.

Her lips held a smile, but her spine straightened as if struck. The air changed. Slowed. Her eyes traveled from Malik’s soft face to Ayoka’s still one, and back again. No words passed between them, yet the hallway thickened with something unspoken, ancient, sharp, and cold.

That afternoon, Ayoka found Viktor in the garden, of all places. He sat on a stone bench with Malik resting against his chest. The baby could barely hold his head, yet Viktor cradled him as if he were made of music. For a fleeting moment, a hesitation of breath, Ayoka saw a softness in him that stilled her. Not love. But focus. Recognition. The acknowledgment of life that mattered.

Above them, on the second‑floor balcony, Genevieve stood like a painted threat, porcelain teacup unmoved. Her gaze locked on them, elegance perfected, lashes dripping venom with every blink. The sun crowned her like a blessing. Her eyes cursed like a promise.

The next time Ayoka passed her, Genevieve was alone. Ayoka stepped aside to let her through, but as they brushed shoulders in the narrow passage between the dining room and the study, Genevieve leaned in and whispered, her voice cold enough to chill bone. “You’re lucky that useless child of yours is safe. If he’d been born in the house I was raised in, he’d have been killed, or maimed, before he cried twice.”

Then she smiled, sweet and polished, for anyone who might be watching. To most, it would have looked like pleasantry. To Ayoka, it tasted like poison. She did not flinch or speak, but something inside her peeled open, raw and pulsing beneath her ribs.

That night, when the house sank into quiet and Malik slept curled like a comma against her chest, Ayoka sat beneath the moonlight and remembered. She remembered the plantation before the auction block, the women whispering wisdom in shadows. How to give birth in secret. How to hide a child in a crawlspace. How to feign illness to delay being sold while still bleeding.

She remembered the scream of a mother whose baby had been drowned in a washtub for having too much of the master’s nose, for being too light to be trusted. Wives, bitter and bored, twisted their rage into policy. It was never the man who bore the blame. It was always the woman, the slave, the one who had no power to refuse. And the wives forgot that they were captives too, even if their cages came trimmed in lace.

Ayoka had been fifteen when she saw a boy’s body dragged across packed earth by the ankles. The master’s favored pet had borne him a son, but the master had no use for a boy. A girl could be dressed and silenced. A boy could grow teeth. From a shaded veranda, the master’s wife had smiled at the grieving mother and said, “There. Now you can make a better one.”

Ayoka still woke up in a sweat from that memory. She had not understood motherhood then. Now she did. The threat Genevieve whispered was not empty. It was history sharpened into a blade.

She had been luckier than most. Viktor had believed her story because it was true. Ayoka looked down at Malik’s peaceful face, his tiny hand warm against her collarbone, his breath soft with dreamless sleep.

“I won’t let them hurt you like they did that child,” she whispered into the night. “I’ll fight. No matter what they do to me. I’ll protect you to my last breath.”

As the words left her mouth, her breath fogged the air. The room grew cold despite the heat outside. Something scuttled just beyond the edge of the firelight.

Ayoka did not blink. That was the least of her worries.