Sabine, meanwhile, was ordered to stay with Genevieve to ensure she received only the best treatment. Yet every night, Sabine quietly returned, and Viktor exited Genevieve’s room with a sigh of exhaustion. More than once, he had to wipe his mouth with a handkerchief, jaw tight, as if holding back something violent. Ayoka could see it in him, the urge to strike, to end the problem outright, restrained by necessity. It felt less like hospitality and more like babysitting, Viktor and Sabine trading weary looks as they managed the sweet fae woman who knew exactly how far she could push without being punished.

One night, Genevieve received an invitation from a group of fae dwelling deeper in the swamp. She left laughing, perfumed and pleased, swept away by lantern light and old songs, leaving the house unexpectedly free of her presence. Viktor had just settled into his room when Sabine burst in without knocking, breathless and sharp. “She’s gone,” Sabine said. “So, where is her grandmother? You sent a letter after that whole tea party thing. ”

Viktor rubbed his temple. “She sent a note. Said she couldn’t step foot in this place. Some old grudges. A swamp witch who wouldn’t pay for one of her flowers.”

He didn’t elaborate. He didn’t need to. The air already held that old magic, rooted deep, blooming quiet, and watching everything.

After the party, Genevieve’s cruelty wasn’t overt. It was worse, refined and deliberate. She never raised her voice or threw fits. She didn’t have to. Ayoka knew that even the slightest protest or misstep on her part could bring punishment, not just for her, but for others. She learned to act as though she didn’t see the insults, as though she didn’t hear the barbed words. In that house, power didn’t belong to the sharpest mind or the truest heart. It belonged to whoever had the luxury of pretending they were above cruelty.

“So clean,” Genevieve would murmur. “So polished. So quiet. Like she was made for a shelf.”

It wasn’t just Ayoka who endured it. Genevieve had a gift for cutting down everyone around her with a smile. One servant was praised for being “so well-behaved, he could be sold with a ribbon.” Another girl was told she had “posture so perfect, she should thank the rod that trained her.” The cruel praise was always loud enough to be overheard and soft enough to pass as harmless. Genevieve didn’t whip people. She polished them until they cracked.

One evening, at a salon-style gathering, Ayoka refilled wine. She wore powder-blue silk with a black ribbon. Sabine had cinched her corset until breathing became ritual.

Genevieve sat among champagne-sipping women, gleaming like something taxidermied. With every laugh and flourish of her hand, she claimed the space as hers. She basked in the attention, letting it fold around her like a second gown.

“I’m sure Viktor will make it official soon,” she cooed to the room. “It’s only a matter of time before we make the announcement.”

The women around her gasped and swooned with exaggerated delight, casting glances toward Ayoka, who kept her head down and her hands steady.

Genevieve smirked and gestured toward Ayoka with lazy pride. “Of course, he keeps the help in excellent condition. Look at her, symmetrical, isn’t she? Those hips. My lord. Sculpted from a fever dream. She could birth a whole estate’s worth of future servants. And if times ever turned rough, well, let’s just say they’d sell for a fine price.”

Laughter rippled through the room.

One guest fanned herself dramatically. “Vampires who hoard like that? Always old. Always sentimental. Always dangerous.”

Genevieve laughed louder, basking in the spotlight as though it had been poured just for her. She paraded Viktor’s household with the arrogance of a queen inspecting her court, every servant a prize, every glance a conquest. And Ayoka? She was the centerpiece, displayed not as a woman but as a curated artifact: elegant, composed, and claimed.

A sharper voice cut through with a smirk. It belonged to a fox-eared fae man lounging near the back of the room, amber eyes amused, tail flicking lazily behind him. “You nervous, Genevieve? Both of you have that hourglass. Hers carved in blood and bone. Yours bought off a Parisian mannequin. Guess some masters just prefer a woman carved from storm and soil rather than silk and lace. Dirt might cling, but it roots deeper than perfume ever could.”

Genevieve’s smile twitched, just enough to fracture, like glass under pressure.

Before she could carry on, the doors opened with quiet weight. Viktor stepped into the room, his presence commanding, his shadow stretching before him. The room hushed. He walked up to Genevieve, leaned close, and whispered something in her ear.

She flinched.

Her face twisted, just for a second.

Viktor pulled away, his tone still low but cool as snowmelt. “Your father sent word. Your grandmother has arrived. You know what that means.”

Genevieve blinked rapidly, adjusting her posture as if nothing had passed between them.

Viktor turned to his staff, his voice louder now. “Pack things up lightly. We’ll be relocating some guests.”

Guests murmured their dismay, disappointed the party was ending early. Laughter turned restless, champagne flutes lowered with lingering sighs. A woman with fox-bright eyes and ears like the earlier guest’s—his cousin, perhaps—tilted her head and smiled too sweetly.

“Funny thing about saints,” she said lightly, voice carrying just enough to sting. “Some are meant to be admired from a distance. Others are meant to be owned and locked away. Nobles have always been very particular about which kind they collect.”

A few guests tittered, the sound sharp and eager, as if hoping blood might be drawn without anyone admitting it.

Genevieve tried to laugh, but the sound rang hollow. Then, with a flick of her wrist, she knocked Ayoka’s pitcher to the ground.

The crash silenced the room.

She didn’t apologize. She didn’t even look back.

At that moment, Genevieve didn’t see Ayoka as a person. She saw Viktor's property, and she was daring the room, and Viktor himself, to challenge that. She left the house that same night, slipping out alongside the departing guests, too quick, too careful, as if trying to outrun something closing in. She came back almost as quickly as she had gone, the return abrupt and ill-considered, as though whatever she fled had followed close enough to drive her straight back. The speed of her departure lodged itself in Ayoka’s mind and refused to loosen, making her think harder than she had before about what Genevieve feared and why.

Ayoka didn’t sleep that night. Not from fear. Not from rage. But from a gnawing storm that sat behind her ribs like a clenched fist. She sat on the floor beside the cradle, one hand resting on Malik’s tiny chest, feeling the rise and fall of his breath, like waves she vowed never to let drown.

She whispered prayers without language, without hope, casting them to gods and goddesses who never listened. Once, she had believed they might answer. Now, the silence felt deliberate, mocking. Like praying into the ocean, hoping for a whisper back and hearing only your own breath.

In that moment, Ayoka exhaled and muttered under her breath, “Fuck prayer.”

It wasn’t rage. It was released. A line drawn in the dirt with a shaking hand.

If the gods wouldn’t rise for her, she would rise for herself. And when she did, she would bring fire in her shadow and knives behind her smile.

She would not be a stage prop. She would not be Viktor’s doll. She would not let Genevieve pull her strings with painted nails and empty compliments.

But even as Ayoka bristled with defiance, she knew the weight of history still sat on her skin. Skin that had been appraised, traded, marked. Skin that spoke before she ever opened her mouth. There was a time, still alive in whispers and glances, when being too dark meant being invisible or worse, desirable in silence and dismissed in public.

Genevieve and Ayoka were both women, yes, but that didn’t make them equals. This wasn’t about men. It was womanhood weighed on two different scales. Genevieve, pale as lace, was meant to be paraded. Ayoka was meant to be possessed, quietly.

If she were lighter. If she bore a gentler name. If her lineage had allowed her to smile without consequence. Maybe.

But this story wasn’t built on maybe.

So Ayoka moved in silence. She studied the halls like a scholar, counted doors like verses, timed the guards like drumbeats. She memorized every bell, every clang, every whisper of metal on stone.

Sabine didn’t ask questions, but her eyes lingered when Ayoka passed. There was quiet awe there, and fear, as if Sabine sensed something had shifted in the house, something deep and irreversible.

When Genevieve swept past her in the corridor, skirts whispering like silk dipped in venom, Ayoka did not flinch. Her gaze followed the woman with chill steadiness, calm and cold, like frost rimmed in steel. She wasn’t hoping for rescue anymore. That illusion had slipped away, quiet and unceremonious, sometime between a shattered prayer and a sleepless night.

She played her part with grace. But beneath that stillness, behind the mask carved to please, a storm gathered, tight and trembling in her ribs.

She was not helpless. She was not harmless.

She was waiting, coiled, deliberate, and venomous. The snake she had always been taught to fear had become her mirror.

And now, that power lived in her bones.