I had been in this world long enough to notice something strange.

The realization had come slowly, buried beneath political problems and the daily challenge of surviving. But once I noticed it, I could not stop noticing it.

I had not seen a single man. Not one. Other than my demons.

I frowned and leaned back in my chair.

"System," I said, "could you tell me more about this world? Why don't I see any males anywhere besides my demons?"

The reply came immediately.

"In the mortal realm, only females exist. Reproduction occurs through cooperation with male demons. The two species have coexisted for centuries under the terms of the Demon Contract."

I blinked.

Then sat up straighter.

"Wait. That's how it works?"

"Yes."

I stared at the wall for a moment.

That explained an alarming number of things.

"Okay," I said slowly. "Then are there female demons?"

A brief pause.

"There is approximately one female demon for every one thousand male demons."

My jaw nearly hit the floor.

"Seriously?"

"Yes."

"That's incredible."

I did not even know where to begin unpacking that information. One female demon for every thousand males. The logistics alone sounded like the foundation of at least three major wars.

The System, as usual, ignored the growing list of questions forming in my head.

"Additionally, demons contracted to nobles are prohibited from entering the palace. Only demons bound to members of the royal family are permitted inside. All others must remain in designated areas outside the imperial residence."

I tapped a finger against the armrest.

That explained something else. I had often wondered why my demons always seemed to be the only ones around despite every noble apparently possessing contracts of their own.

"So everyone has demons," I said.

"Yes."

"And they're all being kept outside."

"Yes."

Silence settled over the room. I sat back and absorbed the information. Every time I learned something new about this world, it somehow became stranger. Not necessarily in a bad way.

I went to the afternoon assembly.

The session was smaller than yesterday's. Procedural. The Queen was not present and only noble women were here, the kind of gathering where real business happened before it was presented to the throne, and the women of the court moved through it with the practiced ease of people who had been doing this for generations. I attended. I sat where I was meant to sit. I said very little, and every time a face turned toward me expecting a reaction I did not give one, and the System's quiet announcements built steadily in my ear like a tide coming in.

Lady Caeris made her move during the open address.

She rose gracefully from her seat, folding her hands before her as though she were about to offer concern rather than insult.

"Forgive me if I overstep," she said softly, eyes sweeping toward me with practiced delicacy, "but is it truly appropriate for someone directly involved in an active succession dispute to be present during court proceedings?"

A brief pause followed.

Then, with the faintest tilt of her head, she added, "Surely that risks influencing the court's impartiality."

The room went attentive the way rooms go attentive when someone has just handed someone else a blade and everyone wants to see what is done with it.

I smiled at her before anyone else could speak. The smile I had practiced that morning, the one that started behind the eyes.

"Lady Caeris," I said. "I appreciate the concern. I would appreciate it more if it were genuine." One breath. Let it land. "The succession dispute you mention has not been resolved. Until it is, my place in this court is what it has always been. But thank you for reminding everyone that it is still contested. I had worried people might begin to forget."

Silence.

Then, from somewhere to my right, a sound that someone tried and failed to contain. Not quite a laugh. Close enough.

"Spite Points. One hundred and eighty-eight. Lady Caeris is generating considerable contempt and the room is generating amusement at her expense and both convert. The magic is having a productive afternoon."

The warmth under my ribs was becoming familiar now. I was learning to read it the way I had learned to read other things that had once surprised me. The anger I had swallowed for years that turned out to be useful when I stopped swallowing it. The silence I had been taught was weakness that turned out to be the sharpest thing I owned.

After the session I returned to my chambers.

Vale was in the corridor outside my door, which was where he seemed to spend a considerable portion of his time. He stood with his back to the wall and his dark eyes forward, and he looked up when I came around the corner with the unhurried quality of something that had already known I was coming and was simply allowing the arrival to confirm it.

"You handled Lady Caeris," he said.

"Adequately," I said. "She will try again."

"She won't."

The way he said it made me look at him properly. He met my eyes and offered nothing else, and the nothing else was the entire answer.

"Vale," I said. "What did you do."

A pause that was not quite silence.

"What needed doing," he said.

"That is not an answer."

"It is the one I have."

I looked at him for a long moment. He looked back with those deep still eyes. Underneath the composure, very quiet, the quality of someone who had done a thing they were not going to apologize for and was watching to see if it would cost them.

It would not cost him. Not with me.

Something in me went warm and certain at the same time, the way a door closing sounds different from the inside than the outside.

I reached up.

He went still, and I set my hand against his jaw and rose onto my toes and pressed my lips to his, and beneath my hand his jaw was warm and his breath shifted on a delay, like a man who had decided not to react and found the decision arriving a moment too late.

"Thank you," I whispered against his skin. "Don't do things without telling me again."

A silence long enough to mean something.

"I will consider it," he said. Very low.

"Affection Points, Vale. Plus thirty-one. Converting to gold." The System set the words down with her usual careful quiet. "Affinity Bond Meter: negative twenty-six percent. It is moving. Slowly, but it is moving."

I stepped back.

His eyes stayed on my face a breath longer than they needed to, that deep shifting black, something moving behind them that had not been there this morning. Then he looked away, at the corridor, at nothing, in the manner of someone giving themselves a moment they did not want witnessed.

I opened the door to my chambers.

And went inside.