The Wager

The air in the rotunda thickened. Kael could feel Vellum's power in it — a slow, patient pressure, like being submerged in water so gradually you didn't notice until you were already drowning.

"I'm not leaving without Lira," Kael said.

Vellum studied him the way a collector studies a new specimen. "How delightful. Devotion. I haven't tasted that in years." The fairy leaned forward on its throne of shoes — somewhere in that hideous mosaic Kael thought he recognized red sneakers, the kind Lira wore — and its shadow-garments pooled around its feet like spilled ink. "Tell me, foundling. What do you have that's worth trading? You own nothing. You are no one. The world you came from didn't want you. Why should I give you anything?"

The words landed like blows, not because they were cruel but because they were true. Kael and Lira had been left at Harrowfield as infants, no names pinned to their blankets, no letters of explanation. They had nothing — no inheritance, no history, no family except each other. Vellum knew this, clearly. Could probably taste the knowledge of it in the air.

"I'll make you a wager," Kael said.

The word seemed to catch Vellum off guard. The fairy's head tilted — that wrong, boneless tilt — and its pale eyes narrowed.

"A wager," it repeated.

"You say you collect imagination. You think Lira's is special. Test mine instead. If what I have impresses you, you let her go."

Thistle made a sound beside him — a sharp intake of breath. Kael glanced at her and she shook her head, eyes wide, but what else could he do? He had no weapon. No magic. No army. He had nothing at all except the one thing Vellum wanted.