The failed business proposition did what neither parental patience nor magical theory could: it united the household. Stolas was incensed, Octavia was protective, and even the servants moved with a new, grim purpose, eyeing delivery imps with suspicion. The palace became a fortress under subtle siege.
For Darkness, the change was palpable. The emotional "weather" of his new territory had shifted. The red-owl-prince (Stolas) radiated a sharp, protective thrum that made the stones feel harder. The girl-smoke (Octavia) no longer gave off waves of bored purple; her energy was a focused, alert amber, and she checked on him more often, her gaze scanning the halls. The loud, sharp-thing (Blitzo) was blessedly absent, his absence leaving a quieter, if more tense, atmosphere.
It was in this lull that the lever was applied.
Andromalius did not send another package. He did not appear in a puff of smoke. His method was far more insidious. He exploited a connection already made.
Octavia was in a secluded courtyard, trying to sketch the twisted, glowing flora. A shadow fell across her paper—long, elegant, and wrong. It had too many angles. She looked up.
A demon stood there, tall and poised. His plumage was the color of a deep twilight, accented with silver that glinted like sharpened coins. His face was sharp, handsome in a cold way, and his smile was a perfect, practiced curve that didn't touch his eyes.
"Princess Octavia," he said, his voice smooth as oiled silk. "A pleasure. I am Andromalius. A… concerned relative."
Every instinct screamed danger. This was the source of the creepy collar. She stood up, her sketchbook clutched to her chest like a shield. "What do you want?"
"To talk. Merely to talk." He gestured with a slender hand, and two ornate chairs of wrought iron and dark velvet manifested from shimmering air. "About your unique brother. And the burden his care places on you."
"I'm not burdened," she said automatically, not moving.
"Of course not. You are resilient. But your father… he strains under the weight, does he not? The political whispers, the damaged estate, the constant fear of the next… outburst." Andromalius sat, crossing his legs. "I can alleviate that. My offer to your father was clumsy, I admit. I appeal to you, instead. As one who understands the constraints of a famous parent."
He was good. He wasn't offering money or threats. He was offering understanding. It slithered past her defenses.
"What's your real offer?" she asked, her voice tight.
"A respite. A short sojourn for the child at my estate in the Avarice Woods. It is calm, shielded. My specialists could study his marvelous abilities—not to control, but to understand. To give him, and you, the tools to master the storm within him." He leaned forward slightly. "You wish to help him, do you not? Not just hide him away. I can see the compassion in your actions. The music."
The mention of the music felt like a violation. He'd been watching. Closely.
"This isn't compassion. It's collecting," Octavia retorted.
"Is it? Or is it preventing others with less… scruples from collecting him first?" His smile faded into somber concern. "The imp's vulgar auction is merely the first echo. My father, Paimon, has declared the child worthless. In the eyes of the Goetia, that makes him unclaimed property. A free-agent of immense power. There will be bids far less polite than mine, Princess. I can be a shield. Or I can be one of many grasping hands. The choice is, intriguingly, yours."
He placed a small, obsidian card on the empty chair. "A token. Hold it and speak my name if you wish to discuss a true alliance. For his sake."
With another graceful, unsettling smile, Andromalius dissolved into a shower of indigo and silver feathers, which blew away on a wind that hadn't been there a moment before.
Octavia stood frozen, the card burning a hole in her perception. He was lying. He had to be. But the terrible, logical part of her mind whispered that he wasn't, not entirely. Her father was straining. Darkness was a target. And she… she had no idea how to protect either of them from the politics of the hell they lived in.
---
She didn't tell Stolas. The weight of the secret felt like a stone in her gut. Her father had enough to worry about. Instead, she found herself outside Darkness's room more often, the obsidian card hidden under her mattress feeling like a radioactive core.
Her tension became part of the environment. And Darkness, a creature who mapped emotional weather, noticed immediately.
One evening, as she sat in her hallway spot, the mp3 player between them emitting its calming drones, he did something new. He crept out of his room, not to listen, but to approach her. He stopped an arm's length away, his head tilted. Then, hesitantly, he reached out and poked her knee with a single claw.
Thump.
He made a low, questioning warble. His eyes scanned her face, reading the stress lines, the tightness in her shoulders. He didn't understand secrets or political manipulation. He understood distress signal.
He frowned, a comical expression on his feral face. Then, he turned and scurried back into his room. He returned a moment later, clutching the most precious thing in his hoard: the soft blanket Stolas had given him. He thrust it unceremoniously into her lap.
It was an offering. A comfort. A piece of his territory, given to soothe the bad weather he sensed in hers.
Octavia stared at the blanket, then at his earnest, worried face. Her eyes stung. In that moment, the manipulative words of Andromalius crumbled to ash. This—this feral, destructive, profoundly empathetic creature—was not a commodity. He was a person. And he was trying to take care of her.
"I'm okay," she whispered, her voice thick. She pulled the blanket around her shoulders. "Thanks."
He watched her for another moment, then gave a short, satisfied nod and went back to his spot, as if he'd fixed a broken machine.
---
The true test came from a different direction. Blitzo, ever the bull in a china shop, had not given up. His "client" was demanding. So, he decided on a more direct proof-of-concept.
He didn't come to the front gate. He and his team, using a stolen sewer schematic, emerged from a grate in the lower gardens under the cover of a sulfurous mist. The plan was simple: snatch a single feather, a claw clipping, something to prove the asset's potency to his buyer.
They moved with surprising stealth, reaching the outer wall of the west wing. Darkness's window was above, slightly ajar.
"This is a terrible idea, sir," Moxxie whispered, his voice trembling. "The prince will turn us inside out!"
"The prince is probably neck-deep in astrology and angst! We'll be in and out!" Blitzo hissed back, assembling a telescopic grabber claw. "Now boost me up, Moxxie!"
From her bedroom window, Octavia saw the movement below. Her blood went cold. She wasn't going to wait for her father. She ran to Darkness's door and threw it open.
"Darkness! Trouble!"
The child was on his feet in an instant, not needing translation. He followed her to her window and looked down. He saw the intruders—the same ones from before—trying to invade his territory. Not with noise, but with sneaking.
A new emotion bloomed in his chest, cold and clear. Not anger. Not fear.
Violation.
He didn't scream. He placed his hands on the windowsill. Outside, the very nature of the garden around the imps began to change.
The soil beneath their feet became clingy, sucking mud. The manicured hedges writhed, thorny tendrils snaking out to tangle their legs. The sulfurous mist thickened into a blinding, choking fog that reeked of rot.
"WHAT THE—? THE PLANTS ARE ALIVE!" Millie yelled, hacking at a vine with her knife.
"IT'S THE KID! HE'S TURNING THE GARDEN AGAINST US!" Blitzo shrieked, dropping his grabber claw into the mud.
Darkness watched, his expression one of intense, focused disdain. He wasn't just defending. He was reclaiming. He was making the territory itself reject the invaders.
Stolas arrived, drawn by the surge of raw, territorial magic. He looked from the scene in the garden to the child at the window, then to Octavia's fierce, protective stance. He saw not a monster, but a family defending its home.
He raised a single claw. With a snap, the three imps were teleported out of the mud and thorns, and unceremoniously dumped, dripping and sputtering, back at the main gates.
"No more," Stolas's voice boomed across the grounds, shimmering with power. "The next trespass will be met with finality. Inform your… client."
Back in the west wing, Darkness let go of the windowsill. The garden settled, the thorns retracting, the mist clearing. He looked exhausted, but his posture was tall. He had protected the nest.
Octavia put a hand on his thin shoulder. He didn't flinch.
Andromalius, watching from afar, saw it all. He saw the child's power evolve from destruction to sophisticated environmental control. He saw the bond with the princess solidify into mutual defense. And he saw Stolas's resolve harden into steel.
The lever—the princess's fear—had failed. The blunt force of the imps had failed.
He closed his observation ledger. It was time to stop testing the fortress walls.
It was time to unleash something that could walk right through the front door.