June 19th, 2025
Hugo Hollands, Age 24
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The phone rattled somewhere under my pillow and dragged me up from a thick blackness. I pawed at the sheets, found a slab of glass, and pressed it to my cheek.
"Hello?"
"Hello, is this Hugo Hollands?" A woman's voice, brisk, pleasantly rehearsed.
"Mhm." I rolled to my side; the mattress dipped, the sheet stuck to the back of my knee.
"This is Acacia Newman. I'm calling you from the Morrison Hotel."
I shot upright. My spine popped. I ran a hand through my hair even though she couldn't see me. "Yes—hi."
"We've seen your videos online and we were wondering if you'd like to perform at our charity event this Wednesday, July second."
"Yes." The word slipped out before I could pretend to be modest. "Uhm—details, please?"
"We'd like to invite you this afternoon to go over everything on-site. Do you have a manager we should contact? It was difficult to find your number."
"We'll go over this when I get there," I said. "See you then."
I hung up and sat with the phone balanced on my knee, listening to the thin buzz still in my ear from the speaker. The room swam slightly, as if I'd stood too fast inside a dream that didn't appreciate being left. I looked around to make sure it was all still here: the low dresser with its patchy varnish, the lamp with its tilted shade, the glass on the table ringed with old water, the air thick with sleep and the trace of last night's cigarettes.
The door opened and Corrin stepped in, quiet as a thought. His shirt was open at the throat. He didn't look at me first—he studied the room, like a man counting exits.
"You've been sleeping for ages," he said.
"I'm tired." I fell back and dragged the sheet up to my chest. My body still held the echo of crying; the skin under my eyes felt rubbed raw, salt-bright. "I'm tired," I repeated, softer.
"You're very psychologically fragile, Hugo."
"If someone put you through that much mental harm," I said to the ceiling, "I guess it wouldn't affect you, so I can't prove a point here."
He crossed to the window. The curtain sighed against his shoulder. "Harry tried to explain the same thing. You like to be the only one excused for your despicable behavior, apparently."
"You need to fucking stop." I turned my head and met his gaze. My throat tasted sour, like I'd swallowed coins. "You always tell me not to treat you like a human, but you treat us equal, as if I'm on the same level of filth as you are."
A small breath left him, almost a laugh, almost pity. He came back and sat on the end of the bed, the mattress dipping again, his weight pulling me a little toward him.
"Oh no," he said. "I take pride in the amount of filth I indulge in. I just don't like how you're trying to prove you're much better than I am."
I stared at the notch of his collarbone, the smoothness there like stone polished by touch. My chest rose and fell too fast. I pressed my palm to it, feeling the wild, uneven beat.
"The Morrison called," I said. "They want me for a charity event."
"Of course they do." His tone folded around the words, wry and clean. "Charity loves spectacle. Spectacle loves a boy with a pretty trick."
"It's work." I swallowed. "It's… something."
His eyes flicked to the phone in my hand. "A stage. A room full of important faces. A chance to practice the art of being adored." He leaned back on his hands, posture loose, voice calm. "Say yes. You already did, didn't you?"
I nodded. The nod felt larger than it was, as if my skull had to lift through water to make it happen.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
"Now?"
"Now."
"Trying to keep from being sick," I said. "And then I'm going to shower, and then I'm going to go there, and then I'm going to pretend I'm not the kind of person who—" The words fell apart. I pressed my tongue to my molars and breathed.
He watched me for a few heartbeats, head slightly tilted, as if he could hear more than I said. "You think confession is currency," he murmured. "You pay me with self-hatred and expect absolution. But the account is mine, not yours."
"You showed me," I said. "You made me watch."
"I reminded you," he corrected, gentle as a knife laid flat. "You did the rest."
I closed my eyes. The darkness behind my lids wasn't restful; it crawled. I saw the hotel from before—the twin beds, the glass table, the way the ice had become a thin circle of water. I saw my hand, steady and shaking at once, lowering a chain into skin. I heard, like a ghost under a floorboard, Harry's earlier laugh. My stomach lurched. I dug my fingers into the sheet until the fabric bunched under my nails.
"Stop," I said, though he hadn't moved. "Please."
"You're asking the wrong creature." His voice was almost kind again, and that made it worse.
The phone screen lit; my name on a dark field. I watched it fade. The room smelled of stale soap and tobacco and a sweetness I couldn't place, maybe the last breath of yesterday's cologne on my wrist. I rubbed at it until heat rose in the skin.
"Do you want me to come to the meeting?" Corrin asked. He said it lightly, like asking if I wanted sugar in my tea.
"No."
"You're lying."
"Maybe." I looked at him. "Stand behind me anyway."
"At the Morrison?" His mouth curved. "Delicious."
"You can watch," I said. "You like that."
"What I like," he said, "is precision."
He reached for my wrist, and for a second I didn't pull away. His fingers were cool and exact. He turned my hand palm-up, studied the small nicks from old blunders, the faint scorch from last night's practice with flame. He traced one mark with his thumb, not tender, not cruel, simply attentive.
"You're going to be late if you keep performing tragedy for a mirror," he said.
"I need five minutes." I pulled my hand back and pressed it to my face. The salt there stung. "Ten."
"You need sleep."
"I can't," I said. "If I close my eyes I'll see him again."
He considered. "Then keep them open. Walk until they water. Smile at the woman with the clipboard. Say yes to craft services. Tell them you'll send your manager's details later. Invent a name."
"Whose name?"
"Anyone you'd like to disappoint," he said.
I laughed once, ugly and too loud in the small room. "You think I'm proud," I said. "You think I'm walking into that lobby as if I deserve the floor to hold me."
"I think you're a creature who needs an audience like air," he said simply. "And I think you're worried the audience will look back and see a boy with red on his hands. They won't. They never do."
I swung my legs off the bed. The carpet was rough and warm. I stood, a little unsteady, pressed my hand to the wall until the tilt in the room stilled. My mouth was dry. I crossed to the sink and ran the tap. The water came out too hot at first; steam curled against my face. I cupped handfuls and threw them over my eyes, over my cheeks, until the sting became clarity. I found the hotel soap and scrubbed the inside of my wrists until the smell of last night dissolved into something clean and nameless.
When I looked up, he had taken my seat on the bed, one ankle resting on the opposite knee, relaxed like a cat who owned the sun. "Don't be late," he said.
"You said I should sleep."
"I also said you're fragile." He smiled, and the smallness of it made my skin prickle. "Don't mistake fragility for exemption. Artists shatter on stage all the time. The crowd calls it brilliance."
I dried my face on the towel and watched myself in the warped glass above the sink. My eyes were swollen at the edges, green darkened to moss, the whites webbed with pink. The piercing at my lip caught a thread of light and held it. I touched it, felt the small drag in the skin, pain almost pleasant in its exactness.
"The Morrison," I repeated, as if saying it again would anchor it to this hour. "Acacia. Charity event."
"Yes," Corrin said. "They will love you. And you will love that they love you. And then we'll go home and you'll cry into the pillow like a penitent, and I will remind you you're not."
"Not what?"
"Penitent."
I found my shoes under the chair and slipped them on without untying them. The laces bit my instep. It felt good to hurt in a way that had nothing to do with memory. I reached for the jacket on the back of the chair and slid into it. The fabric still held the smell of smoke from the bar and the clapping that came after I told the bartender to cut the music. I worked the stiffness from my shoulders, rolled my neck until something clicked back into place.
At the door, I hesitated. The light from the corridor slipped in thinly, catching dust in the air like suspended thought.
"What happens to Harry now?" I asked. The question left me before I had the courage to stop it.
Corvian lifted his eyes from the pillow, expression unreadable. "Why?"
"You must know something."
He stretched lazily, the corner of his mouth curving just enough to mock compassion. "And I don't want to disclose that right now," he said. "You have a meeting. Let's go for now."
I stared at him for a moment longer, the question still heavy on my tongue, but he'd already stood, straightening his collar with the unbothered grace of someone who never truly left the room he ruined.
We stepped out together. The hallway breathed its usual stale perfume of detergent and last night's air. Outside, the sunlight was merciless, the street wet with the residue of morning washing. The city looked like it had been wiped clean and left unfinished.
We walked until we reached the main road. Corrin flagged a taxi with a flick of his hand, the gesture casual, almost practiced.
Inside, the leather seats were warm from the sun. I leaned back, still half unsure whether I was awake or rehearsing a memory I hadn't yet lived.
"Remember to negotiate," Corrin said, his tone instructional, smooth as glass. "Even if it's a charity event, they pay well enough."
"I need charity," I murmured, watching the city slide past the window. The buildings were pale, the color of regret.
"Yes," he said, "exactly the kind of self-pity I love."
I turned to him, the corner of my mouth lifting despite the heaviness in my chest. "I'm thinking of assigning Eddie to be my manager."
Corrin scoffed softly, a sound halfway between laughter and disdain. "Even after you learned he isn't all that happy for you?"
"That's debatable," I said. "But in the end, he knows how to ball."
Corrin glanced out the window, his profile sharp against the light. "You don't want me for that, do you?"
"You don't want to be my manager?"
"Hell no." He looked at me again, eyes gleaming faintly. "I'm not someone's servant."
A laugh slipped out of me, small and real. The driver glanced in the mirror but said nothing. The city rolled by in silver streaks, and I thought of how quiet the world could be when a devil sat beside you pretending to care about money.
The Morrison was cathedral-like in its quiet.
As soon as the revolving doors sealed behind us, the air changed—cool, perfumed, unreasonably still. The floor was a spread of marble, veined like frozen smoke. Columns rose smooth and grey toward the high ceiling, and from there hung three long lanterns that pulsed with low amber light, their woven casings trembling gently in the air-conditioning.
Every surface seemed carved to exaggerate its own perfection: walls embossed with intricate wooden panels, floral patterns unfurling like relics from another age. The front desk stretched under an archway of gold-lined shelving, the bottles and ornaments gleaming like votive offerings. The corners of the lobby bloomed with towering palms, their leaves whispering faintly against the glass wall that looked out onto the street.
It was too elegant to be alive. Too beautiful to be kind.
Everyone knew the Morrison was excessive, but seeing it—being inside it—felt unreal. The silence pressed on me; even my breathing seemed loud enough to stain the air.
Corrin leaned close until his voice grazed the side of my neck. "You need to buy new clothes."
I nodded automatically, unable to look at him, the words dissolving somewhere between my throat and my chest. My lungs felt heavy. Breathing was work.
A woman appeared from behind the counter, her heels sharp against the floor. "Good afternoon," she said with a rehearsed warmth. "How can I help you?"
Her eyes moved between us, polite but unamused, the look of someone taught to treat everyone as both guest and nuisance.
Corrin stepped forward before I could speak. "We have a meeting with Acacia Newman."
The transformation was instant. Her face brightened as if lit from within. "Oh—of course! Yes, right this way. Please give me a moment." She scurried back to the counter, typing something quickly, her posture newly devoted.
Corrin gave me a small nudge between the shoulder blades. "Move," he murmured.
I swallowed, legs remembering how to work, and followed her to the desk.
"I'm Hope," she said, glancing up from the monitor, her smile a little too precise. "I'll be taking care of you today."
Corrin tilted his head, tone deceptively casual. "Is that a threat?"
Her eyes widened; the practiced smile faltered. "Oh—no, I—I meant—"
"Chill," I said quickly, forcing a smile that didn't belong to me. "He's joking."
Hope laughed softly, uncertain. Corrin didn't. His reflection lingered in the dark marble counter, the faintest smirk moving across it, like the hint of something that enjoyed watching people tremble.
Hope picked up the phone, her voice softening into a practiced murmur. "Yes, Mr. Hollands is here."
Mr. Hollands.
The words detonated somewhere behind me—like fireworks going off in a sealed room, color and noise trapped beneath my ribs. It hit me in the strangest way, that title. Mr. Not Hugo, not Henry, not that boy from around the corner. For a second I almost laughed. For another, I almost cried.
"Alright," Hope said, nodding at whatever answer she'd received. She replaced the receiver gently and smiled, composed again. "Please follow me."
We moved across the lobby, her heels tapping in neat intervals that sounded like punctuation. The elevator doors opened as soon as we reached them. She pressed 1, the motion elegant, unthinking. The ride was brief—too brief. I would have liked a few more seconds in that suspended glass box, somewhere between earth and appointment, where nothing yet had the chance to go wrong.
When the doors opened, the air shifted again—cooler, quieter. She led us through a narrow corridor lined with framed photographs of past events: champagne flutes, strings of lights, the practiced laughter of strangers frozen in gold. The scent of waxed floors and citrus polish clung to the walls.
At the end of the hallway was a door of frosted glass. She knocked twice, waited, then opened it with a small motion of her hand, like an usher leading us into a stage we hadn't rehearsed for.
And there he was.
Clay.
Sitting behind the desk, dressed this time in a charcoal suit that looked too sharp for the warmth of his smile. His hair was tied loosely at the nape, the same strands that had fallen into his eyes the night at the bar. He looked older here, or maybe just more deliberate.
My eyes caught the brass plaque on the desk: Clay Renshaw – Director of Events & Guest Relations.
For a moment I forgot how to breathe.
Clay stood, grinning as though the air itself had orchestrated the moment for him. "You weren't on the list. I decided to fix that." he said, voice smooth, amused.
I blinked, pulse loud in my ears. "Must be the other Morrison," I managed, the joke landing thin but passable.
He laughed—rich, effortless—and the sound filled the office the way heat fills a closed space. "Please, take a seat. Acacia will be here shortly. She's running late with preparations."
Corrin moved first, choosing the chair opposite Clay with the ease of someone who never needed permission. I followed slower, cautious of my own presence, every motion exaggerated by awareness.
The leather creaked under me as I sat. Clay leaned an elbow on the desk, still smiling in that easy, knowing way that made me want to both stare and look away.
Outside the office door, Hope's heels faded down the hall until there was nothing left but the low murmur of the air conditioner and the quiet pulse in my throat.
Clay leaned back in his chair, his smile curving with the kind of ease that made everything sound like foreplay—measured, teasing, designed to watch the other person unravel first.
"Oh, right," he said, tapping a finger against the edge of his desk. "You thought two hundred at my beach house was too little. So—how much are we looking for at this event?"
I blinked at him, the words taking a moment to settle. "Did you just pick me for this because you're petty about me not wanting to come?" My voice came out quieter than I meant, steady but tight. "Or is it because I'm actually doing a good job? Or is there some other game I'm not aware of?"
He laughed softly, a low, indulgent sound. "Not really out of pettiness. I don't care whether you show up at my beach house or not. I just—really wanted you there." His gaze flicked briefly toward Corrin before returning to me. "But then I remembered you said you had an event at the Morrison. And I work here, so I thought—strange coincidence. Looked into it, didn't find your name anywhere on the schedule. So I told myself, why not let it happen?" He spread his hands lightly, almost mock-serious. "And here we are."
"Yeah," I said, leaning back, crossing one leg over the other. "You're just fulfilling my wish, then."
Clay's grin deepened, all charm and teeth. "Not that kind of wish, no." He paused, studying me like a magician inspecting a mirror for cracks. "You know, I did a little research. Turns out what you did that night at the bar? Very few people can do that. And the ones who can are… expensive. Hard to book. We couldn't fit them, or rather—they couldn't fit us. They're scattered all over the world, performing for crowds that can't even pronounce their names properly."
He chuckled softly. "So, we needed someone local, someone good. Our investors love this kind of thing—something otherworldly but still accessible, something they can sip wine to and tell their wives about later. This event is crawling with important people, Hugo. You'll want to look like you belong among them."
Across from him, Corrin smiled thinly. I could feel his amusement burn cold beside me.
I turned back to Clay. "What were you doing at the bar that night? It didn't exactly fit the standards of—" I gestured vaguely at his suit, his polished world, the glow of the Morrison's gold trim. "—all this."
He tilted his head, pretending to think. "You're right. It's not exactly up to my living conditions." His tone was dry but honest. "Still, I like to mingle there sometimes. Life in the south of Ebonreach is… interesting. I grew up there. Guess I get nostalgic for the noise."
The word nostalgic hung strange in his mouth, like a rich man mourning a gutter.
"How'd you get out?" I asked.
He looked at me for a moment, his expression unreadable, before answering simply, "Someone lent me a hand."
Something in the way he said it made me glance at Corrin. His face betrayed nothing—just the shadow of a smirk, the kind he wore whenever mortals said something accidentally divine.
"Someone lent you a hand?" I repeated.
Clay nodded, smiling again. "Yeah. I used to work as an assistant at this office downtown. My manager at the time got transferred, promoted actually, and he took me with him. Said I was worth keeping. He moved up, and I followed. That was it. He's the reason I'm here, really. I owe him everything. If it weren't for him, I'd probably still be stuck in the south, waiting tables or talking about leaving."
I nodded slowly, forcing a small laugh. "So someone helped you."
"Guess so."
"It really be like that sometimes," I said under my breath, half to myself.
Clay didn't catch it. Corrin did. I felt him shift beside me—silent, knowing—like he was the only one in the room who understood what kind of hand I'd taken, and what it cost to be pulled up by it.