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******
"And I will do it entirely from this balcony," Marvin finished. "Without a single drop of spilled champagne. Without raising my voice. Without ever touching him. If he does not run out of those doors with his tail between his legs, the emerald is yours."
William stared at Marvin. The sheer, terrifying confidence radiating from the American boy was intoxicating. It was a level of social manipulation that William had only ever seen utilized by the Queen's most ruthless private secretaries.
"You're on," William said, his voice dropping to a serious whisper. "Do it."
Amy Adams stood back, clutching her evening bag. She looked from the two heirs to the British throne to the eleven-year-old boy in the velvet tuxedo who was currently pulling their strings.
---
"I bet that I can make him completely dismantle his own life," Marvin said, his voice a smooth, quiet hum that barely carried over the ambient string quartet playing in the ballroom below.
The true power in this world—the kind of power that terrified billionaires and silenced royalty—was the ability to induce voluntary social suicide.
William stared at the eleven-year-old boy, his aristocratic mask slipping to reveal profound skepticism. He knew Grant Brook. The music producer was a notorious social climber, an arrogant man who guarded his public image with desperate, sweating paranoia. He only fawned over those with a higher status than him, and he routinely crushed anyone beneath him.
However, he never liked him, always feeling that this guy's closeness to his mother was somewhat ill-intentioned.
However, despite not liking him, Grant is undeniably talented as a musician, and he can be quite arrogant, especially towards those of lower status than him…
Is this American kid completely mad? William thought, his eyes darting to Marvin's face. But as he looked at Marvin, he saw absolutely no trace of a bluff..
"You are going to make Grant Brook—a man obsessed with his own PR—publicly humiliate himself and beg?" William asked, lowering his voice. "Without touching him? You're not playing some clever American word game with me, are you?"
Marvin let out a soft, resonant laugh that made the fine hairs on the back of William's neck stand up. "Of course not, Your Highness. I don't play word games. I deal in absolute results."
"Okay. Let's bet!" William gritted his teeth, the protective fury for his mother overriding his royal caution. If this boy could actually destroy the rat who had betrayed Diana, William was willing to risk the emerald.
"Yes! Bet with him, William, take the bet!" Harry shouted excitedly from the side, practically bouncing on his heels.
Marvin gave the twelve-year-old Prince Harry a brief, profoundly pitying look. The younger prince truly didn't possess an ounce of strategic foresight. He hadn't even realized that the penalty for losing the bet meant forfeiting a priceless Spencer family heirloom, yet he was cheering for the chaos with zero stake in the actual reward. A perfect pawn, the Incubus noted silently.
"Excellent. We have a gentleman's agreement," Marvin said. He didn't offer a formal handshake to the future King; instead, he held up his hand for a high-five, forcing the royals to interact on his deliberately casual, American terms.
Smack! Smack!
Marvin high-fived William, whose strike was firm and guarded, and then Harry, who slapped his hand with eager, oblivious excitement.
Marvin casually straightened the lapels of his midnight-blue velvet tuxedo. He looked at Amy, who was watching the entire exchange with the wide, hyper-alert eyes of a secret service agent. "Hold the perimeter, Amy. Enjoy the view."
"I'm going now," Marvin said to the princes.
William and Harry leaned over the mahogany railing, their breath catching in their throats, watching nervously as the young boy descended the sweeping, carpeted staircase and glided directly into the glittering, dangerous sea of the Lancaster Ballroom.
At the base of the stairs, Marvin seamlessly rendezvoused with his aunt. Nancy had just finished an intense, hushed networking conversation with the head of European distribution for Paramount Pictures.
"Aunt Nancy," Marvin murmured, stepping to her side without breaking his elegant stride. "Confirm the target for me. The balding man by the ice sculpture, wearing the poorly tailored Tom Ford tuxedo. Is that Grant Brook?"
Nancy narrowed her eyes, scanning the crowd. "It's him. I checked with the event organizers. That is the man who dodged our calls."
"Excellent," Marvin purred, his ocean-blue eyes locking onto his prey.
He continued walking forward, his pace unhurried but carrying a heavy, undeniable gravitational pull. As he moved, the elite crowd subconsciously parted for him. His Incubus aura was dialing up, radiating a cold, breathtaking perfection that made billionaires and supermodels momentarily pause their conversations to watch him pass.
Nancy and Amy fell into step a few paces behind him. After three seconds, Nancy's Hollywood paranoia kicked in.
"Wait, Marvin, what exactly are you going to do?" Nancy hissed, her eyes darting nervously toward the hotel security guards stationed by the doors. A sudden, terrifying thought struck her. 'Was Marvin planning to physically confront the man? Was he going to throw a drink in his face?' A public altercation would ruin Diana's charity event and land them on the front page of the Daily Mail.
Marvin didn't even turn his head. He seemed to have plucked the panicked thought directly from her mind. He simply raised one hand, elegantly waving her off.
"Do not worry, Aunt Nancy," Marvin said, his voice a low, hypnotic hum that instantly neutralized her spiking adrenaline. "I am merely going to introduce myself."
Marvin was overflowing with an ancient, dark confidence.
As the months passed in this mortal realm, his physical body was acclimating to his soul, and his mana pool was steadily expanding. His magical power was increasing. If he truly wanted to, he could effortlessly cast a baseline compulsion spell right now. He could force Grant Brook to drop to his hands and knees, ruin his tuxedo, and bark like a rabid dog in front of the European elite.
But Marvin found that idea incredibly distasteful. It lacked artistry. Magic was a blunt instrument; psychology was a scalpel. He didn't want to break Grant Brook's mind with a spell.
He wanted to use his Incubus charm to peel back the man's hypocritical armor and let Grant Brook destroy himself.
As Marvin approached the ice sculpture, the tense, hushed voices of the men in Grant Brook's circle became perfectly audible to his enhanced senses.
Grant Brook was currently holding a crystal glass of scotch, sweating profusely under the chandeliers, aggressively trying to defend his cowardice to a group of three highly influential British music executives.
"I'm just saying, I don't think it was entirely the Prince's fault that he ultimately chose to return to Camilla," Grant said, his voice loud, desperate, and attempting to sound authoritative. "Did Diana not have her own issues? Let's be honest, gentlemen. She had that sordid affair with James Hewitt, the riding instructor. Oh, and don't forget James Gilbey, the PR executive from the phone taps!"
The other men in the circle stiffened, clearly uncomfortable with Grant dragging the host of the gala through the mud while drinking her champagne.
"No, no, no, Grant, that is wildly unfair," a distinguished, silver-haired executive from Decca Records shot back, his tone laced with disgust. "Her Highness sought emotional solace only when her marriage was completely beyond repair, and her husband was openly parading his mistress around Highgrove. You cannot strictly consider it infidelity when she was effectively trapped. She couldn't simply file for a divorce; the Queen absolutely refused to allow it for years."
"Since the papers weren't signed, she cheated," Grant doubled down, his face flushing red as he desperately tried to align himself with the Crown's narrative. "Besides, Prince Charles and Diana's marriage was an archaic, arranged political setup. Camilla is the Prince's true, enduring love. I'm just looking at the reality of the future monarchy."
"Wait a minute, Grant," the third man, a renowned concert promoter, narrowed his eyes, setting his drink down. "What exactly is going on with you tonight? Aren't you Princess Diana's close friend? You were sitting in her royal box at the Albert Hall three years ago. Why are you suddenly targeting her so viciously?"
Grant shifted his weight nervously, taking a large gulp of his scotch. "I'm not targeting anyone in particular. I'm just a realist. I am stating the objective facts as I know them."
"Heh," the Decca executive scoffed, shaking his head with profound disappointment. "Some people are just fundamentally ungrateful."
"Is that so?" Grant snapped, his ego bruised, his voice rising in volume. "How does maintaining loyalty to the actual Royal Family suddenly become ingratitude?"
"Don't you dare forget exactly how you built your fame, Grant," the promoter stepped closer, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper. "More than a decade ago, when you were nothing but an unknown, mid-level studio rat, it was Diana who appreciated your talent. She dragged you into the spotlight. She forced us to take your meetings! She promoted you to the world!"
"You said it yourself!" Grant fired back, his cowardice mutating into arrogant defiance. "She appreciated my talent. If I didn't possess world-class talent, would she have ever looked twice at me? No! So I didn't rely on her. I rely entirely on myself and my own genius!"
"You arrogant little—" the Decca executive began, his face flushing with anger.
"Alright, alright, gentlemen, keep your voices down, stop arguing," a fourth man intervened, looking nervously around the ballroom. "The press is literally fifty feet away."
The argument hit a tense, suffocating stalemate. The circle of men glared at Grant, entirely repulsed by his blatant, social-climbing treachery, while Grant stood there, sweating, clutching his glass like a lifeline, desperately trying to project an aura of superiority. It was the absolute perfect psychological entry point.
Marvin glided into the empty space of their circle as silently as a shadow. He didn't clear his throat. He didn't ask for permission to speak. He simply unleashed a highly concentrated, razor-sharp wave of his Incubus magnetism, commanding the absolute attention of every adult in a five-foot radius.
"Hello, Mr. Grant Brook."
Marvin's voice was a rich, impossibly smooth velvet hum that instantly paralyzed the entire group.
Grant Brook spun around, the scotch sloshing over the rim of his crystal glass. He looked down, expecting to see a lost child looking for an autograph. Instead, he found himself staring into the fathomless, terrifyingly intelligent ocean-blue eyes of a boy in a midnight-blue velvet tuxedo.
The air pressure in the circle plummeted. The Decca executive and the concert promoter instinctively took a half-step back, their primal instincts recognizing that an apex predator had just his space.
"Who... who called my name?" Grant Brook slurred slightly, pivoting on his expensive leather shoes.
He looked down, his bloodshot eyes struggling to focus in the golden light of the chandeliers. He expected to see a lost busboy or an overly ambitious junior assistant. Instead, he found himself staring at an impossibly composed, terrifyingly handsome boy in a midnight-blue velvet tuxedo.
"Whose child are you? And what on earth do you want with me?" Grant demanded. His tone was harsh, dripping with the frantic annoyance of a man whose fragile ego had just been bruised by his peers.
Marvin didn't flinch. He didn't shrink under the executive's glare. He stood with the effortless, ancient grace of a sovereign, his hands loosely clasped behind his back. The heavy emerald of the Spencer signet ring caught the light, flashing a brilliant, silent warning that Grant was too blind to see.
"I couldn't help but overhear your fascinating theories on talent and loyalty," Marvin said, his flawless London accent cutting through the ambient noise like a diamond blade. He offered Grant a smile that was breathtakingly handsome, yet utterly devoid of warmth. "Allow me to introduce myself."
"I am Marvin. Marvin Meyers," the boy replied, his flawless London accent ringing out like struck crystal, commanding the absolute silence of the surrounding executives. "Princess Diana graciously introduced me to your office. She had hoped that Mr. Grant Brook might take a moment to listen to my compositions. If you found them worthy, she believed you might assist me in producing an EP."
*****
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