The Villain Who Seeks Joy-Chapter 74: Ten Seconds of Truth

The reception hall wore polish over nerves. Brass lamps burned low and warm. Two long tables showed off the academy’s neat pride: clean pins under glass, oiled tools with tags, a coil of rope tied wrong on purpose so a proctor could fix it for applause. Workers had rolled carpets to shape the path Lyra drew. Water stood at the far corner to pull traffic through. A lectern waited in the middle like a polite trap.

Liora checked the line of her sleeve and nothing else. "No heroics," she said again, soft.

"Copy," I said.

Cael glanced at the high mirror we’d nudged a hand-span left. "You get ten seconds," he murmured. "I’ll buy eleven."

"I only need ten," I said, and patted the tin in my pocket. The Moth waited, lid latched.

Guests came like weather. Carriages, then boots, then soft voices. Nobles’ crests. Guild pins. A few city coats without brands—money that didn’t need to be announced. Pierce met them at the door and turned the first questions into air. Dorian became a shadow near a pillar. Mira drifted with a notebook and the look of someone who was allowed to write anywhere.

Seraphine arrived with the sponsor from earlier, the older man in the dark coat whose smile showed nothing. She wore frost-white silk and amethyst at her throat. Her hair was a sheet of snow in lamplight. She looked like she belonged in every room.

"Master Halvern," Pierce said to the sponsor, "welcome back to Valmere Academy."

Halvern inclined his head the amount a man does when he won’t kneel. "We look forward to seeing safe hands," he said. His eyes skipped the tools and found the lectern. A leather folio rode his arm like a favored pet.

Seraphine’s gaze found me. Polite, bright. She didn’t wave. She never wastes motion. The message lived in the tilt of her chin: behave, be brilliant, make them pay.

Cael stepped into the first knot of donors like he was entering a spar—calm weight, open hands. "You walk far to come here," he said, not loud. "Tell me about your road." They did. Their faces moved. Their guards eased. He nodded, asked one more question, and they forgot to ask his.

Mira drifted past them and marked the height of Halvern’s folio against the lectern’s lip with her thumbnail. "Hand-span," she whispered without looking at me. "Your mirror is true."

Lyra ghosted in, brass badge on her collar. She had ten minutes to check flows and she used nine. A hand here, a nod there. "Water farther," she told a server. "No chair by the lectern; it blocks turn." She passed me, paused, and said, "No fuss," which meant be careful.

"Always," I said.

The room breathed into its rhythm. Donors split left to the tool table, right to the rope. They admired, they asked, they said words that sounded like support and sometimes meant it. Liora gave them answers of clean weight. "We drill twice," she said when asked about gates. "We change procedures when facts change." She didn’t sell. She didn’t apologize. She told the truth in small portions.

Cael reached the lectern with three donors orbiting him. "Master Halvern," he said, gentle as a guide, "you’ve walked more bridges than I have. Would you show me how you’d plant a flag on a gust line?" It was the wrong venue for a flag, which made it perfect—Halvern liked to explain.

Halvern smiled the way a paper creases. "Of course," he said, and set his folio on the lectern to free his hands. He angled the leather flat to draw a quick shape with his finger.

"Now," Mira breathed.

I moved to the balcony rail and kept my body part of the beam. I slid the tin open with my thumb. "Wake," I whispered.

The Moth lifted without a sound. It was the size of a silver piece and pale as chalk dust. It crossed the air as if air wanted it, landed on the mirror frame, and held.

Ten seconds. I counted without moving my lips.

Halvern traced a triangle on the leather cover to show wind and line. He talked about leverage like a man who had paid a mason to teach him the word. Cael nodded, interested, asking the question that makes people add one more detail than they meant to. "And if the anchor rots?"

"Replace it before it does," Halvern said, and smiled like that was witty. His hand shifted. The folio opened one finger’s width—enough to see the top page. Mira angled her head the tiniest degree to catch the reflection from the mirror.

Eight.

The page held a neat ledger grid. Donor name, subgrant, disbursement line. One row was marked with a small dot—habit, not highlight. "Ashen Gate Trust," the dot’s row read. "Service: Maintenance Supplements. Vendor: Kellen & Sons." The ampersand was crooked.

Nine.

Under the vendor line, a note in small slate-gray ink: "Consultant retainer — Verrin." Not a surname. Just the name. The number beside it was neat, and not small.

Ten.

"Down," I whispered, and the Moth lifted and slid back into the tin. I latched it with my nail and kept my face from changing.

Mira’s pencil slid once across her page like a fish fin. She didn’t look up. Cael asked Halvern how he kept his boots from sliding in rain. Halvern laughed and said, "Good leather," and told a story about a mountain pass that had probably been a road.

Liora’s eyes found mine from across the hall and asked a question without moving. I gave the smallest nod. Not a trophy. A mark.

Lyra noticed the nod because she notices everything. Her hand touched the water tray and moved it two fingers toward the corner. A group that had been starting to clog shifted like water when the bank changes. The lectern cleared for a breath and then filled again.

Seraphine reached the lectern with a donor in blue silk who wore rings like a ledger. "Master Halvern," she said, voice smooth as the floor, "you must see our rope work—Armand, would you show them a splice?"

"Short splice," I said, stepping in. I took the rope with my palms up and spoke like I was talking to first-years. "Measure. Pinch the tail. Dress the lay. Slide and bite." I pulled it wrong once, showed the slip, then fixed it. People who didn’t know what they were seeing still liked the way clean motion looks. They murmured the way crowds do when someone makes a thing look simple.

"Reliable hands," Halvern said. He tapped the rope as if it were a dog’s head. "Good to see."

"Reliable hands keep doors honest," I said. "And doors are where people get hurt."

His eyes sharpened a fraction. "You speak from experience."

"Yes," I said. Short, plain. It landed.

Seraphine smiled at me like we spoke a private language. "He does love facts," she told Halvern, and made fact sound like charm.

"I like people not falling," I said.

"You’ll find donors prefer that too," Halvern said, amused.

"Then we agree," I replied.

He turned to Pierce. "Your Saintess is impressive," he said.

"She’s effective," Pierce answered.

We flowed on. For the next half hour, the hall did what halls do: it carried talk along its edges and gave people mirrors to like themselves in. Cael gave time to anyone who wanted it and got more than he asked. Liora stood with a guild matron and made safety sound like sense, not expense. Dorian did nothing visible and moved a whole scene two steps left when a server nearly tripped. Mira found three angles for her notes without climbing a chair. Lyra slipped out to Refuge as the clock said she would.

Twice I felt eyes on me from a stranger—Halvern’s guard, maybe. I kept my hands quiet. No leash, no tricks, no reason to remember me.

Between questions, Seraphine found my shoulder. "You did not disgrace us," she said lightly. She meant the school and also her.

"I wasn’t trying to," I said.

"You should try more often," she murmured. "It suits you."

"Change your methods," I said back, low. "I’ll help fix what can be fixed."

Her amethyst eyes flickered. "You do love your conditions," she said, and glided away toward a councilman who needed a new story to brag with.

A bell chimed once for the last course of the night: watered wine and soft fruit. Donors thinned. Guards relaxed the way trained men do—just enough to be human. I caught Cael’s eye. He lifted two fingers: ready? I nodded.

Liora touched my sleeve, a pressure you could miss. "Walk," she said.

We left the warmth for a short corridor behind the hall. Pierce joined us with a face that had set like mortar. Mira slipped in with her notebook tucked under her arm.

"Tell me," Liora said.

Mira spoke first. "Ashen Gate Trust. Subgrant. Kellen & Sons with the crooked ampersand. Retainer for ’Verrin.’ Same plate flaw as the North Quarter vendor list. The page looked recent—ink not fully dull."

Pierce swore once, quietly. "They paid him as a consultant."

"Or he called himself one," I said. "Either way, money moved."

"Can we prove the page wasn’t planted to bait us?" Pierce asked.

"Yes," Mira said. "Halvern wrote a figure in the margin during his story—a tiny correction like men make when they remember the exact number. He didn’t know anyone watched." She sketched it: a small 2 turning into a 3 with a neat line. "You can ask him later to confirm a donation total. If he says three and not two, the page was live."

Liora’s gaze steadied on the far wall like she could see the ledger through it. "We do not raid donors," she said. "We move paper through the crown."

"Warrants," Pierce said, already calculating the path.

"And if someone tips them?" Cael asked.

"Then we will be faster," Liora answered.

A knock on the side door broke the small circle. Dorian opened it. A runner stood outside, breath misting, cap in hand. He held out a sealed tube with the Watch crest. Pierce broke it, read, and handed it to Liora.

She read and her mouth went thinner, not softer. "Warehouse fire," she said. "North Quarter, near the counting rooms. Dock Three is burning."

Mira closed her eyes for one heartbeat and opened them with a new page. "They’re cleaning," she said.

"Or covering a mistake," I said.

"Both," Pierce said. He looked at Liora. "Orders?"

Liora folded the message. "We don’t chase flames with donors still in our hall," she said. "We finish the night like a school. Then we go to work."

Cael flexed his hands once, then still. I felt the leash at my sternum hum, wanting jobs I wouldn’t give it yet.

"Plain language," Liora said. "No heroics. But now we have a direction."

I thought of the crooked ampersand and the neat little word "Verrin" pretending to be harmless ink. I thought of Halvern’s clean soap smell and the way he set a folio like a habit. I thought of the fire chewing boxes that might have answered too many questions.

"Ten seconds," I said.

Mira glanced at me. "Enough," she said.

We stepped back into the warm hall with our faces clean and our hands empty. Donors laughed at a safe joke. The rope coil gleamed. The mirrors showed everyone who they wished to be.

Somewhere across the river, Dock Three burned.