I found myself in my room sitting cross-legged on the bed with my back pressed against the headboard, the position comfortable in that specific way that came from having occupied it countless times before.
The mattress dipped slightly beneath my weight, springs creaking their familiar protest, while the sheets bunched around my legs in soft folds of fabric that had been washed so many times they'd achieved that perfect balance between clean and lived-in.
The fireplace across from the bed crackled with lazy contentment, flames dancing across logs that had been reduced to glowing embers wrapped in tongues of orange and gold. The heat it produced was just enough to take the edge off the underground chill that seemed to seep through stone and mortar regardless of insulation, creating a bubble of warmth that made the room feel cozy despite its modest dimensions.
Shadows played across the walls in patterns that shifted with each flicker of flame, transforming the space into something that felt almost alive, breathing in rhythm with the fire's gentle consumption of fuel.
It had been several days since we'd begun setting up for our main event—days that had passed in a blur of activity so dense I'd barely had time to process individual moments before the next crisis or triumph demanded attention.
The renovations were coming along beautifully under Llyod's expert direction, his crew transforming the theater's interior from "charming disaster" to "functional elegance" with impressive speed. New seating had been installed in the main hall, replacing the worst of the damaged chairs while leaving enough of the original furnishings to maintain that vintage aesthetic.
The stage itself had been reinforced with fresh lumber, its boards replaced where rot had taken hold, the whole structure now capable of supporting violent choreography without threatening to collapse mid-performance.
Our drug dealing business was flourishing beyond my wildest projections, the revenue gained from that particular endeavor more than enough to cover our expenditures with healthy surplus left over for expansion and emergencies.
Atticus and Dregan had taken to their roles at the warehouse with the kind of competent efficiency that made me confident leaving them to handle operations without constant supervision.
They'd established distribution networks throughout the mid-section, cultivated relationships with key buyers, and implemented security measures that kept their enterprise running smoothly despite operating in one of the city's most volatile districts.
I trusted them to handle themselves, which was saying something considering trust wasn't a commodity I distributed freely.
In my hand rested Iskanda's ruby, its chain coiled around my fingers like a silver serpent, the gem itself catching the firelight and transforming it into something almost supernatural.
The stone gleamed with an internal radiance that seemed too vibrant to be simple reflection—reds so deep they approached burgundy, highlights of crimson that pulsed with each shift in the flames' intensity, occasional flashes of pink that appeared and vanished like shy secrets.
I watched it with an attention that bordered on hypnotic fascination, turning it slowly between my fingers to observe how the light moved through its faceted surface, how the shadows pooled in its depths like small pockets of concentrated darkness.
The frustration bubbling beneath my skin was becoming harder to ignore with each passing day. I still had absolutely no idea how to use the damned thing, which felt like cruel irony considering I'd gone through considerable effort to steal it in the first place with very specific devious intentions.
The ruby sat there in my palm—beautiful, mysterious, and completely useless until I figured out whatever activation mechanism Merlin De Verrasi had built into its arcane structure.
Iskanda had made it painfully clear that she didn't know how to operate it either—for her it represented a curse more than an artifact, a reminder of transformation she couldn't reverse because the instructions had been lost to time or deliberately hidden by its creator.
Trying to undo magical alterations without understanding the device that caused them was practically hopeless, like trying to pick a lock you couldn't see with tools you didn't recognize.
I sighed with theatrical volume, the sound filling the small room and probably carrying through the thin walls to disturb whoever occupied the adjacent spaces. My gaze drifted upward from the ruby's mesmerizing surface, tracking toward the foot of the bed where—
I jumped with an undignified shriek that would haunt me for weeks if anyone had been there to record it, my body jerking backward hard enough to slam my spine against the headboard with a painful thud.
The ruby nearly flew from my startled fingers before I caught it in a desperate fumble that looked about as graceful as a dying fish attempting ballet.
Willow stood at the foot of my bed with her arms crossed beneath her small perfect breasts, wine-dark skin practically glowing in the firelight, emerald eyes fixed on me with an intensity that made my survival instincts scream conflicting warnings about danger and opportunity.
She was mad—pointedly, deliberately mad—her posture radiating displeasure in ways that transcended verbal communication. Her jaw was set, her lips pressed into a thin line, one hip cocked in a stance that somehow managed to be both threatening and devastatingly attractive at once.
I let out a nervous giggle that cracked around the edges, my voice climbing several octaves as my words tumbled out in self-defense. "What are you doing here? How did you even get in? I didn't hear the door—do you just materialize in people's rooms now? Is that a succubus thing or a you-specifically thing?"
Willow rolled her eyes with such exaggerated motion I could practically hear them completing the rotation. "You promised," she said with clipped precision, each word carefully measured to convey maximum accusation, "that we'd resume where we left off as soon as business concluded. Remember? That conversation we had? The one where you explicitly committed to giving me your undivided attention?"
I face-palmed with enough force to leave a mark, groaning into my palm as memory crashed back into consciousness with the subtlety of a brick through a window.
"Oh saints above, I did say that didn't I? Completely slipped my mind with everything else happening." I peeked at her through my fingers with something approaching apologetic charm.
Before she could launch into what was clearly going to be a well-deserved lecture about keeping promises and respecting people's time, I seized on a desperate deflection. "Wait—aren't you supposed to be training the prisoners right now?"
Willow's pout was immediate and devastating, her lower lip jutting out in a display of wounded feelings that would've been more effective if I couldn't see the calculation behind her emerald eyes. She turned her head with quick dramatic flair.
"I let Nara take over for a while," she explained with the kind of casual dismissiveness that suggested this had been planned well in advance. "And I left Felix to take my place."
I opened my mouth to protest—because Felix, while absolutely precious and surprisingly competent in certain areas, was not exactly the person I'd have chosen to oversee violent prisoner training sessions—when Willow's gaze suddenly locked onto the ruby resting in my hand.
"Is that..." Her voice dropped into a register I recognized as dangerous curiosity mixed with academic interest. She stepped closer to the bed, her eyes tracking the ruby's movement as I instinctively clutched it tighter. "I saw that at the casino, when you registered it. I thought it looked odd then—the craftsmanship, the magical resonance coming off it. Where did you get something like that?"
I hesitated for approximately half a second before deciding that honesty was probably my best option given Willow's ability to detect lies with unsettling accuracy.
"I stole it from Iskanda," I admitted with a grin that was equal parts pride and sheepishness. "Well, technically Tora stole it for me using his summoning magic, but I orchestrated the theft so I'm claiming full credit for the scheme."
Willow's eyes went wide—genuinely wide, her irises expanding until they dominated her face—before her expression settled into a smirk that promised either trouble, excitement, or both simultaneously.
"You stole from Iskanda? From the woman who could probably kill you seventeen different ways before you finished screaming?" She laughed with delighted appreciation. "That's either incredibly brave or spectacularly stupid."
I warmed to the subject now that I had her attention for reasons beyond sexual frustration. "Its origins go back to being crafted by the great magus Merlin De Verrasi himself."
Willow looked absolutely dumbstruck, her jaw dropping open in an expression of pure shock that would've been comical if it wasn't so completely authentic. "Merlin De Verrasi?" She repeated, "That means this thing probably dates back thousands of years—predates the current city structure, predates most of modern magical theory, predates everything we think we understand about artifact creation." Her hands came up as though reaching for the ruby before she caught herself. "What does it do? Please tell me you know what it does because if this is one of Merlin's lost works and we don't even know its function I might actually cry."
I felt heat creep up my neck and into my cheeks, embarrassment mixing with the inherent ridiculousness of what I was about to explain. "It, uh... it gives women massive cocks."
Silence held for exactly three heartbeats while Willow processed this information. Then her eyes went absolutely feral—pupils dilating, lips parting, her entire expression transforming into something between hunger and manic glee.
She snatched the ruby from my hand in an instant, clutching it to her chest while staring at it with the kind of reverence people usually reserved for religious artifacts.
Drool formed at the corner of her mouth, a small glistening strand that she didn't even seem to notice as she gazed at the gem like it had just solved every problem she'd ever had.
I reached out instinctively to reclaim my stolen property before deciding that fighting Willow when she'd entered this particular state of mind would end badly for everyone involved.
"I don't know how to get it to work," I explained with defeated honesty, letting my hand drop back to my lap. "That's been the main source of my frustration for the past several days. I have this incredibly powerful artifact with very specific applications I desperately want to experiment with, but it might as well be a very expensive paperweight for all the good it's doing me."
Willow's laugh erupted from her throat—sharp, bright, filled with triumphant knowledge that made her whole body shake with barely contained excitement.
"I know how to activate it!" She practically sang the words, spinning in place with the ruby held high like she'd just won some cosmic lottery. "I've seen many relics like this before—not by Merlin specifically, but artifacts from that era that operate on similar principles. The activation mechanisms are almost always consistent across certain types of magical constructs."
I jumped to my feet so fast the bed frame groaned in protest, my entire body vibrating with sudden hope and anticipation. "Can you teach me?"
Willow's smirk took on a distinctly predatory edge, her eyes gleaming with the kind of calculated mischief that meant I was about to pay for my earlier negligence.
"Oh, I can teach you," she purred, "But only for a price. You made me wait, after all. Kept me training prisoners when I could've been doing far more enjoyable activities. That kind of disappointment requires... compensation."
I caught on immediately to what she was implying because I wasn't completely oblivious to subtext despite what some people might think. "Lead the way," I said with a grin that matched her predatory energy, already moving toward the door with purpose. "But you better actually teach me afterward because if this is just an elaborate seduction scheme with no educational payoff I'm going to be very disappointed."
Willow laughed again, the sound filling my small room with a warmth that had nothing to do with the fireplace. "Oh, you'll learn everything you need to know," she promised, her hand finding mine and tugging me toward the hallway with irresistible force. "But first, we're going to make up for lost time in ways that will make you forget your own name for at least twenty minutes."
I let myself be pulled along with almost indulgent compliance, the kind that comes from recognizing you've personally engineered the situation and might as well savor the outcome.
After all, I hadn't just stumbled into this—I'd curated it, polished it, and presented it to fate with a flourish. It felt almost rude not to enjoy the consequences.
If I was going to suffer for my own negligence, I intended to do so with enthusiasm, a touch of style, and the quiet satisfaction of someone appreciating their own handiwork mid-disaster.