Chapter 6

The parlor hums—low music, low light, low voices. Curtains drawn just enough to let the red moon spill across the carpet like a wine stain no one dares clean. Candles burn in their sconces, casting gentle halos over silver trays and half-finished biscuits.

Illyana’s teacup rests on its saucer like a held breath. Her smile is perfect. Practiced. Dantalion lounges beside her with the ease of a sovereign hosting herself—one leg folded, one hand lazily cradling a cup of her own.

Mabel leans forward, elbows on the table despite every lesson, watching the band with focused eyes—trying to trace patterns in the cello's phrasing.

Liza watches the room like it might shift when she blinks. And it does. A maid appears. A guest vanishes. One sip later, one window has gained frost; another has lost its curtain.

Eris lounges like someone who’s learned not to flinch first. Calm, not careless. She sips as though she’s waiting to be asked something she already knows the answer to.

The castle is quiet, yet the music less so. Butlers and maids stroll along their routes, and somewhere behind it all, the parlor waits—like it knows a question is coming.

Liza set her cup down on the saucer and ruffles her hair a bit.

"Alright, ladies. Tea's helping but I got some more questions that need answering"

Dantalion’s eyes half-lidded as the faintest smile curled at the corner of her lips. She adjusted the way she held her cup.

"Yes, Liza. Ask away."

Liza set her cup down again, then picked it up, turned it, and set it down a third time—handle to the left now. She scratched the side of her jaw like it might help line up the words.

“So Dad’s a vampire then? Illyana got him and now people have to deal with that?”

Eris leaned in from her seat beside Liza, her cup balanced effortlessly on one knee. She didn’t laugh—just smiled like Liza had nearly solved a riddle with the answer printed on her boot.

“No! What the forgin’—no. He set up Night Shift, remember? We’re, ya know? Deadfall at night, masons of the moonlight, Bel’v’s bullies? Remember?”

Their table sat beneath one of the taller windows, red moonlight curling around the edges of the chairs like stage fog.

The table stayed warm.

One candle flickered, but only because a maid passed too close. Cups clinked. The cello kept time.

From a far table, laughter drifted over—lazy, genuine, a joke lost to distance. A minotaur in lace sleeves and too much laughter wiped her eye with a napkin while her tail slapped the floor twice like a punchline.

Mabel swirled her cup once before lifting it again, the steam catching a thread of red moonlight as she sipped. Her shoulders had dropped. The tension she wore like a second collarbone was slowly unraveling, replaced with something that might’ve been comfort—or at least curiosity.

“Yeah, I remember. I guess his tools makes sense now. I was starting to wonder how anyone lifts that.”

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Liza glanced down at her cup like it might cough up a better explanation than she’d gotten so far. She turned it once, then again—two slow rotations—before speaking to it directly.

“Sure, fine. Then why—how even?”

Illyana smiled—not the sharp kind, but something quieter, gentler. She took a slow sip from her cup, savoring it like the question had steeped just right.

“Derrick had work to do and he was getting old. It was purely a tactical choice and by the looks of it, very tactical. Eris makes for good company, does she not?”

Liza and Mabel both turned to look at Eris.

She wasn’t doing anything in particular—just sipping her tea, one leg crossed over the other, eyes half-lidded like the music was playing for her alone. But there was that familiar weight behind her calm, the way she never snapped first, never flinched, never let the room win.

The sisters exchanged a glance.

Illyana had a point.

Eris raised her cup halfway to her lips, paused, and set it back down without drinking. Her brow furrowed.

“So, Dantalion—”

Dantalion waved one hand gently through the air, as if brushing the name aside like rising steam.

“Do not tax your mouth. The Graveins learned early. Dandy will suffice—and Dandy will leave your mouth often, I am sure.”

Eris took the moniker in stride, like she’d already decided it was fine the moment she heard it.

“Easy enough. Dandy—what is the deal with Tiefenburg? What are you two trying to do here and why does Derrick give everyone the name?”

Illyana set her teacup down with practiced grace. The soft click of porcelain on porcelain cut clean through the cello’s phrase. She straightened, content—this was a question with a clean answer.

“Lady Dantalion does not quite know what Derrick wants, just what he has done and can possibly do. Derrick changed surnames when he stopped being human. He felt it fitting for what he is now, and he gives it freely to those who need a name.”

Dantalion nodded, slow and satisfied, her fingers curling around her cup as she spoke just above it—half to Eris, half to the steam.

“As for Tiefenburg, we fled among the demon fighting and have been trying to decide where to settle, whilst collecting more strays and vagabonds. Monsters bleed from our realm into yours—into many realms—and we collect any who seek a future.”

Then she sipped, as if the words had steeped just long enough.

Eris leaned back slightly and let her eyes wander.

The parlor hadn’t grown louder, but she could hear it more now—chairs creaking under tail-wrapped postures, porcelain clinking near clawed hands, a giggle that didn’t come from a mouth. They wore shades of black and crimson—no uniforms, just echoes of the same palette, stretched across coats, corsets, gloves, and silver-pinned veils. They were tall where they shouldn’t be, scaled in ways that caught the light wrong, jointed at angles that didn’t belong in parlors, and blinked like they had to remember how.

And none of them had names she could call out.

Strange faces. Stranger silhouettes. Stories that must’ve started somewhere else.

She took another sip and didn’t say anything.

But the question had already answered itself.

Mabel tipped the last of her tea into her mouth and set the cup down with a quiet, satisfied clink. She gave the table a once-over—Liza half-scowling at her cup again, Eris deep in her own thoughts, Illyana unreadable as ever. Dantalion, of course, looked like she'd never left a parlor in her life.

“A home is a very special thing, Dandy. I get it. Anyone gets it.” She glanced toward the curtained windows, then back to Dantalion with a small smile.

“Speaking of which, how do we get home? It’s late, and we’ve all got our own lives.”

Dantalion watched Mabel with that catlike amusement she wore so well—head slightly tilted, eyes half-lidded, the picture of someone who could lie and wouldn't need to. But this time, she didn’t dodge.

“Oh? Just ask Chester. You are not prisoners. Perish the thought.”

She let out a light laugh—graceful, breathy, and entirely amused, as if the idea of anyone being trapped here was as absurd as chaining a shadow.

The three of them looked at each other—Eris arching an eyebrow, Mabel blinking like she'd misheard, and Liza squinting like it might be a trick. It probably was.

But she cleared her throat anyway.

“A-alright?... Hey! Hey, Chester? We’re ready to go home now.”

And then the world spun again.