Chapter 5: Rumors Have Teeth

By the third day after Mara fell, her death had stopped being a fact and become a hobby.

The castle did what castles did best: it turned tragedy into story, story into sport, and sport into weapon. Nobody spoke of her kindly. Nobody spoke of her accurately. They spoke of her usefully .

Some insisted it was divine punishment—an answer to the mirror incident, proof that the gods still kept ledgers and still knew how to balance them.

Others whispered it was the devil’s work, that whatever had crawled out of that mirror had simply found another way to finish what it started.

But most people—people who liked their fear with a face attached—placed their bets on a culprit.

On Lyra.

Or on Edric.

And, threaded through every version of the rumor, like a refrain that wouldn’t go away:

The new friend.

The boy with no history.

The one who’d simply appeared one day and lived among them as if he’d always belonged.

...****************...

Lyra sat in the study with the door half open and his papers arranged in neat, controlled stacks—like order could be built and rebuilt, no matter what happened in the halls.

He was halfway through a list of names when the door slammed so hard the ink in his pen jumped.

Caelum burst in with the air of someone arriving late to a fire.

“Good news,” Caelum announced.

Lyra didn’t look up. “You never bring good news.”

Caelum shut the door behind him, then crossed the room quickly. “Most of the castle thinks I’m a murderer.”

Lyra finally lifted his eyes, slow and cool. “Most of the castle thinks the moon is interested in their affairs.”

Caelum stared at him. “That’s it? That’s your reaction?”

Lyra went back to his paper. “Do they have proof?”

“No,” Caelum said, offended. “Rumors don’t need proof. They need boredom.”

Lyra made a small mark on the page, as if this were a minor scheduling concern. “Then it’s not my problem.”

Caelum hovered at the edge of the desk, restless. “It is your problem if they decide to solve their boredom by hanging me.”

“They won’t,” Lyra said. “You’re too strange. They’ll want to keep you nearby, so they can keep guessing.”

Caelum looked like he wanted to argue, but the anger in him didn’t have a good place to land. It softened, slipping into something quieter.

“Why aren’t you bothered?” Caelum asked at last. “About her.”

Lyra’s pen paused. Only a pause—no crack, no tremble. “Because being bothered doesn’t resurrect people.”

Caelum’s mouth tightened. “That’s not what I mean.”

He moved to the window and perched there, legs dangling over the seat, like a child pretending he didn’t need stability. Outside, the sky was pale and indifferent.

“To angels,” Caelum said, voice lighter on purpose, “death isn’t that big of a deal.”

Lyra glanced up, faintly interested. “Convenient.”

“It’s not convenience,” Caelum snapped, then exhaled as if trying to pull his temper back into shape. “It’s… scale. We don’t measure things the same way. Humans die all the time. Their lives are short. Their souls move on. It’s—” He frowned, searching for a human word. “It’s not the end.”

Lyra said nothing.

Caelum’s gaze fell to the floor. “But I couldn’t accept that a human—a kid —had to witness a murder I caused.”

Lyra’s eyes sharpened at that. “A kid?”

Lyra watched him carefully.

Caelum’s shoulders rose and fell in a small, frustrated breath. “And then I looked at you,” he said, quieter, “and you didn’t look like you felt anything. So the guilt…” He shrugged. “It didn’t have anywhere to stay.”

Lyra lowered his gaze back to his papers. “That’s a pathetic reason to forgive yourself.”

Caelum’s smile flashed, a little wounded. “I didn’t say I forgave myself. I said it went away.”

Lyra didn’t answer that either.

They stayed there for hours—together in the same room, not touching, not arguing, drifting into useless conversation the way exhausted people drifted into sleep. Caelum spoke about the absurdity of human superstitions, about how servants could make an entire legend out of a dropped spoon. Lyra asked questions that sounded idle but weren’t, steering Caelum into naming who had said what, which corridor the whispers favored, which faces had hardened into suspicion.

By late afternoon, the study’s shadows had lengthened, and the castle felt like it was holding its breath again.

Lyra went to fetch a book from the upper gallery.

That was when he heard the shouting.

He stopped at the edge of the corridor and watched.

His uncle stood in the small receiving hall, radiant with irritation. Opposite him was a woman dressed in travel silks that looked expensive enough to buy a village. Her hair was pinned in a severe knot, and her eyes were bright with the fury of someone who expected to be obeyed and often was.

“You’re being dramatic,” the woman hissed.

His uncle’s smile was all teeth. “And you’re being delusional.”

Lyra blinked once. The argument sounded… oddly domestic.

“You cannot keep insisting he is the sweetest thing alive,” the woman said.

“I can,” his uncle replied, “because it’s true.”

The woman’s eyes narrowed. “You’re talking about Lyra as if he’s a saint.”

His uncle lifted his chin proudly. “He is my nephew.”

“And my Edric is harmless,” the woman snapped.

His uncle laughed. “Harmless? Your son is a chandelier with opinions. The moment you stop watching him, he falls and takes everyone down with him.”

The woman’s gasp was outraged and almost theatrical. “How dare you— Edric is— Edric is innocent .”

“Innocent?” His uncle repeated, delighted, as if tasting the word. “He tried to make my nephew apologize for existing.”

“He’s a boy!” the woman shot back. “A soft boy.”

“Soft boys do not host bloodsport in salons,” his uncle said sweetly.

Lyra stood very still.

From the doorway behind him, Caelum appeared, eyes wide and glittering with fascination. He leaned in close to whisper, as if watching a play. “Oh. A duel. But with compliments.”

Lyra murmured, “This isn’t a duel. It’s… something worse.”

The argument escalated into a spectacular stupidity.

The woman—clearly accustomed to winning—started listing Edric’s virtues like beads on a string: his “gentle heart,” his “sensitivity,” the way he cried at operas. His uncle answered by naming Lyra’s virtues with increasingly extravagant conviction: his “polite manners,” his “quiet bravery,” his “perfect restraint.”

It was so ridiculous it almost felt safe.

Except Lyra could hear what they weren’t saying.

My child wouldn’t murder.

Your child might.

It was all there, pressed beneath every word like a blade under velvet.

The woman noticed Lyra at last and snapped her head toward him, expression sharpening into appraisal. His uncle followed her gaze and immediately brightened.

“Lyra,” his uncle called, as if they hadn’t just been arguing loud enough to wake the dead. “Come here.”

Lyra stepped forward with practiced calm.

“Darling,” his uncle said, slipping an arm around his shoulders. “This is Lady Maerwynn Vane.”

Edric’s mother.

Maerwynn’s eyes swept over Lyra, calculating and quick. Then her expression softened into something performative.

“So this is the famous boy,” she said. “You look paler in person.”

His uncle’s hand squeezed Lyra’s shoulder in affectionate warning. “And you look louder.”

Maerwynn made an offended sound. “I’ve been traveling for months. I come home and find my son surrounded by corpses and rumors.”

His uncle’s smile stayed bright. “Welcome back.”

“And you,” Maerwynn said, turning her attention to Lyra, voice suddenly honeyed, “must be exhausted. So much stress. So many eyes on you. People are saying such terrible things—”

“I’m fine,” Lyra said politely.

Maerwynn’s gaze flicked to Caelum lingering in the back like a curious cat. “And that is…?”

Caelum lifted a hand and waved cheerfully. “Mystery.”

Maerwynn stared. “That doesn’t answer—”

“It answers perfectly,” Caelum said, still smiling.

His uncle’s eyebrows rose with amused approval, as if Caelum had offered a particularly clever dessert.

Then Maerwynn glanced back at Lyra and said too brightly, “Surely you understand, people are frightened. They want someone to blame. My Edric has a gentle soul, he would never—”

His uncle cut in, voice silky. “And my Lyra has never even raised his voice at a servant.”

Lyra’s lips twitched, almost.

Caelum whispered, “That’s because he’s more efficient than yelling.”

Lyra didn’t dignify it.

The argument somehow became worse—less about facts and more about aesthetics. Which boy looked more innocent. Which had the softer eyes. Which had suffered more. Which was “the kind” that could never commit a sin like murder.

At one point Maerwynn snatched a grape from the table and threw it in outrage. His uncle threw one back with perfect aim. For a full minute it devolved into petty, upper-class warfare: fruit, insults, and dramatic sighs.

After nearly an hour, both women ran out of energy and pride at the same time.

Maerwynn straightened her collar with a stiff motion. “I need food.”

His uncle nodded. “Same. We’ll eat before we kill each other. Civilized.”

They moved to the dining room with the exhausted camaraderie of people who only fight like that with friends.

Lyra followed because it was expected of him.

Caelum followed because he treated every human interaction like entertainment.

They had barely sat down when the doors flew open and a man strode in like a storm wearing expensive boots.

His face was sharp with anger and the kind of entitlement that didn’t ask permission. A sword flashed in his hand, and in one swift movement he pointed it directly at Lyra’s uncle.

The room froze.

Caelum sucked in a breath. Lyra’s hand drifted—automatically—to the edge of the table, not for a weapon but for balance. For readiness.

Maerwynn’s chair scraped back violently. “Cassian—!”

Cassian Vane.

Edric’s father.

His voice was loud, furious, ridiculous. “Duke Essirene—” he began, then corrected himself with an insult baked into the correction, “Duchess Seraphina. Are you wooing my wife again?”

His uncle blinked slowly, expression shifting into something bored. “Again? We must be consistent if nothing else.”

Cassian’s eyes blazed. “You have always—”

Maerwynn cut across him, mortified and furious. “Put the sword down. In front of guests—!”

Cassian didn’t lower it. “You disappear for months, return home, and the first thing I hear is that you were here arguing with him .”

His uncle said calmly, “We were arguing about which of our sons is cuter.”

Cassian stared. “That—” His face contorted. “That is the stupidest lie you’ve ever told me.”

“It wasn’t a stupid lie,” Maerwynn snapped, cheeks flushed with humiliation. “It was a stupid truth .”

Caelum leaned toward Lyra, whispering with a kind of stunned awe. “I thought the sword was about murder. It’s about romance.”

Lyra murmured back, “It’s about pride.”

Cassian finally lowered the blade, but only because Maerwynn snatched his wrist and yanked it down herself.

“We’re leaving,” Cassian announced.

Maerwynn’s eyes flashed. “We just arrived.”

“And we’re leaving,” he repeated, and then—softening just slightly, in a way that made the possessiveness more visible—he put an arm around her waist as if physically reclaiming her from the room.

His uncle lifted a hand in farewell, smiling sweetly. “Send Edric my love.”

Maerwynn glared at him. “Don’t.”

Cassian practically hauled Maerwynn out, his boots striking the stone like punctuation.

The doors slammed.

Silence settled over the table like dust.

Lyra stared at the place where they’d been, expression unreadable.

Caelum looked between Lyra and his uncle. “Do all noble families do that?” he asked carefully. “The sword thing.”

His uncle sighed and reached for a glass of wine as if this were merely a tiring weather change. “Only the ones that think they’re romantic.”

Lyra said nothing.

Shock—true shock—moved slowly through him, not about the sword, not about the shouting, but about the way adults could be so childish while the castle tried to decide which child should carry a murder on his back.

That night, long after the corridors quieted again, a letter appeared on the duke’s table.

The wax seal was imperial.

The handwriting was formal enough to be a threat without needing to sound like one.

Lyra saw it when he passed the study, the candlelight catching the crest on the seal like an eye opening.

His uncle stood over it, reading once, then again—her face still, her smile gone.

Caelum stepped up beside Lyra, unusually quiet.

“What is it?” Caelum whispered.

Lyra watched his uncle’s hands tighten around the paper—just slightly, the only sign of strain.

“News,” Lyra said softly, more to himself than to Caelum.

And in his chest, where relief had lived recently, something colder unfolded: the sense that the castle’s rumors were not the real danger.

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