Chapter 3 "Luné Devain,"

࿐ྂ༻꒦꒷𓇊꒷꒦༺࿐ྂ

“Chapter 2: Luné Devain,”

────── ꕥ ⋅ IVORY ⋅ ꕥ ──────

I  almost didn't go.

I stood outside 28 Blackwood Lane at eight fifty-nine in the morning - no, evening, because apparently my brain had stopped working - in my best dress, which was just a black dress that didn't have paint on it yet, and stared at a door that had no sign, no handle, and no logical reason to exist in this part of the city.

The warehouse district at night was exactly as inviting as it sounded. Broken streetlights. Empty roads. The kind of silence that made you hyperaware of every sound you were making, including breathing.

I almost turned around four times on the way here.

I thought about the texts. The wealthy have always fed on artists. I thought about forty-three dollars. I thought about the eviction notice sitting on my kitchen table like a countdown clock.

I knocked.

The door opened before my knuckles even finished the second knock.

A man in all black looked me up and down, checked something on a small card, and stepped aside without a word.

I walked in.

And immediately forgot how to speak.

The inside of that building had no business existing inside that building.

It was vast. Cathedral-high ceilings dripping with chandeliers that turned everything gold. Dark walls draped in deep red fabric. Round tables scattered across a floor that looked like polished obsidian - black and mirror-bright, reflecting the lights above like a second sky.

And the people.

God, the people.

Everyone in that room looked expensive in a way that went beyond clothes and jewelry. They looked expensive like time was expensive - like they'd had centuries to get good at looking exactly like this, at moving exactly like this, at making everyone around them feel like they'd wandered into the wrong room.

Which, to be fair. I had.

A woman in a white suit appeared at my elbow with a champagne flute and a smile that didn't reach her eyes.

"First time?" she asked.

"Is it that obvious?"

"You're the only one looking at the ceiling." She pressed the champagne into my hand. "Don't. It's considered rude to look impressed."

"Right." I looked back down. Took a sip. The champagne tasted expensive and cold and like absolutely nothing I could afford. "What exactly is Luné Devain?"

Her smile stayed exactly the same. "An auction house."

"What do they sell?"

A pause. Just half a second too long.

"Experiences," she said. And walked away.

I found a spot near the back and tried to look like I belonged there, which I imagine was going very well for me. I sipped my champagne. I watched the room fill up - more dark suits, more glittering jewelry, more people who moved through space like they owned it.

Something felt off though.

Not wrong, exactly. Just - different. The air had a weight to it I couldn't name. Like the pressure before a storm, sitting right behind your eyes. And the people - the closer I looked, the more I noticed small things. The way no one touched the food on the tables. The way conversations stopped just slightly too fast when someone new walked by. The way eyes moved through a room, tracking everything, missing nothing.

Like they were all very, very good at watching.

I was busy convincing myself I was being paranoid when the energy in the room shifted.

Not loudly. Not dramatically. Just - a change. A drop in temperature that had nothing to do with the air conditioning. Conversations slowing. Heads turning, just slightly, toward the entrance on the left.

A man walked in.

And the room - this entire room full of people who acted like nothing could impress them - went just a little bit quieter.

He was tall. Dark suit, perfectly fitted, the kind that probably cost more than my rent. Dark hair. A face that stopped you mid-thought, the kind of face that felt almost too symmetrical, too precise, like someone had taken the concept of attractive and executed it without compromise.

He moved through the room like the crowd was water and he was something that water moved around.

People stepped back without seeming to realize they were doing it.

He didn't look around the room the way everyone else did - scanning, assessing, performing. He just moved. Like he already knew everything he needed to know about this room and the only thing of any interest in it was something he hadn't found yet.

And then...

He stopped.

His head turned. Slowly. Like he was following something invisible.

His eyes found mine straight across the room.

Blue. Icy, impossible blue, like the deep part of the ocean where things live that have never seen sunlight.

My breath left my body completely.

He looked at me the way you look at something you recognize. Not oh, I know you - more like there you are. Like I was something he'd been expecting.

My heart slammed against my ribs.

Then his eyes changed.

Just for a second. Just one single, blink-and-miss-it second.

The blue bled into something warmer. Deeper. Amber. Like firelight, like something feral, like eyes that belonged in a forest at night rather than a room full of chandeliers.

Then it was gone.

Back to blue. Back to that cool, unreadable expression.

The corner of his mouth lifted. The faintest suggestion of a smile, like he knew exactly what had just happened to my nervous system and found it privately amusing.

I looked away first.

My hands were shaking around my champagne glass.

What I thought very clearly, was that.

I didn't have time to answer myself because the lights dimmed and the room reorganized itself with practiced efficiency - chairs filling, paddles appearing from somewhere, a low stage at the front suddenly lit like a spotlight.

A woman in red stepped up to a podium.

"Good evening." Her voice carried like she'd trained it to. "Welcome to Luné Devain. As always, discretion is our highest currency. What happens in this room stays in this room."

Polite, practiced applause.

"Tonight's catalog is exceptional. We begin with the collection pieces-"

I tuned it out. I was still thinking about the eyes. The shift from blue to amber. The way it had felt less like a trick of the light and more like something underneath the surface of him, just briefly visible.

You're sleep deprived and scared and your brain is making things up. I told myself.

The auction moved fast. Pieces I didn't understand going for amounts that didn't feel real. The crowd was focused, quiet, almost clinical about the whole thing.

I was starting to wonder why I was even here - where was this supposed opportunity where was this compensation - when the woman at the podium smiled and said:

"And now. Our final offering of the evening."

Something in her tone changed. Smoother. More careful.

"Lot 24."

A handler appeared at my elbow.

"That's you," he said quietly.

I stared at him.

"I'm sorry - what?"

"Lot 24. You're on."

"I'm not a - I didn't agree to-"

"The invitation you accepted constitutes agreement to the terms of participation." He said it the way people say things they've said a hundred times. Flat. Practiced. Final. "You'll be presented as a muse companion. An artistic subject. Nothing will happen to you. You go on stage, you stand there, you come off stage. That's it."

"That's absolutely not-"

"Ms. Marwood." His voice dropped. "The compensation for a successful lot is enough to cover any debt you currently hold. Twice over."

I closed my mouth.

The math did itself without my permission.

He was already steering me toward the stage.

The lights hit me like a wall.

I stood there, center stage, in my unpainted black dress, while the auctioneer's voice rolled out smooth and warm across two hundred people.

"Ladies and gentlemen. Lot 24. A rare find. Untapped artistic genius requiring only proper - patronage."

Paddles went up.

Numbers climbed.

I stood perfectly still and stared straight ahead and thought about literally nothing because thinking about what was currently happening to me would have ended badly.

The blue-eyed man was in the front row.

He hadn't lifted his paddle. He wasn't even looking at the auctioneer. He was looking at me - steady, unblinking, with an expression I couldn't read and didn't know what to do with.

The numbers kept climbing.

He still didn't move.

And then, when the room was at a pitch I could feel in my chest, he simply stood up.

No paddle. No bid card. He just stood, and the room went quiet the way a forest goes quiet when something large moves through it. Every head turned. Every voice dropped.

"Five million," he said.

Quiet. Certain. Final.

The gavel came down.

The sound of it went through me like a current.

Five million dollars.

For me.

The man - this blue-eyed, amber-flashing, impossibly still man - looked up at the stage. Found my eyes again. And this time he didn't smile.

He just looked at me like I was something that now belonged to him.

And the terrifying part?

Some part of me - some deep, stupid, animal part of me - didn't entirely disagree.

────── ꕥ ⋅ ꕥ ──────