Chapter 5

The Crooked Spoon was, by all accounts, an affront to good taste.

The wooden beams sagged like the place had given up on itself centuries ago. The floor creaked even when no one was walking. The air smelled of stale beer, burnt onions, and the kind of disappointment only found in cheap lodging and bad marriages.

It was, in short, Valentine Fontaine's favorite restaurant in all of Blackmire.

He guided Anne to a booth in the back, where the candlelight flickered in protest against the damp. She sat stiffly, her hands still curled like she was holding something—perhaps the remnants of sanity.

Valentine, for his part, settled in comfortably and flagged down the owner, Old Mazzy. She looked him up and down, unimpressed as ever, and simply grunted.

"The usual, Mazzy," he said, then added with a smile, "and something warm for my lovely companion. Something that doesn't make her reconsider her existence, if possible."

Mazzy scoffed. "You know damn well you don't come here for that."

Valentine sighed. "You wound me."

Mazzy did not care.

With that, she vanished into the back, leaving them alone in the dimly lit booth.

Anne still hadn't spoken.

She hadn't run, either, which he took as a promising sign.

Valentine laced his fingers together, leaned forward on the sticky wooden table, and smiled in that way of his—like he knew a joke no one else did.

"You want to know what a Seeker is."

Anne exhaled sharply. "You said it like I should already know."

"Traditionally, yes," he said, nodding. "It's an old term. A Seeker is someone who has begun the path of the divine. Someone who has stepped onto the first rung of the great staircase to, well, power. You never heard of the saying ' Step once you are reborn, take another and ask what you seek?'."

She shook her head.

"Well, now you have."

Mazzy returned then, dropping a chipped bowl of soup in front of each of them. Anne peered into hers suspiciously.

Valentine grinned. "It's best if you don't ask."

Anne wisely said nothing.

She dipped a spoon into the murky broth, hesitated, then took a small sip. Immediately, she made a face.

"It tastes like despair."

"Ah, yes." Valentine took a sip of his own. "The house specialty."

Anne set her spoon down with great care, as if to avoid offending the soup. "You were saying?"

"Right. Seekers."

Valentine leaned back, stretching out like a cat in a sunbeam.

"Every so often," he said, "someone is chosen. Maybe by fate. Maybe by the universe. Maybe by something older than either. The point is, they are marked—set on a path toward something greater. Something beyond human."

Anne frowned. "Like saints?"

Valentine barked out a laugh. "Saints! Oh, that's precious." He shook his head. "No, no. Saints are for the devout. Seekers are for the stubborn."

He twirled his spoon between his fingers. "A Seeker is not given power. A Seeker takes it. We are not rewarded for our suffering—we claw our way up the rungs of that staircase, bleeding, breaking, until we either grab what we desire or collapse in the dirt."

Anne stared at him. "That sounds… awful."

"Oh, it absolutely is." Valentine took another sip of soup. "But that's what makes it fun."

She didn't seem to find it particularly fun.

She studied him now, her gaze cautious. "So, what does that make you?"

Valentine smirked. "Would you like the traditional answer, or my answer?"

Anne glanced at the blood still dried beneath his fingernails. "Yours."

"Smart girl."

He set his spoon down, laced his fingers together once more.

"Traditionally," he said, "a Seeker is someone who seeks power. Knowledge. Ascension."

He tilted his head.

"But me? I'm not seeking Transcendence, Anne."

His grin widened, slow and sharp.

"I'm seeking something much more interesting."

Anne swallowed. "And that is?"

Valentine lifted his bowl of soup in mock toast.

"Why, entertainment, of course."

Then he took a long, slow sip—grinning all the while.

***

Anne was cold.

Even wrapped in the oversized shirt, even with the soup steaming in front of her, even in the suffocating, stale warmth of The Crooked Spoon—she was cold.

The kind of cold that burrows deep, past skin and muscle and bone, past anything that could be warmed with fire or blankets. The kind of cold that came from something being taken from you.

She stirred her soup absently, watching the surface ripple. Her hands trembled.

Not from the cold.

From him.

From Valentine Fontaine.

He was smiling at her, speaking in that easy, honey-smooth voice—spinning words like silk, wrapping her in them before she even realized she was tangled.

He spoke of knowledge. Of power. Of climbing a staircase made of blood and suffering toward something divine. Something beyond human

Anne was religious. But she wasn't as sure.

Not after monsters had whispered her name like a prayer.

And yet—

Here sat Valentine Fontaine, speaking of divinity with a grin full of sharp teeth, with blood beneath his fingernails, with the memory of a man's skull caving in still fresh between them.

And worse still—

He did not scare her.

Not like he should have.

Not like the other man had.

The murderer in the alley—the one who had grabbed her, hands already carving her up in his mind, already stripping her down like she was nothing, already taking—

He had scared her.

Him, she had feared.

Him, she had screamed for.

But Valentine—

Valentine had killed him. Had laughed while doing it. Had introduced himself to her with blood still cooling on his knuckles.

And she—

She had watched.

She had not screamed.

She had not run.

She had watched.

And now she sat in a rotting restaurant, listening to him talk about godhood over soup that tasted like displeasure.

She gripped the spoon tighter.

"A Seeker," she repeated, her voice quiet, hollow. "Someone who… takes power. Who chooses to suffer for it."

Valentine nodded, swirling his spoon in lazy circles. "More or less."

She studied him. His relaxed posture. His infuriating smirk. The way his hands never stopped moving—always spinning, always reaching, always taking.

"And what are you seeking?" she asked.

His smirk widened, like he had been waiting for the question.

"Entertainment."

The word made her stomach turn.

She had been entertainment before.

She had been amusement for greedy hands, for cruel laughter, for sickening, wet-breathed whispers in the dark.

Valentine was watching her now. Sharp. Curious. Like a cat playing with something small and fragile, deciding whether to break it.

Her fingers curled into fists beneath the table.

"So that's all we are to you?" she asked. "A joke? A way to pass the time?"

His grin did not falter.

But something in his eyes did.

"Not all of you," he said, voice lighter than it should have been. "Some of you are very dull."

Her stomach twisted.

He was a monster.

But she already knew that.

The difference was—

She didn't know what kind of monster he was yet.

The ones before him, she had understood.

They wanted. They took.

They hurt because they enjoyed it.

But Valentine—

Valentine played.

And she didn't know which was worse.

She swallowed, forcing herself to look at him, to see him for what he was.

He was a killer. A liar. A thing dressed up in charm and lace, grinning through red-stained teeth.

But he had saved her.

And that was the problem, wasn't it?

She had needed saving.

And he had given it freely.

Not for kindness. Not for morality. Not because it was right.

But because it was entertaining.

And somehow, that was worse.

"You're insane," she murmured.

Valentine laughed, soft and delighted. "Oh, Anne," he sighed. "I never claimed to be anything else."

And the worst part was—

She almost believed him.

"Would you like me to take you home?"

Valentine Fontaine asked the question like he was offering her a ride in a carriage made of moonlight, like he was some gentleman suitor instead of the grinning, bloodstained thing he was.

Anne sat stiffly in her seat at The Crooked Spoon, her soup cold, her stomach tight.

She should say yes.

It would be safer.

Or maybe it wouldn't.

Maybe walking home alone, trembling and small, with ghosts snapping at her heels, was still better than walking with him.

Still better than traveling beside a man who had peeled another's scalp off like he was plucking petals from a flower.

So she shook her head. "No."

Valentine tilted his head, expression unreadable. "No?"

"I'll walk," she said, quieter now.

There was a beat of silence between them. A stretched, fragile thing.

Then Valentine, impossibly, smiled.

"Suit yourself," he said, voice light, almost amused. "Try not to get killed, darling."

Anne shivered. She wasn't sure if it was from the cold—or from the way he had said darling.

She left without another word, stepping into the wet night, the city swallowing her whole.

***

Blackmire was different now.

Or maybe she was.

The streets stretched out before her like a gaping maw, slick with rain, slick with memory. The gaslights flickered weakly, casting long, jagged shadows over the cobblestones.

Anne walked quickly, head down, arms wrapped around herself.

She tried not to think.

Not about Valentine.

Not about the man in the alley.

Not about the package.

Her breath hitched.

She had failed.

The job, the task Markov had set for her, the one thing that was supposed to be simple—and she had failed.

Markov did not take failure lightly.

She shuddered, gripping the fabric of Charlie's borrowed shirt.

Keep walking.

But it wasn't just the failure that dug into her, twisting like a rusted nail beneath her skin.

It was the feeling.

The feeling that had wrapped around her in that alley.

The feeling she had when she walked beside Valentine Fontaine.

Safe.

Not good. Not right. But safe.

And that was what terrified her most.

Because she had been raised to fear men like Valentine.

And yet, when she was with him, the city's shadows felt smaller.

Now, alone, the city loomed over her, and she—she felt like prey again.

She hunched her shoulders, shrinking as she passed strangers, as their gazes slid over her like oil.

Every step felt too loud. Every glance felt like a knife against her spine.

And then—

She was shouldered.

The impact jolted her out of her thoughts, sent her stumbling back.

A man—broad-shouldered, damp coat clinging to his frame—turned sharply, glaring down at her like she was a particularly unpleasant insect.

"Watch it," he snapped.

Anne froze.

Her breath stuck. Her heart slammed against her ribs.

The man's face twisted, his lips already parting to say something worse—

And then he stopped.

Because suddenly, inexplicably, Valentine Fontaine was there.

Stepping forward, stepping between them, stepping like he had always been there—like the shadows had peeled back to make room for him.

Anne stared.

She hadn't heard him. Hadn't seen him.

He had just appeared.

And now he stood before her, tilting his head at the man, smiling, smiling, smiling.

"Now, now," Valentine said, tone dripping with amusement. "Let's not be rude."

The man hesitated. His expression flickered—something wary, something uncertain.

Because Valentine looked like a gentleman, but his eyes—his eyes were not.

Anne swallowed.

The man, whoever he was, must have seen it too.

Because after one long, assessing glance at Valentine—he scoffed, muttered a curse under his breath, and turned sharply, stalking into the night.

Silence.

Then Valentine turned to her, grinning like they had just shared a private joke.

"Changed your mind about walking alone, darling?"

Anne's breath was still shaky, her pulse still high.

She hated him.

Hated that he had followed her.

Hated that, somehow, she felt safe again.