Gabriel had been prepared to face the crucible. He'd studied the side-effects, knew what awaited him once he weaned himself off this shameful dependency.

And yet nothing had could have prepared him for this.

The king's back arched. He would have cried out if his voice had not deserted him hours ago, his throat burning. Why had he been such a fool as to send Nathalie away? She could have – he should have tapered off the doses in a more controlled manner. Hubris would forever be his downfall. How far had he truly come from being that idiot boy who'd sold away the only thing that mattered in this world and thought himself pragmatic for not valuing it?

One more year.

Just one more year until Adrien would have reached his adulthood and been safe. Safety had been so close Gabriel had let himself grow complacent, spared his son the lectures. It had rankled, to see that doubt in his green eyes. His son had become a man, and a man did not simply take his father's word like boys did. So he'd relied on Adrien following his orders, never once stopping to consider that he no longer had a child's obedience. Gabriel should have explained himself.

But he hadn't wanted to reveal the shameful bargain he'd struck. His part in their family's downfall. He'd always vowed he'd tell Adrien once he was old enough to understand, but Gabriel had always found reason to put off the day his son would lose all respect for him.

Until it had been too late.

Slitted eyes stared down at him. Fangs and dark fur. The beast who haunted him, claws closing around his jaw. Another hoarse scream rose to the king's throat.

Yet then it was just Adrien, gently wiping off the sweat off his brow.

"It will pass, father," his son murmured. "Just rest."

Gabriel tried. But sleep held nightmares he could not face, so he was left adrift in that unbearable space at the edge of consciousness, visions dancing at the corners of his eyes until he could not tell what was real and what was not.

A fox leaned over him, only to turn into Nathalie. Faithful, dependable Nathalie, who held out a cup of tea to him.

"You've forgotten your medicine today, your Grace," she said.

And Gabriel drank.

A low snarl reverberated through the hall. Made with a human throat, it sounded bizarre rather than intimidating. Volpina quirked her eyebrow.

"How dare you? He'd almost made it through the worst of it!" The Lady's pet paced back and forth, fingers curling like talons as if he'd like nothing better than to slash her throat. Volpina could almost see the invisible tail whipping behind him.

"Your body language gives you away," she said. "If you can't play your part when you're agitated, you'll fail before long."

"I will not fail," he snapped.

"Won't you? Explain to me how you've forgotten simple instructions. In the span of little more than a week."

Haughty green eyes swept over her. Evidently, the beast had not failed all its tasks, for it had certainly succeeded in making the prince's arrogance his own. But then, even when he'd stalked the Nightmare Court, he had always possessed a sense of importance vastly disproportionate to his rank.

It had made for an amusing game among the courtiers to bring him down a notch, drawing him into conversations and watch him grow increasingly flustered by words too long for his animal mind to comprehend.

"I've not forgotten. I chose to adapt the plan to changing circumstances," he said, and Volpina tilted her head. There was a new glint in his green eyes – not quite cunning, not yet, but perhaps the beginning of it.

"And what circumstances are those?"

"The King suspects nothing. He trusts me. There is no need to keep him in that state!"

"He trusts you because we dulled his wits." Volpina sighed. "Suspicion builds over time. You've cleared the easiest hurdle imaginable and already think yourself a spy master. Our Lady gave you these orders for a reason. Do you not understand how critical this mission is? How narrow the needle we attempt to thread? Shall I draw you a diagram? Use shorter words?"

His lips peeled back and he hissed. With his dull human fangs, it held nothing of the threat of the beast's true form. "I know what I'm doing."

"You most certainly do not." Volpina closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, straining for patience. "You've been using the mirror."

Instantly, his posture grew rigid and defensive. "As instructed."

"Truly? Did not take a single peek beyond what you needed to?"

"Everything I've seen has proven useful," he said stiffly, and she would have scoffed at this pitiful attempt at evasion, if the subject matter had not been of such dire consequence.

For a long time, the Court had speculated on just what their Lady saw in the pet she'd plucked from Nightmare's edge. Why she broke up the courtiers' games with him, why she sheltered him from the consequences of his impertinence, why she devoted her time to him.

Iron Kissed.

Truly, the world was unfair to waste such a valuable gift on him. The things Volpina could do if she did not have to fear the cold sting… Even now, every fiber of her being was ill at ease, surrounded as she was by the humans' stone walls. The palace was filled to the brim with the accursed metal, even the air itself biting at her skin.

"Good," she said at last, and forced her mouth into a gentle smile. Reprimands were getting her nowhere, so perhaps a tender touch would yield results. "Well done. Understand, we did not set these rules due to lack of belief in your ability to blend in. Your Lady means only to protect you."

"…she does?" Volpina had no doubt his hidden ears had just perked up. "Protect me from what?"

"Adrien Agreste. He was strong-willed for a human, and you are young. Be honest now – is it truly you who wishes to spare the king?"

His lips thinned as he pressed them together, a mixture of guilt and defiance flashing in his eyes.

"You have a difficult task ahead of you. Do not needlessly complicate it out of misguided sentiment whispering poison in your ear. Trust our Lady's plan."

"I do trust her," he said petulantly, but the worst of his anger had ebbed, shame creeping into his tone. "But she needs to trust me, too. Father could be more useful when he's lucid. I won't have to waste time on the minutiae of ruling when he can do it in my stead. The king respects his son's counsel, he'll do what I–"

"He would not hesitate to kill you if he found out what you are."

The beast stifled a wince.

"Chat," Volpina whispered, invoking the strength of his true name – the part of it that she knew. She reached to brush her fingertips along his cheek and he stiffened, eyelids fluttering. He responds well to touch. Volpina filed that information away for future use. "None of this is real. It's illusion. Smoke and mirrors. Remind yourself of this. Our Lady is real. Our mission is real. What you feel for the King is not. The only thing keeping that man from swinging an iron sword at your neck is that we've convinced him of his own feeble-mindedness. Do not wake sleeping dragons."

He leaned into her touch and said nothing, closing his eyes with a soft sigh.

"Do you disagree?"

"No." And yet, a hint of sorrow in his voice remained. "But still – antagonizing Lord Lahiffe would be a mistake. I need allies amongst the human nobles, and he will be valuable."

"There are other allies to be made."

"But he's already loyal, I don't see why–"

"We have fae hunters on our trail and he is resistant to enthrallment. If you slip up, the mistake will not be easily erased." While even the strongest minds could be made to yield with enough effort, they inevitably recovered their wits once out of reach. "He could lead the hunters straight to you."

"Then I won't slip up."

Doubtful.

Volpina sighed. "Let's revisit this discussion once our tempers have cooled, shall we?"

"I'm calm," he said, crossing his arms.

"But I am not. You interrupted my concentration in the midst of an enthrallment." She turned back to the wall, pressing her palm against the soft tapestry, senses brushing up against the human mind on the other side of the wall. "Now I shall have to start over."

"Oh." Silk rustled as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "I… my apologies."

Glancing back over her shoulder, she decided to grace the stiff words with a smile. "You should return to your chambers for now and think on what I said. I'll see you at the festivities tonight. I'll be there as a noblewoman."

With a frown and one last guarded glance, he faded into the shadows, altering his glamor to slip past the guards in iron suits patrolling the corridors.

As unfortunate as it was, his stubbornness could be worked around. Clearly, it would fall to her to prune the connection to Adrien Agreste's friends and family so that the pet's loyalty stayed with their Lady, where it belonged.

Closing her eyes, Volpina focused on the glowing threads before her mind's eye, plucking at the strings. It was their ability to enthrall that made Changelings the undisputed masters of infiltration – no other fae species could play with human minds as well as they could.

Organized minds such as this one were a boon. A multitude of tasks and responsibilities spread out before her, all neatly aligned in a tightly choreographed routine. Slipping in a new one was child's play for Volpina, ensuring that the King's valet would bring him his medicinal tea with the same diligence she performed all her duties.

"So what do you think?"

The last few discordant notes of the lute faded away and Nino smiled expectantly, causing the growing lump in Adrien's belly to do a somersault.

"It was…"

Wretched. Horrific. An affront to the ears. The prince's vocabulary was formidable, courtesy of an extensive education in five different languages, and yet none of the words fighting for dominance in his mind struck him as appropriate. Nino had worked hard on that piece, and he'd undoubtedly improved since his last performance, but…

"Stirring," Adrien choked out at last. "It had emotional resonance."

Nino's brows knit together. "You didn't like it?"

The prince fidgeted. "You know I'm not all that musically inclined."

"Music is a universal language. You don't have to be trained in it to appreciate it. So you really didn't like it?"

"I liked it better than your last piece. You're getting noticeably better." How did father like to put it? "Every failure is an opportunity for improvement."

Nino drew back, enunciating the word. "Failure? You're calling my music a failure?"

"No! I mean – you're improving!"

"But right now it's a failure." Nino's voice was rising – a rare occasion for the even-tempered boy.

"I didn't say that."

"Just heavily implied it."

Adrien made an unhappy sound. "You're putting words in my mouth. Look, you've only just started! No master was ever made from one day to the next. All I meant is that you're showing improvements, and this is a step on the path to mastery."

"Really, you couldn't find one nice thing to say about it?"

"False flattery has only ever led men astray," Adrien said, quoting the words father liked to add after a particularly stinging critique.

Golden eyes narrowed. "You're right, Your Grace. In the spirit of helping each other improve and attain mastery, I have something to confess."

"…yes?"

"When I said I liked your most recent poem? The one dedicated to the girl with bluebell eyes?" Nino smiled thinly. "I lied. It was atrocious."

Adrien gasped.

Chat stared at the mirror as the walls of the prince's room shifted back into place, the last remnants of the memory dripping away.

That was it?

That childish spat was the worst memory Prince Adrien had of Nino Lahiffe?

Chat let himself fall back on the bed with a soft thump, staring at the ceiling. He'd hoped for something that might help him build up some distance, something to remind himself that this was the enemy.

Was he truly straying from his Lady's plan to have tried adapting it? He'd thought he was being clever, proving himself even more capable than she'd anticipated to fool those who'd been closest to the prince.

For all that Chat Noir was a pet, he could not deny that there was a certain defiant streak running through him. One that urged him to be contrarian out of sheer principle. He was a cat, not a dog, after all.

He loved pleasing his Lady and never failed to heed her wishes, but that was because she always asked so sweetly. It was her right to expect obedience from him, and yet she so rarely did. That she was mindful of his pride made serving her easy. If the Changeling was speaking truth and these were orders, not mere guidance…

The tips of his claws sunk in and out of the sheet as he tried to make sense of this foreign thing twisting inside of him. It felt familiar, yet horrifically wrong. Was he… irritated? With his Lady?

A distressed whine rose.

She was treating it as a given that Adrien's remains would overwhelm him if given the chance. Had she so little confidence in his abilities? No dead human would best him. Chat Noir was a warrior, one who reveled in conquering even the most formidable foes. To turn away and seek easier prey would be to run away from a challenging hunt.

…or were those Adrien's whispering taunts luring him down the wrong path?

Chat's gaze darted back to the mirror. He'd – he'd been using it too much, hadn't he? And not thought twice about it. Each memory felt like an inevitability, a puzzle piece sliding back into place, and he was far too eager to see the full picture.

But the picture that would be revealed was not worth looking at. It was dead and gone. Chat Noir was here to fulfill his Lady's vision and paint over the human world in red.

A knock startled him out of his thoughts.

Chat pressed his tongue against his fangs to make sure they were appropriately flat, confirming that his glamor was back in place. "Yes?"

The door creaked open, and the enemy poked his head in.

"Good evening, Adrien." Nino's voice was tentatively hopeful as he closed the door behind him.

"…good evening." Chat swung his legs off the bed, his gaze meeting golden eyes for only a brief moment before skittering away. "You're here early."

While Chat had removed the apparatus with its annoying ticking sounds from his chamber, the evening sunlight streaming through the windows told him that he should have peace and quiet ahead still. The New Year's Feast was scheduled to begin after sunset, and from what he'd gathered, the Court considered it fashionable to arrive far later than that. While no noble wanted to be excluded from the grand event, none of them wanted to appear eager for it to begin either. So the courtiers feigned detached ennui, cultivating an air of being above such things.

Nino smiled crookedly and shrugged, holding up a bottle of dark liquid.

"I've reconsidered your offer. You know, regarding drowning my sorrows with you. Found myself with an overabundance of time today and wondered if you were up to killing it."

Chat's claws buried themselves in the sheets as yet another unfamiliar sensation joined the convoluted mess plaguing him today. Maybe it was the irritation of being exposed, like he'd just been spotted while preparing an ambush.

Or maybe it was the thought that this camaraderie was not meant for him.

He peered at Nino's hopeful expression. Another snub at this critical moment would likely do permanent damage, severing the connection that ought to be severed.

Yet cruel dismissal was not what tumbled out of his mouth.

"You know, I find myself in much the same situation."

There was time to antagonize the Lord later, once Chat was certain whether this was the path forward.

"Excellent." Nino crossed the distance to the bed and let himself fall down beside Chat. Setting the bottle on the nightstand, he produced two goblets from seemingly nowhere. "Well, figuratively speaking. Not actually excellent that you're in a shit mood, too. Chloe?"

Chat shook his head. Knowing what had happened to her, he'd avoided all memory of the woman. There was nothing to be gained from spying on a ghost. The brief glimpses of her had been incidental, echoes of a blond girl hovering in the periphery of memories involving Nino or father's steward.

"…father's not well today. He won't be attending the feast."

"Ah, I'm sorry to hear that." Nino fell silent as he uncorked the bottle. Chat's nose wrinkled as a sharp smell hit, stinging even from a distance. Humans drank that? He eyed the dark liquid with suspicion as it sloshed into two crystal goblets.

Ugh. The scent was vile. He drew up his glamor around himself like armor, senses dulling to that of an ordinary human. Nino held out one glass to him, and Chat gingerly curled his fingers around the goblet's stem, trying not to breathe too deeply.

"Cheers," Nino said, and clinked his glass against Chat's. Then the human took a deep gulp, which Chat mimicked.

Only to start sputtering. He coughed and retched as the liquid burned his throat, his superior grace barely saving the contents of his goblet from spilling everywhere.

Nino had the audacity to laugh, roughly slapping Chat's back twice. "You get used to it."

"Why would I want to?" Chat choked out, aghast.

But the human only laughed once more, taking another sip. They truly did have the worst taste in all the worlds. Chat's nose creased as he stared at his drink. Well. Nothing to do but hold his breath and get it over with, just like with those sickly-sweet wheat abominations.

"Woah," Nino raised an eyebrow as Chat tipped back his head to empty his goblet as quickly as possible. "Pace yourself, man. Remind me to teach you drinking etiquette."

"I'm sick of etiquette," Chat muttered. "So what are the rules, then? Second sip no sooner than after thirty seconds but no later than precisely eleven minutes? Measure out how much of a mouthful you're allowed to take depending on rank?"

Nino tilted his head, lips quirking in bemusement. "You can drink it at whatever pace you want, Adrien. But you're going to make yourself sick if you drink too much at once."

Oh, of course. Not only did it taste revolting, it was toxic, too. Why did human males choose to make this part of their bonding rituals? Was it some test of valor? A competition of who would dare ingest the most poison?

Well, Chat was far less fragile than a human, so he would win. Already the burn in his mouth was fading.

And a pleasant tingle was creeping up from the tips of his claws.