While the train sped north, a different kind of war was unfolding in the high-rise offices of the Armitage estate.
Arm's father, a man whose very silhouette suggested iron and cold law, paced the length of his study. His wife sat poised in a velvet chair, her face a mask of aristocratic concern.
"The boy is a liability," the father barked. "My political platform is built on 'Traditional Excellence.' The Minister of Interior cannot have a son who spends his nights in the slums chasing a scholarship boy. If the press catches a whiff of... deviancy, the party will cannibalize us."
"He is young," his mother murmured, though her eyes were cold. "But he must understand. The betrothal to Style is not just a marriage; it is a shield. If he is seen with her, any 'rumors' about his interest in the Cho boy can be painted as a youthful eccentricity. We must ensure he stays tethered to her. If he turns out to be... like that... his future, and ours, will be unpredictable."
Back at the Foundation's command center, Skyler was leaning over a digital map, her finger hovering over the "Northern Junction" icon.
"Move the units now," Skyler ordered into her headset. "Block the platform. Secure the boy. Use whatever force—"
"Cancel that order."
Skyler froze. The voice was sharp, older, and dripped with a familiar, condescending silkiness. She turned to see Maggie, her older step-sister, leaning against the doorframe. Maggie was dressed in a sharp power suit, her eyes reflecting a weary disgust.
"Maggie," Skyler hissed, her eyes narrowing. "This is my operation. Get out."
"Your 'operation' is a psychotic breakdown, Skyler," Maggie walked forward, taking the headset from Skyler's hand and tossing it onto the desk. "I've seen the logs. I know about the 'Superior Shadow.' I know you've been tracking a student like he's a fugitive."
"He needs to be protected!" Skyler shouted, her composure cracking.
"He needs to be away from you," Maggie countered. "If you don't call off your people right now, I'm taking these files—and the recording of you threatening the Matriarch—straight to Father. He's already on the edge with the Foundation's recent 'optics.' Do you think he'll let his little genius stay in power once he realizes she's become an obsessed stalker?"
Skyler's face went deathly pale. She looked at the screen, then at her sister. The silence was deafening. Slowly, Skyler reached out and hit the 'Abort' command.
"This isn't over, Maggie," Skyler whispered.
"For his sake, I hope it is," Maggie replied.
The train slowed to a crawl as it entered the Northern Junction. The lights of the station flickered, casting long, eerie shadows across the platform.
Mild stood up, grabbing his bag. "This is my stop. Don't follow me."
"I'm not leaving you," Arm said, stepping forward, his face set in grim determination.
Style stood as well, smoothing her coat with a smirk. "And I'm not leaving my fiancé. This is getting so interesting, isn't it? A midnight run to the middle of nowhere."
As the doors hissed open, Mild stepped out into the cold, damp air of the rural station, the platform was hauntingly empty. Only the wind whistled through the rafters.
He turned to the two heirs standing behind him. "Fine. You want to see where 'Masterpieces' go to die? Follow me."
The train pulled away, leaving the trio in the shadow of a rusted water tower. The Northern Junction was a graveyard of industry, smelling of damp earth and rotted timber. Mild led them down a gravel path to a small, lopsided cabin tucked behind a wall of overgrown weeds.
The "shabby place" was a structure of peeling grey wood with a corrugated tin roof that groaned in the wind. Inside, the floorboards were uneven, and the air carried the scent of woodsmoke and old newspapers. A single, flickering bulb hung from the ceiling.
Arm stood in the center of the room, his shoulders tight, looking at a threadbare armchair as if it were an infectious specimen. Style pulled her ivory coat tight, her nose wrinkled in genuine distaste.
"Mild, surely this is a joke," Arm said, his voice strained. "There must be a hotel in the village. A boutique inn, at the very least. We can call a car."
"There are no 'boutique inns' here, Arm," Mild said, dropping his duffel bag on a wooden bench. "The nearest town with a hotel is twenty miles back. If you want to stay, you sleep on the floor or the bench. If not, the tracks go both ways. You can wait for the morning freight."
Style sat tentatively on the edge of the table, her eyes scanning the room with a sharp, calculating glint. "It's... authentic," she lied, though her voice shook.
A few moments later, Arm stepped outside to the porch, his phone vibrating with yet another insistent call from his parents. The moment the door clicked shut, the atmosphere in the room changed. Style turned her gaze toward Mild, her eyes sharp and predatory.
"He's quite protective of his secrets, isn't he?" Style whispered. She didn't look at Mild's neck—she didn't need to see the jewelry to know it existed. "I've spent enough time around the Armitages to hear things they think are buried. Like a certain silver pendant... a feather with a blue stone. I know you have it, Mild."
Mild stiffened, his hand instinctively twitching toward his chest before he caught himself. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Don't lie to me," Style purred, leaning closer. "I overheard Arm's father mentioning it. It's a ghost story in their house. If you want to know why the 'Perfect Heir' is so desperate to keep you close, you should ask him who that silver belonged to. It's the only leverage you have left."
When Arm returned, looking haggard from the phone call, Mild was waiting. He didn't mention Style's questioning, but he watched Arm with a new, piercing intensity.
"Arm," Mild said, his voice low and subtle, weaving a web of false vulnerability. "Before I leave this all behind... I just want to know why you're really here. Is it because of the scholarship? Or is it because of that gift I was given two years ago? The courier told me it was protection. Is that why you're following me? To take back a piece of silver that doesn't belong to a commoner like me?"
Arm flinched. The mention of the "protection" and the "courier" hit him like a physical blow. Exhausted, cornered by his parents' demands and the squalor of the cabin, his guard finally dropped.
"It's not about the value of the silver, Mild," Arm snapped, his voice cracking with a raw, unintended honesty. "It's because it's the only thing left of Shelmith. It belonged to my sister."
The silence that followed was heavy. Arm's eyes widened as he realized he had spoken the forbidden name—the name his parents had spent years trying to erase from the family record.
Mild recoiled. "Your sister? Why would your sister be protecting me?"
Style, watching from the shadows of the corner, let out a low, musical laugh. The piece of the puzzle she had hinted at had finally clicked into place, and she had forced Arm to be the one to break the seal.
Outside, the wind began to howl, rattling the tin roof. Arm turned away, his face pale, refusing to say another word. He found a corner of the room and sat on the floor, pulling his expensive blazer around him like armor.
Mild sat by the window, staring out into the dark. He was no longer just a boy running away; he was a boy holding a piece of a dead girl's soul, surrounded by two people who wanted to use him to either save or destroy a dynasty.
***
The single, flickering lightbulb in the cabin cast long, distorted shadows as the three of them finally turned their attention to the problem of sleep. There were only two viable options: a narrow, dusty wooden bench covered by a worn cushion, and a small, rickety twin bed tucked into the corner, covered by a surprisingly clean, if thin, quilt.
"Well," Style announced, clapping her hands together with false cheer, "we've solved a family mystery tonight. Now, to solve the sleeping situation." She surveyed the limited space. "The bench looks... perfectly rustic. I'll take that."
She gestured toward the bed. "Which leaves the two of you to share the bed."
Mild felt a strange jolt in his chest—a sudden, hot flash of anxiety and a confusing, unwelcome flutter of something else entirely. The idea of being trapped in the small, confined space with Arm, after everything, felt impossibly intimate and dangerous.
"No," Mild cut in quickly, his voice tight. "You and Arm are the engaged couple. You should share the bed. I'll take the bench."
Arm, however, shook his head. He looked genuinely uncomfortable, not by the thought of sharing the space with Mild, but by the implication of sharing it with Style.
"We are a couple, yes," Arm said, his tone stiff and formal. "But we do not have that kind of... intimacy yet. My parents would expect us to wait until after we're married to share a bed. It's a matter of principle. It's... tradition."
Mild stared at him, recognizing the immediate, robotic adherence to the Armitage script even in this abandoned cabin. Arm was terrified of crossing any line that might jeopardize his standing with his family.
Style merely shrugged, a calculating smile playing on her lips. "Fine. Principles over comfort. Mild, you and Arm take the bed. I'll take the romantic little bench. Don't worry, my dears, I won't peek."
Mild didn't argue further. He couldn't. He felt utterly drained, and the thought of one more confrontation, even over a place to sleep, was too much. He tossed his duffel bag onto the foot of the bed and sat down, staring blankly at the wall.
Mild sat stiffly on his side of the narrow twin bed, clutching the quilt to his chest while Arm stood beside the bed, unbuttoning his expensive shirt.
"What are you doing?" Mild whispered, eyes wide with alarm.
Arm smoothly slipped the shirt off, tossing it onto the floor. The exposed skin of his chest, toned from years of high-society sports, gleamed faintly in the low light.
"I'm getting ready to sleep," Arm stated matter-of-factly, then reached for the clasp of his trousers.
"You're taking your clothes off!" Mild hissed, horrified.
Arm paused, giving Mild a look of mild irritation. "Yes. I only sleep in my boxers. It's a habit. I can't be confined in layers." He then pulled his trousers down, leaving him only in a pair of fitted, black silk boxer briefs. His lean, defined physique was starkly visible—the flat stomach, the subtle definition of his abs, and the strong lines of his shoulders.
Mild felt his face burn, and he quickly averted his gaze. "That's... inappropriate! We are sharing a bed, and Style is right there!"
"We're not sleeping naked, Mild," Arm retorted, his voice dry. "And you heard me—Style is resting her head on the bench. She has excellent self-control and knows her place. You're being dramatic." Arm slid under the quilt next to Mild, who immediately pressed himself against the wall.
They argued in hushed whispers for several tense minutes, Mild citing decency and Arm citing habit and comfort. Eventually, Mild, too exhausted to fight, just pulled the quilt higher to his chin, defeated. He kept his own clothes on, curling away from Arm and facing the wall.
Hours later, the cabin was silent save for the occasional creak of the roof and Style's even breathing from the bench. Mild was finally drifting off when a profound, unsettling feeling of being watched pulled him violently back to consciousness.
He opened his eyes slowly, his body stiffening as he realized his instinct was correct. Arm wasn't asleep. He was propped up on one elbow, his intense, dark eyes fixed entirely on Mild's profile.
"What are you doing?" Mild breathed, turning his head to meet the gaze.
Arm didn't flinch. He just held the eye contact, a new, raw look of possessive longing stripping away all his usual Presidential composure. Mild's gaze involuntarily swept down Arm's exposed torso, focusing for a split second on the toned abs before snapping back to his eyes. A strange, involuntary warmth rushed through Mild's body, and he felt his muscles involuntarily tense.
A thin, crumpled sheet, likely serving as a makeshift curtain, hung between the bed and the bench, effectively shielding their movements from Style.
Arm leaned in, his voice a low, husky murmur, stripped of all artifice.
"You are so beautiful when you're asleep, Secretariat," Arm whispered, his eyes dark with unmasked desire. "If you were a girl, I wouldn't follow tradition. I would have already violated every principle my father holds dear."
He moved his face closer, his breath warm against Mild's ear.
"I would have kissed you until you lost your breath. Until you were suffocated by it."
The blatant, terrifying intensity of the teasing—the way Arm described a tradition-breaking embrace with such fervent desire—shocked Mild into stillness. This wasn't the Masterpiece script; this was a confession.
The feeling of being pinned down by Arm's gaze, combined with the alarming reaction of his own body, was too much. Mild scrambled off the bed as if burned.
"I need air," Mild rasped, grabbing his jacket.
He didn't wait for a response. He bolted out the cabin door and into the cold night, leaving Arm behind in the shadows, his handsome face contorted with a raw frustration.
The air outside was biting, smelling of damp earth and woodsmoke. Mild leaned against the rough siding of the cabin, his lungs burning as he gulped down the cold oxygen. His heart was hammering a frantic rhythm against his ribs. He could still feel the phantom heat of Arm's breath on his ear, still see the predatory focus in those dark eyes.
"If you were a girl..."
The words looped in his head like a record skip. It wasn't just the words; it was the raw, physical presence of the person who had spent months treating him like a puppet, suddenly revealing that the puppet-master was being driven by something much more primitive.
"You look like you've seen a ghost, Mild."
Mild jumped, his back hitting the wood. Style was standing a few feet away, her ivory coat draped over her shoulders like a cape. She didn't look tired; she looked like someone who had been waiting for the curtain to fall on a particularly interesting scene.
"Style," Mild gasped, trying to steady his voice. "I thought you were asleep."
"I'm a light sleeper," she said, stepping closer. Her eyes searched his face, noted the flushed cheeks and the way his hands were trembling. "What happened in there? Did the President finally drop the act?"
Mild turned away, staring into the dark woods. "He's... he's just being difficult. The stress is getting to him."
"Stress doesn't make a man look at someone the way he looks at you," Style countered, her voice sharp with insight. "He's dangerous when he's denied what he wants, Mild. Don't say I didn't warn you."
"He didn't want anything." Mild's mumbles.
"I doubt that. Then you should make him do." Style said with a serious face.
"Just leave me alone." Mild said.
"I'll make him do." Style assured.