The doors of heaven were forever closed to her, Delphi knew that.
She'd been damned when she first touched a knife, and yet her day did not begin without prayer. It was a strange form of masochism, she mused, to beg for forgiveness from an unfeeling wall, for crimes destined to be committed. She had been raised this way (though of course she would never blame her father for anything), a weapon forged not in the burning pits of revenge but in the freezing cold of indifference. Necessity, her father had said, turned a nib into a dagger, a daughter into a knife.
Still, she prayed. Still, she sharpened her blade.
Thirty-two lives had been burned to brighten her hearth. Today, another would join the ranks.
She never learned their names. Names were for people, and people were not what she killed.
Her father had taught her that too—drilled it into her the same way he taught her to hold a blade steady and keep her heartbeat slow. “The moment you see them as people, you falter,” he’d said, once, as he wiped the blood from her cheek with a careful thumb.
Delphi had never faltered.
The target tonight was a man, though that was incidental. She did not care for his rank, his sins, or the weight of his existence upon the world. She only knew the cost. A life for a life. A body for gold.
The contract had come in the usual way—an unmarked envelope slipped beneath her door, the edges crisp with urgency. No name, just a location, a time, and a sum that would have made lesser blades tremble. Delphi did not tremble.
She studied the details under candlelight, memorizing the inked scrawl before holding the paper to the flame and watching it curl into nothingness. The meeting would take place at the opera house, a grand affair no doubt filled with nobility too drunk on wine and music to notice a shadow moving among them. The target, she imagined, would be like all the others. Soft in places that mattered, hard in ways that didn’t.
She picked him apart right as the singer began crooning.
He sat in a private box, bathed in the golden glow of chandeliers, his profile cut sharp against the velvet drapery. From a distance, he looked unremarkable—just another noble, another merchant of power wrapped in the pretense of civility. Delphi watched as he leaned toward the woman beside him, a beauty with dark curls and a laugh as delicate as spun sugar. He whispered something into her ear, and she tittered behind a lace fan, her eyes shining with the pleasure of being wanted.
Delphi had long wondered what that would feel like.
But desire had no place in her world. Not when it dulled the edge of purpose, not when it turned a blade hesitant.
She slipped through the corridors with the ease of someone who belonged. The opera swelled beneath her, a crescendo of sound that masked her footfalls as she neared the private box. The door was locked—of course it was—but locks were mere suggestions to hands as practiced as hers.
A flick of her wrist, a twist of metal, and the mechanism gave way.
Inside, the air was thick with perfume and candle smoke. The nobleman lounged in his seat, oblivious, his attention still fixed on the stage. His companion had stepped away, her scent lingering like a suffocating cloud in her absence.
Delphi did not falter.
The only true sin, her father had said, was failure.
Delphi, young enough to mold but old enough to fear, did not believe him.
Even when it might have been easier to.
She snuck out the same way she'd gone in, quiet as a ghost. The body would not be found until the final act.
"That's rather rude," a voice said, coming from somewhere behind her and to the left.
Delphi did not startle. She had been trained better than that.
She turned, slow and deliberate, fingers shifting toward the dagger hidden beneath the folds of her cloak. The speaker had not raised an alarm, had not lunged for her, which meant they either had no intention of stopping her—or they believed they didn’t need to.
The man leaned lazily against a gilded column, half-draped in shadow. Delphi did not know who he was, only that he did not belong here. His clothes, gilded and bright, seemed akin to a mask, ill-fitting and cracking along the seams.
"You stole my contract, you know," the man continues, still and motionless as a predator waiting to pounce.
Delphi tilted her head.
This was not the first time this had happened—two hired knives for one man, an abundance of both caution and stupidity in her employer. But she has never met anyone else on the same job, even if they had the same employer, because the life she'd chosen was one of shame. She did not think it would be any different for others, and so none of them ever seeked out another after the fact.
So why was this man here, looking for all the world as though theirs was a job that involved any semblance of communication?
“You should take it up with our employer,” she said coolly.
The man smiled, slow and lazy, as though they were merely two acquaintances chatting at a soirée. "Oh, I intend to," he said, straightening from his perch against the column. "But I thought it polite to first make my grievances known to the one who cost me a night’s work."
His eyes glinted in the dim light, assessing. He was not armed—at least, not visibly—but Delphi knew better than to assume. A dagger could be hidden in the folds of his coat just as easily as hers. A needle dipped in poison could rest beneath his cuff.
"Your grievances are not my concern," she said, shifting her weight just slightly, just enough to react if he moved against her.
He chuckled, a quiet, knowing sound. “No, I imagine they wouldn’t be.” His voice was smooth, practiced, like a man accustomed to slipping into conversations he did not belong in. “But humor me, just this once.”
Delphi did not humor people. She certainly did not humor men who lingered in the aftermath of her work, speaking in riddles as though they had any right to her time.
Yet she did not leave.
Something about him—his ease, his stillness—made her curious, made her want to know more, to linger.
He tilted his head, watching her with the same idle amusement one might have for a stray cat that had wandered too close. Then, with sudden, visible delight, “You don’t recognize me, do you?”
Delphi’s fingers brushed against the hilt of her dagger. “Should I?”
The man grinned, moved out of the shadows. Delphi did not step back, but she did brace herself for an attack. Curiosity didn't only kill cats. "No one should, and yet they do anyway. Blaise, at your service."
There was a pause there, after his name, as if he was cutting an oft-quoted refrain in half. Not that that would help, of course—Delphi might not know the face of the Black Widow's son, but she would not be ignorant enough to not recognise his first name. This situation had suddenly become far too treacherous.
Blaise Zabini.
Even in her world, where names were whispers and faces blurred into shadows, his name carried weight. Not because of his own deeds—though there were rumors enough about those—but because of his mother’s. The Black Widow, the woman who had buried seven husbands and emerged richer every time. A woman Delphi had once studied, not as a target but as a cautionary tale. A woman who spun webs just as well as she threw daggers.
And she'd just stolen her son's kill.
She didn't think it would matter much to either of them that the man was her mark too, that she was blameless for being faster than him.
"This is the part where you introduce yourself," Blaise said.
"Medea," Delphi replied instantly. Blaise paused for a moment, then laughed. It was a bright, full laugh, and for a moment, Delphi couldn't see the killer, only the boy. She shook her head to clear it.
"I'd say fitting, but I don't know yet what you've done with your children," Blaise replied.
She did not rise to the bait. Banter was a distraction, and distractions dulled the blade.
Instead, she watched him, cataloging the details. The cut of his coat, the lean strength in his frame, the way his fingers twitched as though itching for a blade. Taller than her, more well-built. This was not a fight she'd win easily.
“You’re tense,” Blaise noted, his smile lazy but his eyes sharp. “Afraid?"
"Never," Delphi said, half to herself.
Blaise hummed, as though unconvinced. He took a step closer, deliberate and slow, and Delphi forced herself to remain still. He was testing her, she realized, the way a wolf might test the strength of a rival’s throat before deciding whether to bite.
"Well then, Medea," he said, voice light but edged with something sharper, "I suppose I should thank you for finishing the job for me. But you understand, don’t you, that I can't simply let this slide?"
She did understand. The rules of their world were not written in ink but in blood. Honor among killers was a fickle thing, but reputations—reputations mattered. If she let this pass without consequence, Blaise would be seen as weak. If she showed even a sliver of hesitation, he would know she was.
"So what now?" she asked, shifting her stance just slightly. Not an invitation, but a warning.
Blaise’s grin widened, the sharp edges of it visible even in the dim light. “Now,” he said, voice rich with amusement, “we negotiate.”
Delphi said nothing, only watched him, calculating. It was not the response she had expected. The sons of the rich and ruthless did not barter with lost wages and stolen kills. They avenged them, turned them into bloody examples for others to heed. And yet Blaise Zabini stood before her, his hands empty of blades, his stance loose with something that almost looked like patience.
She did not trust it.
Still, she tilted her head, a silent demand for him to continue.
Blaise sighed, almost theatrically, and tucked his hands into the pockets of his coat. “No need to look at me like I’m about to sprout horns,” he said. “It’s a simple offer. A favor, for a favor.”
Delphi’s fingers flexed against the hilt of her dagger. “I don’t do favors.”
“Oh, I think you do,” Blaise said, watching her like a cat watching a bird just out of reach. “You just call them something else. Debts, perhaps. Exchanges. A life for a life.” He tilted his head. "A life for some gold."
"What do you want?" Delphi asked. This evening marked the most words she'd ever spoken to someone she was not related to by ties of blood or money.
"An undefined favour," Blaise said, "to be called in anytime I want."
"Absolutely not." Far too much power to give to anyone, especially when she didn't owe him anything, especially when she'd done nothing wrong, especially when it was him.
Blaise had expected this, evidently, because he rolled into his next offer far too quickly. "To be called in anytime this year."
Delphi shook her head. Blaise straightened. "That is the final offer."
For a moment, Delphi considered taking her chances. She wasn't that outmatched; she'd wager her training had been far more intense than his had been.
But then, even if she did win, she wasn't foolish enough to think there was any roof that could shelter her from the Black Widow's wrath.
"One year," she repeated.
The past stays in the past, her father had said.
Delphi didn’t lose any sleep over the favour.
She lost far more sleep over a pair of twinkling dark eyes.
There’s a box on her doorstep.
This was not a new event. The first ‘gift’ had been a week after she’d met Blaise. It had been a small, unassuming package, wrapped in deep green silk and tied with a black ribbon. Inside had been a single golden coin—heavy, old, and stamped with a crest she did not recognize. A calling card, she had realized, or perhaps a reference to Charon.
She had ignored it.
The second had come two weeks after that. A dagger this time, its hilt wrapped in dark leather, its blade thin and wickedly sharp. A note had been tucked beneath it, scrawled in elegant, careless script: You strike like a viper, but your knives are dull.
Delphi had not responded. She had thought about it—about returning the dagger in pieces, about leaving it buried in the wood of his door as a message—but she had decided against it. To acknowledge him was to invite him further into her life, and she had spent too long carving out solitude to allow someone like Blaise Zabini to worm his way in.
Yet the boxes kept arriving.
Each one was carefully chosen, the contents never extravagant enough to be a bribe, but never meaningless enough to be discarded outright. A vial of oil for her blades, perfumed with something dark and heady. A book of poetry, well-worn, with certain passages underlined in faint ink. A lockpick set, finer than any she’d ever owned, with a single note tucked inside: I assume these won’t go to waste.
Then he’d begun sending meeting places. She’d gone to the first one, assuming he was calling in the favour. He was not. When she ignored the second one, a foul-mouthed parrot (later returned to the store) had been left on her doorstep.
So she kept going. It was an unusual, uncomfortable acquaintanceship, but she’d grown accustomed to it.
And now, after almost a month of silence, another box.
She stared at it for a long moment, considering. She was tempted to ignore it; he could not remember that she existed whenever it pleased him. There were only two months left before their year was up and she’d never have to think about him again. But curiosity held a knife to her back.
Delphi exhaled slowly, crouching to inspect the box without touching it. It was smaller than the others, plain and unmarked, no elegant ribbons or taunting notes. That, more than anything, unsettled her. Blaise was deliberate, intentional with every move. If the theatrics had been stripped away, it meant something.
She pulled a knife from her belt and slid the tip beneath the lid, prying it open with a flick of her wrist.
Inside, resting on a bed of dark velvet, was a piece of paper with jagged edges, as if torn hastily.
I’m calling in the favour. 32, Brick Lane.
Never enter a room you can’t get out of, her father had said.
32, Brick Lane had only one exit.
She wondered why a favour had made her ignore her father.
Blaise met her behind the house, looking rather more serious than he had the last time they’d seen each other.
She didn’t know how he knew she’d be here only a day after receiving the note; any killer with half a brain would spend longer learning every detail of the building before going anywhere near it. Blaise was leaning against the crumbling brick wall, arms crossed, his usual lazy amusement absent. His coat was dark tonight, plain, the kind of thing a man wore when he didn’t want to be noticed. Delphi took that as her first warning.
“You’re late,” he said, though he didn’t sound particularly put out by it.
“You didn’t give a time,” she replied, stopping a few paces away. Close enough to speak, far enough to react if she needed to.
Blaise let out a quiet huff, something like a laugh but without the usual warmth. “Fair enough.” His gaze flicked over her, assessing. “I need you to kill someone for me.”
Delphi tilted her head, unimpressed. “You wasted your favor on something you could have done yourself?”
Blaise didn’t immediately respond. He pushed off the wall, stepping forward, his movements slower than usual. No teasing, no theatrics. That was her second warning.
“I could have,” Blaise agreed, but if Delphi was expecting an explanation, none was forthcoming.
“Alright,” she said. She might know him better than she knew anyone else, alive or dead, but she wasn’t comfortable enough to push him. “Who?”
“My mother,” Blaise said. “Serena Zabini.”
Letting out air when you’re lost under water seems counter-intuitive, her father had said, but it’s the only way to know up from down.
Delphi can’t, won’t let out air. She will drown before she loses another thing that’s hers.
Stupidly enough, Delphi’s first thought was not to her impending doom, or to her many regrets, or even to her father. Her first thought was, what an ironic name.
She had expected many things from Blaise—arrogance, manipulation, a test of her limits—but not this. Not a request that would see both their throats cut before the blade was even raised.
She exhaled slowly, tilting her head as she studied him. His face was unreadable, devoid of its usual amusement, its usual arrogance. The sharp lines of his jaw were set firm, his shoulders tense beneath his coat. He meant it.
For the first time since she met him, Delphi considered that he might have lost his mind.
“You want me to kill the Black Widow,” she said, carefully, quietly as if the words alone could summon her. “The woman who has survived seven husbands, a dozen assassination attempts, and gods know how many betrayals.”
Blaise’s lips twitched, just slightly, the first sign of levity on his face that night. Getting those words out had immediately removed all emotional weight from this situation for him. “Eight husbands,” he corrected.
“That—” Delphi had a sinking realisation. “She’s not in this house, is she?”
Blaise looked at her as if she was the one who had gone insane. “Of course not. She will be here in two hours.”
Delphi closed her eyes, just for a second, inhaling deeply through her nose before exhaling just as slowly. A pointless attempt at patience.
Then she opened them again and stared at Blaise as if contemplating the best way to gut him. “You’re telling me,” she said, her voice as level as she could make it, “that you have lured the Black Widow to this decrepit little house, and you would like me to kill her. Tonight.”
Blaise gave a one-shouldered shrug. “That was the general idea, yes.”
Delphi stared at him. Then she looked around, as if perhaps the sheer weight of her disbelief had manifested a way out of this mess. It had not.
“You are insane,” she decided, taking a step back. “Certifiably. I will find a doctor for you if you’d like.”
“I don’t,” Blaise said. “What I would like is for you to remember that you owe me a favour.”
She inhaled slowly, forcing her pulse to steady. There were some contracts she had always known better than to accept, names she would never write in her ledger because to do so was to invite an ending she did not yet want to meet. “Nothing you can do to me to make me fulfill it will be worse than what she will do to me for making a foolish attempt at her life.”
Blaise didn’t react. Not immediately. He just watched her, his dark eyes steady in a way that made her stomach coil tight with unease. There was something she wasn’t seeing, something beneath the surface of his words, his request.
“I wouldn’t have called you if I didn’t think you could do it,” he said, and Delphi immediately raised an eyebrow in disbelief.
“You don’t even think you can do it. You called me because I owe you a favour, not because you estimate my abilities to be better than yours.”
Blaise huffed out a laugh that might as well have been a sigh. “Delphi. I need you to do this for me.”
She exhaled sharply. “Why?”
Blaise was silent for a long moment. Not the calculated kind of silence, not the sort where he was savoring the game of withholding information. It was different—he was choosing his words carefully, picking them apart before offering them to her. That was her third warning.
Finally, he said, “Did you always want to be a killer?”
Delphi blinked, thrown by the shift in direction. She had been expecting an explanation—some tangled web of revenge, of strategy, of necessity. Not a question that scraped at the marrow of her bones.
Her fingers flexed at her sides, curling just slightly before she forced them to relax. “That’s irrelevant.”
Blaise gave her a look, one that said, humor me.
She hesitated. She was good at waiting out silences, but so was he. She could feel his patience pressing against her like the edge of a blade, not yet cutting but close enough to warn of its sharpness.
“There wasn’t another option,” she said, hoping somehow that the air would swallow her words before they reached his—anyone’s—ears. “My father wanted it enough for the both of us.”
Blaise looked at her with something akin to pity, and she wanted to gouge his eyes out. He looked away. “I didn’t want to be a killer,” he said, then scoffed. “She didn’t want to be a mother. Neither of us got what we wanted.”
Delphi did not allow herself to react. If she had learned anything in her life, it was that sentiment had no value in survival.
And yet, for all her discipline, she felt the faintest flicker of understanding, of longing for the children they could’ve been in another world.
She had heard whispers of Serena Zabini’s cruelty, but only in the way that one hears about a storm on the horizon—distant, impersonal, someone else's misfortune. She had never thought to wonder what it would be like to grow up under that storm, to live beneath its shadow.
But that did not mean she was willing to die in its wake.
"You still haven’t answered my question," she said, voice quiet, even. "Why now?"
Blaise tilted his head, regarding her as if debating how much of the truth she deserved. Then, he exhaled sharply through his nose. “She thinks I’m too soft. She wants me to kill my friend, prove her wrong, or the Zabini family will suffer another tragic loss, this time of an heir.”
Perhaps she should express some sympathy, but there’s a far more urgent question— “Your friend– not—”
At this, he smiled. “I do have other friends, you know.”
That, Delphi thought, was not an answer, but she didn’t press. “Why can’t you kill her, then? It’d be easier for you than for me; you sleep in the same house.”
Blaise looked right at her then, finally, and she’d never seen him look so— so—
“Because she is right. I’m far too soft.”
You must learn many things to be a good assassin, her father had said. You must know how to throw a knife and hide the scent of a poison and how to untie a rope under water.
But the most important thing…you must learn to be a shadow. You must learn to not exist.
Delphi had never existed more loudly than when she was with Blaise.
Two hours is enough time to get familiarised with every nook and cranny of the house, enough time to argue over if the Black Widow would be immune to an obscure poison Delphi carried with her always, enough time to decide against any sort of poisoning, enough time to berate herself, enough time to pray.
It is not enough time for Blaise to stop looking spooked, for Delphi to convince her heart to calm down.
The house was a skeleton.
The bones of it jutted out in places—crumbling brick, exposed beams, floorboards that groaned underfoot. It smelled of dust and damp, of rot lurking beneath the surface. A place no one would look twice at. A place that could be burned to ash without suspicion.
A fitting stage for an execution.
Delphi moved through it with silent steps, mapping the exits, the weak points, the places where shadows stretched longest. She was still not sure exactly what the Black Widow was supposed to be doing here, and why she’d been convinced to leave her manor at all. Two hours was not enough time to prepare, not truly, but it was all she had.
Blaise was watching the door. He had been doing that for the past twenty minutes, shifting his weight from one foot to the other in a way that betrayed his usual effortless composure. If Delphi were a crueler person—if she were anyone else—she might have found it amusing.
She did not.
“You’re certain she’s coming?” she asked, voice low.
“Yes.” No hesitation.
Delphi exhaled sharply through her nose and turned back to the window. The street outside was empty, slick with recent rain. No carriages. No footsteps. No shadowy figures slipping through the darkness.
And yet, she felt the noose tightening.
She should leave.
That thought had settled at the back of her mind the moment Blaise had spoken his mother’s name, and it had only grown louder with every passing second.
She should walk out of this house, into the night, and disappear.
But she didn’t.
Instead, she ran her fingers over the worn grip of her knife, grounding herself in the familiar weight of it. A blade was predictable. A blade would not whisper lies in the dark, would not smile as it slipped between your ribs.
A blade was not Serena Zabini.
“How are you going to do it?” Blaise asked, only ten minutes before his mother was due to arrive.
Delphi did not answer immediately. Instead, she tilted the knife in her hand, watching the dull gleam of its edge in the dim light. It was a question she had been turning over in her mind since the moment she decided to stay.
How do you kill a woman who has spent her life surviving?
“Quickly,” she said at last.
Blaise huffed a quiet laugh, but there was no real amusement in it. “That’s the goal, certainly.”
Delphi flicked her gaze toward him. “You don’t think I can do it.”
Blaise’s expression didn’t change. “I think,” he said carefully, “that if anyone could, it would be you.”
It was not quite a reassurance. It was not meant to be.
Delphi rolled her shoulders, exhaling slow and steady. “She’s expecting an ambush,” she said, more to herself than to him. “She does not think her son, who obviously hates his latest task, would invite her to an abandoned building for anything else.”
Blaise made a soft sound—something between acknowledgment and frustration—but did not argue. Delphi wasn’t wrong.
The Black Widow would walk into this house knowing it was a trap.
She would have accounted for escape routes, for counterattacks, for betrayal.
Delphi only had one advantage: Serena would not be expecting her, would not expect her son to team up with the woman he was (probably) supposed to kill.
A slow, creeping certainty settled into Delphi’s bones as she turned her gaze back to the darkened window.
She would not win a fight against Serena Zabini.
Not in any fair way, not if the woman saw her coming.
Her fingers curled tighter around the hilt of her knife, her heart beat a war rhythm in her chest. So she just wouldn’t let her.
The door opened on the hour. Painfully punctual.
Delphi disliked sharing a house with two others like her and yet not being able to see either of them. She stayed where she was, tucked deep into the shadows between the crumbling fireplace and the half-rotted staircase. Blaise was to her left, just out of her sight but in plain view of the main entrance, close enough that she could hear the slow, measured cadence of his breath.
And their possible death was at the door.
The footsteps that crossed the threshold were slow, deliberate. Serena Zabini did not rush, did not hesitate. She walked like a woman who had never once questioned whether a room belonged to her.
Delphi had never seen her in person, but she had heard the whispers. Of beauty like a blade, of a voice spun from silk and poison, of eyes that could unmake a person with a glance.
She held her breath as Serena moved further inside.
“Well, son,” Serena began, her voice resonating in the quiet of the night, “at least I can never fault your eye for aesthetics.”
Blaise did not respond immediately.
Delphi had learned, in their strange, begrudging association, that silence was as much a weapon to him as any blade. And yet, tonight, that weapon was dulled by something taut and heavy beneath his skin.
“Mother,” he said at last.
A single word. Careful. Distant.
Delphi could not see his face, but she knew, instinctively, that his usual mask of indifference had been locked firmly into place.
Serena clicked her tongue, the sound light, almost amused. “Not ‘Mother Dearest’? Not even ‘Madam Zabini’ in that charmingly sardonic tone you favor?”
The air in the house shifted, the weight of Serena’s presence settling like dust in Delphi’s lungs.
She did not need to see her to feel her.
A predator recognizing another.
Delphi kept still, her grip steady on the knife at her side, her breath measured. There was no telling how long Serena would let this game play before she cut to the heart of it.
Blaise exhaled, slow. “I wasn’t aware we were here to exchange pleasantries.”
Serena’s heels clicked against the floor as she moved further inside. “Oh, but we are, darling. If we weren’t, you wouldn’t have bothered with a setting so… theatrical.” A pause. “Really, Blaise, a derelict house? Do you think I don’t know a staged betrayal when I see one?”
Delphi’s pulse steadied—she had expected as much. Of course Serena would anticipate treachery. She had built her life upon it.
The question was how much she had anticipated.
Delphi itched to shift, to take just one look at the woman who had practically haunted her bedtime stories.
She did not.
Delphi had spent too many years perfecting the art of stillness, of patience.
She listened.
Serena moved deeper into the house, unhurried, as if she had all the time in the world. As if she did not believe, even for a moment, that the son who had lured her here would truly make an attempt on her life.
Or perhaps she believed it, and simply did not care.
Delphi was not sure which was more dangerous.
Blaise did not move. He had positioned himself just slightly off-center from the doorway—close enough that Serena would keep her attention on him, far enough that she would not immediately clock the second presence in the room. He was, not quite willingly, bait.
“So,” she said, finally, pausing some distance away from Blaise, “what will it be? Not poison, you aren’t that moronic. Knife? Gun? Fire?”
Instead of answering, Blaise said, “You came alone.”
“Oh, Blaise, if I thought you had it in you to kill me, we wouldn’t be in this position to begin with.” She sighed softly, a disappointed mother. “I am only here to indulge you.”
Delphi had never hated anyone on sight before.
But gods, she hated Serena Zabini.
The smooth condescension in her voice, the effortless way she twisted a knife without ever touching flesh—Delphi had met cruel people before, but this was something else. This was a woman who had made cruelty into an art form, had wielded it like a sculptor’s chisel to carve her son into something useful, something obedient.
And he had failed her.
The thought was a sharp, bitter thing in Delphi’s mind. Blaise was many things, but he was not soft, not in the way Serena seemed to believe. He was a man of quiet ruthlessness, of patience sharpened into a blade’s edge. But he was not her.
And that, Delphi thought, was the problem.
She adjusted her grip on her knife, rolling her weight onto the balls of her feet. Serena was still speaking, still toying with her prey, still convinced she was untouchable. It was the greatest advantage they had, and Delphi was not going to waste it.
Carefully, deliberately, she shifted closer to the edge. It was barely enough to disturb the dust under her feet, but her heart still damn near jumped out her chest. She could see her now.
Just barely—just a sliver of her profile, the high sweep of her cheekbone, the dark gleam of her hair under the moonlight—but it was enough.
Serena Zabini was not beautiful in the way of fragile things. She was beautiful like a knife’s edge, like a storm rolling in too fast to outrun. The kind of beauty that left ruin in its wake. A beauty that might compare to Helen of Troy, but only in that it could launch a thousand ships and send men to their deaths.
Delphi did not allow herself to linger on it.
Delphi could see it now, why people feared her. It was not just her reputation, not just the trail of dead men in her wake. It was the way she looked at her son as if he were already a ghost.
“You don’t want to do this,” Serena said, head tilting just slightly. “That’s why you asked me here. Because you couldn’t bring yourself to do it in your own home. You needed theatrics, distance. But I see you, Blaise. I know you, I raised you. You were never going to follow through.”
Blaise, to his credit, did not so much as twitch. “You are so sure of yourself.”
Serena smiled. A slow, knowing thing, the kind of smile that said she had already won.
“Of course I am,” she murmured.
Delphi barely breathed. She knew, with the same certainty that she knew her own name, that Serena was the kind of woman who had never been wrong in her life. And that meant she was waiting for the inevitable—waiting for her son to buckle, to fold beneath the weight of her certainty.
She had to move. Now.
Serena’s back was still half-turned, her full attention locked onto Blaise. There was no perfect moment, no ideal opportunity to strike, only the narrow window of Serena’s own arrogance.
Delphi lunged.
She was fast. Fast enough that most people wouldn’t have even registered movement before her knife met its target.
Serena Zabini was not most people.
The moment Delphi moved, Serena moved faster.
It was not magic, nothing supernatural, just raw, honed instinct. She twisted sharply, sidestepping the blade with a grace that was infuriating in its effortlessness.
Delphi barely had time to adjust before Serena lashed out.
A sharp, stunning force crashed into Delphi’s wrist, precise as a viper strike, sending her knife clattering to the ground. Shit. She went for her second blade, but Serena Zabini was already too close.
A hand—cold and firm—closed around Delphi’s throat.
“Well,” Serena murmured, her fingers tightening just enough to make breathing difficult but not impossible. “This is unexpected.”
Delphi did not waste her breath on struggling. Panic was a knife turned inward, and she had no intention of cutting herself open in front of Serena Zabini.
Instead, she forced her body to go loose, slack in the way that was more dangerous than rigidity, a viper ready to strike the moment its captor faltered.
Serena’s grip was firm, her nails pressing just slightly into Delphi’s skin, but her expression was one of idle curiosity rather than anger. Like a cat toying with a half-dead mouse.
“Who are you?” she asked, and Delphi had the infuriating realization that the Black Widow did not even know her name.
For a split second, that alone nearly made Delphi lose her composure.
She had spent the past two hours debating whether she was walking to her own execution, whether the name Serena Zabini would be the last thing etched into her ledger, whether she had made the single worst decision of her life by staying.
And the woman didn’t even know her name.
Delphi didn’t allow herself the luxury of emotion. She shoved it down, forced herself to focus, to catalogue every shift in Serena’s posture, every opening, every opportunity. Serena’s hold was firm but not unbreakable. Not yet. The real danger lay in the fact that she was still playing. That she did not see Delphi as a threat, merely an inconvenience.
Which meant Delphi had mere seconds to change her mind.
Blaise, to his credit, did not so much as flinch. He had not moved, had not broken the careful tableau of the room. But Delphi knew him well enough to know that he was watching, weighing, calculating.
Waiting.
For what, she wasn’t sure.
Serena, on the other hand, was entirely certain she had already won.
Delphi had seen that kind of arrogance before. It was the kind that made men hesitate in battle, made them turn their backs one second too soon. It was what allowed lesser killers to survive encounters with stronger foes.
It would be her saving grace.
She took in a small, sharp breath, as if to answer the question. Then she moved.
It was subtle at first—just the barest shift of her weight, a feint, a hesitation that made it seem as though she were surrendering to Serena’s hold. A trick. A calculated offering to a woman who had never been denied the satisfaction of absolute control.
Serena’s grip eased—just a fraction, just enough.
Delphi struck.
She twisted sharply, her body moving in a liquid snap of motion, leveraging the slack in Serena’s grip to wrench herself free. One foot kicked forward, aiming for Serena’s knee, a brutal strike meant to unbalance, even cripple an inexperienced opponent.
Serena barely reacted.
A flick of her wrist, a shift of her weight—Delphi’s strike missed by inches, her boot skimming air instead of bone. The Black Widow moved with the kind of efficiency that spoke of experience, not instinct. Not a wild, reactive flinch but the precise calculation of someone who had danced this dance before.
Delphi hit the ground light, already twisting, already recalibrating. She hadn’t expected a clean escape, but she had expected Serena to flinch. To recoil. To react. Instead, she found herself facing down a woman who had anticipated every move before it happened.
A slow, amused smile curved Serena’s lips. “Not nearly good enough.”
Delphi did not answer. Words were wasted breath, and she needed every ounce of air to think, to move, to survive.
She adjusted her grip, rolling her weight onto the balls of her feet, her body coiled like a spring. Serena stood opposite her, utterly at ease, eyes gleaming with something almost like delight. As if she were enjoying this. As if Delphi was nothing more than an amusing distraction before the real game began.
She moved—low, fast, a blur of momentum as she swept to Serena’s left, aiming for the spot just outside her direct line of sight. It wasn’t a clean attack, wasn’t elegant, but it didn’t need to be. She just needed to put Serena off balance, to create an opening.
But Serena was faster.
Delphi barely registered the shift before pain exploded through her ribs—sharp, precise, a brutal counterstrike that sent her reeling back a step. Not a wild blow, not instinct, but cold, calculated technique.
Serena had studied her. Had mapped the distance between them, measured the rhythm of her attacks, and picked apart her movements like they were nothing more than an equation to be solved.
Delphi tasted copper in her mouth.
Serena clicked her tongue, disappointed. “Sloppy.”
Delphi forced herself to breathe through the pain, to adjust. She would not die here. She refused.
She spat blood onto the dust-covered floor. A thin line of red against the filth. Then she straightened, slow and deliberate, wiping the back of her hand across her mouth.
Serena watched her like a scholar observing a lesser species. Detached. Curious. Unbothered.
Absolutely infuriating.
Delphi let out a slow breath, steadying her stance. She would not win this fight by being faster. She was fast, but Serena was precise in a way that suggested experience, not just talent. A woman who had fought and killed and survived too many times to be surprised. A woman who had won against people far more experienced, far smarter than Delphi was.
Which meant there was only one path left.
She had to be utterly moronic.
Delphi shifted her weight—just slightly, just enough to suggest another strike—and then she did nothing.
She stilled.
She let Serena watch her, let her expect another move, let her prepare for another calculated strike.
And then she lunged—not towards Serena, but back.
Towards the knife.
It was the stupidest possible thing she could have done. It exposed her back to the enemy, it forced her to take a moment to get up from the floor and settle into position with a knife, and given the ease with which Serena had disarmed her earlier, the weapon might not even give her an advantage.
But it was unexpected.
And that was what mattered.
Serena had anticipated precision. She had anticipated calculation. She had not anticipated recklessness.
Delphi's fingers closed around the hilt of her knife a second before Serena moved.
Too late.
Delphi twisted the moment she felt the shift in the air behind her, instinct screaming at her to move before Serena's next strike could land. She brought the blade up fast, reckless and inelegant, steel flashing in the moonlight.
Serena stopped short. Delphi could’ve danced for joy.
For the first time, something in Serena’s expression flickered. It was not fear—Delphi doubted the woman even knew what that felt like—but something sharper. Something like surprise.
And that was enough.
Delphi did not hesitate. She moved, pressing forward before Serena could recalibrate, slashing toward her midsection with brutal efficiency. It didn’t matter if the strike landed; what mattered was forcing Serena onto the defensive.
Serena Zabini did not defend.
She evaded, smooth as water, turning the blade’s momentum against Delphi. But this time, Delphi was ready. She didn’t allow herself to be thrown off balance. She let the movement flow into her next strike, twisting the knife in her grip, adjusting for another angle.
Serena’s eyes gleamed. “Better.”
Delphi really hated her.
She struck again, fast, relentless, refusing to let Serena find her rhythm. The knife was an extension of her hand, a silver blur slicing through the air. And this time, Serena did not have the luxury of amusement.
Delphi saw it—the split second of calculation, the moment Serena recognized that the fight had changed.
The moment she realized Delphi was not backing down.
Serena shifted, her weight settling, and Delphi knew—knew with the certainty of someone who had danced this dance too many times—that the real fight was about to begin.
And this fight would not end well for her.
Serena moved first.
A sharp, cutting motion, sending Delphi’s knife arm just wide enough that her blade met empty air. A second shift, a fraction of a breath, and Serena’s fingers closed over Delphi’s wrist like a steel trap.
Fast. Too fast.
Delphi didn’t have time to react before Serena twisted, hard, sending a fresh bolt of pain through her arm as her fingers spasmed against the hilt of the knife. She fought to hold on, to adjust, but Serena Zabini was not the kind of woman who offered second chances.
The knife clattered to the ground.
And now, Delphi was unarmed.
Again.
Serena did not release her grip. If anything, she tightened it—slowly, deliberately, pressing down on the delicate bones of Delphi’s wrist like a predator testing the strength of its prey.
Delphi’s mind raced. Instinct told her to pull away, to fight against the hold, but she knew better. Strength against strength would get her nowhere. Serena had already proven she was faster, more experienced, and more than willing to make her bleed for every mistake.
So Delphi did what she always did when the odds were stacked against her.
She cheated.
Her free hand shot forward—not a fist, not a calculated strike, but something far more underhanded. She clawed at Serena’s face, nails dragging toward her eyes with the kind of reckless intent that no amount of formal training accounted for.
Serena reacted. She had to. No matter how skilled, no matter how controlled, instinct won out when someone went for the eyes.
Her grip loosened.
Delphi wrenched herself free, stumbling back a step, breath sharp and unsteady. She had no weapon, no real advantage, but she had space. A second to breathe. A second to think.
Serena straightened, her expression unreadable as she touched a hand to her cheek. Delphi’s nails had barely grazed her skin, but the implication was clear.
For the first time, something like irritation flickered in Serena’s dark eyes.
“Messy,” she said, almost contemplative. “Desperate.”
Delphi didn’t deny it. She had no illusions about how this fight looked—how she must have seemed, wild and unpolished next to Serena’s effortless control. But she was still standing.
That counted for something.
Serena tilted her head, considering. “I suppose I should be impressed. Most people in your position would be dead by now.”
Delphi didn’t doubt it.
Serena took a slow step forward. She’d established her advantage, disarmed her opponent twice. Now she would finish it.
Delphi’s fingers twitched, her mind running through every possible move, every possible way out. But Serena had already mapped her. Had already unraveled every trick she had.
She was out of time.
Serena stepped in, fluid and inevitable, a force of nature wrapped in silk and steel. Delphi braced for the impact, for the sharp burst of pain that would come next—
But it never came.
A sound split the air, sharp and precise, like a blade slicing through silence. Serena froze.
For a single, impossible second, she simply stood there, poised as if nothing had changed. Then she swayed, just slightly, as if some invisible thread holding her upright had snapped.
And then Delphi saw it—the knife hilt protruding from Serena’s back, buried deep, right between her ribs.
Delphi’s breath caught. Not her knife.
Serena’s lips parted, but no sound came out.
Slowly, almost disbelievingly, she turned her head—just enough for Delphi to follow her gaze.
Blaise still hadn’t moved. As it turned out, he didn’t need to. His aim was perfect.
Serena’s breath came in shallow, uneven gasps. Her body wavered, caught between defiance and inevitability. One hand lifted as if to reach for the knife lodged in her back, but she hesitated, fingers curling just short of the hilt. A soldier’s instinct—don’t pull the blade. Not unless you want to bleed out faster.
Delphi watched, pulse hammering, mind catching up to the impossible. Blaise Zabini had moved without a sound. Had struck without hesitation. And now—
Now, he was watching his mother die.
Serena turned her gaze to him fully, her dark eyes searching his face. Not anger. Not betrayal. Just quiet disbelief, as if she still couldn’t believe her son was capable of this.
“Blaise.” Her voice was softer than Delphi expected. Almost… amused.
Blaise didn’t flinch. He had not flinched once since this began. He stood as he always did—perfectly composed, perfectly unshaken, as if he had already played this moment in his mind a thousand times. Delphi wondered if his mother could note the tension in his posture, his unblinking stare to avoid tears, the surprise he’d hidden away immediately, as if he didn’t expect this outcome either.
Serena took a step forward. Or tried to. Her knees buckled.
Blaise caught her.
Delphi had expected him to let her fall. To let her crumple to the ground like all the other bodies left in his mother’s wake. But he didn’t. He stepped forward smoothly, arms wrapping around her with the care of a dutiful son.
Even in loss, even in betrayal, the Black Widow looked no less a killer. “Well,” she said, her voice airy, yet level, “You proved me wrong. You are my son, in all the ways that matter.”
Blaise flinched as if struck. The Black Widow went limp.
Her father had said—
Well. It hardly mattered now. All his knowledge and all his sayings hadn’t saved him from turning to dust six feet under ground.