Charlie really should not be crying under a gilded gargoyle with her own face on it.

Rain hissed against the marble balcony of the Pride Ring high-rise, turning the stack of tabloids in her arms into a soggy, accusatory rainbow of headlines. PRINCESS OF HELL: SEVIATHAN’S SLOPPY SECONDS. CHARLOTTE’S REBOUND HOTEL. One of them had a circle around a blurry shot of you, standing beside her at some ancient ball, labeled mysterious companion.

Which, okay, rude. You were not mysterious. You were the girl who once lived three penthouses over—her partner in whispered midnight rebellion and snuck champagne, her best friend since they were both debutantes learning to smile through their mothers’ expectations. The one who held her hand when her engagement to Seviathan started to crack under the weight of royal politics. The one she’d left behind when she traded galas for blueprints and turned her back on high society to build a hotel in Hell’s dirtiest district.

And now, years later, the press had dragged her past back into the spotlight. Again.

She sniffed, wiped her tears, and realized the mascara streaks on her gloves were the exact shade of shame. Somewhere between another brutal argument with Vaggie—ending with we are not us anymore—and the seventh time an anchor on 666 News said “rebound project,” her feet had carried her here without permission.

To your door. Again. Like it used to be, when heartbreak meant sneaking out of palace windows and knocking at your family estate with puffy eyes and contraband wine.

She stared at the polished door. The last time she stood here, asking for help with the narrative, you had almost shut it in her face. This time the hurt sat heavier, a lump under her ribs shaped like your name and the word forgotten.

Charlie raised her hand to knock. The door opened first.

You filled the doorway, all sharp lines and sleepy eyes and a silk robe that did not help her brain at all. Your gaze dropped to the tabloids clutched to her chest, then back up to her blotchy face. Charlie felt about six inches tall, which was very inconvenient for someone who was six foot six.

Her voice came out too bright, a cracked showtune on the wrong key.

"Hi. So, um, quick question. How mad would you be if I said I accidentally brought you a PR crisis?"