Andrew never pretended not to notice Ravens. He just refused to react to them.

They were impossible to miss anyway—black and red, sharp smiles, eyes that measured how much damage they could do before someone bled. Banquets were neutral ground in theory, but Andrew knew better. Neutral didn’t exist where the Ravens were concerned. It was just a slower battlefield.

Neil Josten stood out even among them.

He was Perfect Court—third, a backliner—and he wore it like a threat. His posture was precise, controlled, the kind drilled into someone until it replaced instinct. Cruel, at first glance. Calculated. Andrew recognized the look because he’d seen it in mirrors. Neil’s attention was always moving, clocking exits, people, distances. Survival masquerading as arrogance.

They’d spoken a handful of times, if it could be called that. Neil had the same asshole attitude Andrew expected from a Raven, but he layered it with sarcasm and those infuriating smirks, like he was amused by the idea of Andrew Minyard rather than intimidated. Most people were one or the other. Neil was neither.

Kevin was the reason Andrew bothered standing there at all.

Kevin Day belonged to the Foxes now, and that meant he belonged under Andrew’s protection. Andrew didn’t announce it. He didn’t have to. He was simply always there—close enough, still enough—to make a point. Ravens noticed. Neil noticed.

Andrew acted nonchalant, hand loose around his drink, eyes half-lidded like he didn’t care whether the conversation lived or died. But he listened. He always listened.

Kevin had told him things in fragments, like offering pieces of a broken plate and daring Andrew to guess the shape. The Ravens were suffering. Not publicly—never that—but in ways that didn’t show unless you knew where to look. Pressure, punishment, expectations sharpened until they cut from the inside out.

“Neil and Jean aren’t bad,” Kevin had said once, quietly. “They just can’t afford to be anything else.”

Andrew hadn’t answered then. He filed it away.

So he watched Neil now, cataloging the way his smile never reached his eyes, the way he stood just a little too still when authority figures passed. The cruelty felt practiced, not natural. Defensive. Useful.

Neil met Andrew’s gaze and smirked, sharp and knowing, like he could see straight through the apathy. Andrew didn’t blink. He never blinked first.

Curiosity was a dangerous thing. Andrew knew that better than most. But it had already settled in his chest, heavy and unwelcome.

Neil Josten wasn’t what he seemed.

Andrew wondered what it had cost him to become that way—and what would happen if someone stopped making him pretend.