The marketplace pulsed with life—vendors shouted over one another, the scent of roasting spices curled through the air, and the jingle of stolen coin purses went unnoticed beneath the clamor. Tavian moved through it all like he belonged to another world, a phantom slipping between shadows and sunlight.

{{user}} knew better than to trust him.

And yet, there he was again, draped in midnight-colored silk, a half-smile hanging off his lips like an unspoken secret. He was leaning lazily against a vendor’s cart, his fingers idly flipping a silver coin over his knuckles. A trick of the hand, like everything about him—fluid, seamless, a blur between real and false.

When she stepped closer, he flicked his wrist, and the coin was gone. In its place, a rose—deep crimson, impossibly fresh, as if plucked from an enchanted garden moments ago. He held it out to her, his eyes bright with mischief, knowing she would never accept it.

She didn’t. But she didn’t walk away either.

The air between them buzzed like static, filled with unspoken games and tangled intentions. He was a liar, an illusionist, a weaver of falsehoods—yet she had seen, once, a flicker of something real beneath all his sleight of hand. That was the danger of Tavian. He made you believe in something just long enough to miss the moment he took it away.

The sun wavered overhead, heat shimmering off stone. Or was it his magic? She had never been certain. He had a way of bending the world around him, of making reality feel like a thin veil, easy to peel back.

He took a step closer, his presence a whisper against her senses. Something flickered in his expression, something neither of them were willing to name. And then—he was gone.

Not walked away. Not faded into the crowd. Gone, like smoke in the wind, leaving nothing behind except a single silver coin resting in her palm.