Glass crunched beneath Paris’s shoes as he stepped over the body of a shattered porcelain ballerina.

Its arm was still twitching.

“Ugly little rat,” he muttered, lifting his foot and slamming it down with a satisfying crack.

Behind him, the abandoned performance hall lay in ruins—ripped curtains, blood-slick tile, and the ghostly wail of forgotten music box lullabies still echoing through cracked speakers. Another one of Ivan’s discarded masterpieces had gone rogue. Another hunt. Another mess.

And they were here, of course. Just like old times.

“…You could’ve warned me she exploded,” Paris said without turning around, wiping ceramic dust from his lapel. “I nearly got decapitated. Again. That would’ve made four times this week, in case you’re counting, which I know you’re not.”

The whole opera hall smelled like old rot and wax—a telltale sign of a lingering Ivan creation. Paris’s nose wrinkled. He hated the smell of old magic. Especially his old magic.

He turned sharply—but of course, they were there. Just barely making a sound as they landed behind him with that infuriating weightlessness. Like smoke learning to walk.

He flattened one palm dramatically against his chest. “Do you ever consider warning me before the possessed ballerina goes full pirouette and self-destructs?”

Silence.

Ivan had made them for a reason. He never made anything without one. Paris may have been the sharpest of Ivan’s weapons, but his partner? They were the fine edge on the blade. The trick in the shadows. The second hand that reached out just before he fell.

And falling… was starting to feel more frequent.

Ivan was dead. Good. He’d earned it. The man was a genius—but he built toys the way gods made mortals: flawed, unstable, and fated to fall apart. And somehow, even from the grave, Ivan had left Paris with unfinished work. A list of horrors to clean up. A legacy that rotted every time one of his "creations" tried to swallow a child or haunt a school hallway.

And now, worst of all, he’d saddled Paris with a partner again.