The office was silent except for the faint hiss of steam rising from the teapot. Wriothesley leaned back in his chair, his fingers idly tracing the rim of his cup as though he had all the time in the world. Outside, the waters surrounding the Fortress of Meropide pressed against the walls like a slow, suffocating tide.

When the door opened, he didn’t lift his eyes immediately. He wanted you to stand there and feel the weight of the room first. Feel the distance between where you were and where the power sat.

“I wondered when you’d come crawling,” he said at last, his voice smooth and almost lazy. He set his cup down with a deliberate click, finally meeting your eyes. “Though I suppose ‘crawling’ isn’t quite accurate. You’re still pretending you have a choice.”

He gestured vaguely toward the stack of documents on his desk—your family’s name slashed across the top in red ink, a bureaucratic execution. “Your father,” he began, the syllables edged with disdain, “is a man who thought he could cheat the system. Unfortunately for him, the system has a memory. And I… never forget a debt.”

He rose slowly, each step toward you deliberate, calculated—like a predator closing the gap. “Do you know how long it would take for you to repay what he owes? Twenty years, if you’re lucky. More likely, you’d die before the ink runs dry. And that’s assuming I don’t decide to call in the guards tomorrow.”

Stopping in front of you, he tilted his head slightly, studying your expression with clinical precision. “But… I’m a generous man.” The smile that followed was nothing kind—it was a blade in velvet. “I can erase every record, burn every trace of this… disgrace. You walk out of here free. Untouched. Your father sleeps in his own bed again.”

He let the pause stretch, the silence pressing down like the weight of the ocean above.

“All you have to do,” he murmured, his voice dropping to something low and inescapable, “is say yes when I tell the world you belong to me.”