Plans, I've found, have the peculiar habit of announcing themselves at the worst possible moments—usually when you're standing somewhere exposed, half-lit by decadent excess, with too many witnesses and not nearly enough plausible deniability.

They creep in not as fully formed blueprints, but as a pressure behind the eyes, a low hum of inevitability that says yes, now, even when every sensible instinct insists you should wait to collect your thoughts, or at least sit somewhere with walls and a door that locks.

Naturally, I ignored all of that and let the plan surface anyway, because subtlety had never once been a skill I possessed, nor one I particularly respected.

The only ones remaining now were the man who'd gathered the supplies and Brutus, the former standing at something approximating respectful attention, while the latter collapsed back onto the couch with a grunt that carried the unmistakable subtext of a man whose patience was approaching its operational limit.

I joined him without ceremony, commandeering the low table as my stage, spreading the parchment across it with deliberate care before uncapping the pen with my teeth, because using my hands would've been far too conventional for my theatrical standard.

"You know," Brutus rumbled, watching me prepare, "for someone who claims to hate planning, you sure do a lot of it. Almost like you're secretly competent under all that chaos."

"Lies and slander," I replied without looking up, already beginning to write in quick, decisive strokes. "I'm operating purely on instinct and spite. Any appearance of competence is coincidental and shouldn't be used as evidence of personal growth."

"Uh-huh. Sure."

The pen scratched steadily across the parchment, the sound low and constant, a quiet industry that belied the scale of what was taking shape beneath my hand.

Line by line, the document grew longer, denser, more intricate—clauses nesting inside contingencies, contingencies leaning on assumptions, assumptions daring the universe to object.

Each sentence added another layer to what was rapidly becoming either a masterclass in bureaucratic manipulation or the most elaborate prank I'd ever committed to paper.

When I finally finished, satisfaction crossing my face, I glanced up from my work only to find Jazmin approaching me, blood stains decorating her hands in patterns that told stories I didn't need translated, the other beastfolk slaves trailing behind her in loose formation.

"Perfect timing," I said, leaning back against the couch with exaggerated ease. "I have a job for you and the others, if you're willing. Completely optional, of course—I'm not in the business of forcing people into schemes they haven't consented to, unlike certain recently deceased individuals we could mention."

Jazmin's ears flicked forward with interest, her violet-gold eyes narrowing as she studied my expression with the focus of someone who'd learned, the hard way, that opportunity and catastrophe often arrived wearing the same smile. "Will it help you take down Oberen?" she asked bluntly.

"See for yourself." I gestured toward the parchment spread across the table, giving her implicit permission to examine my work.

She stepped forward then, leaning over the document, her eyes tracking the text with increasing speed. Then those eyes blew wide as comprehension dawned across her features. I watched her expression shift in real time—first concentration, then confusion, then the unmistakable spark of realization.

When her pupils dilated and her head snapped up, the look she gave me was an intoxicating blend of disbelief and reverence, the kind usually reserved for saints, demons, or particularly audacious criminals.

"You're a fucking genius," she breathed. "This is—saints above, this is brilliant!"

I preened under the praise despite my better judgment. "I try. Well, actually, I don't try, it just happens naturally, but false modesty seems inappropriate given current circumstances."

Jazmin turned toward the other beastfolk slaves, the document still clutched in her hands. They huddled together in quiet conversation—heads bent close, ears twitching with emotion, tails swishing with barely contained anticipation until, after a few seconds of deliberation, they straightened as one.

Jazmin turned back to me with decision written across her features. "We accept," she said simply. "Whatever you need us to do, however you need us to do it—we're in."

"Excellent." I grinned, already mentally checking that particular task off my increasingly complicated to-do list. "You know what to do. Be thorough, be convincing, and try not to enjoy it too much—though if you do enjoy it, I certainly won't judge. Catharsis takes many forms."

When Jazmin and the others dispersed, fanning out across the casino with my document and very specific instructions about how to deploy it, I found myself alone at the balcony's edge moments later, hands resting on the stone railing as I surveyed the chaos below.

The casino spread before me in its three-tiered glory, the central pit still burning with that unnatural golden glow, less a light than a presence, seeping upward through the open space and staining everything it touched with the suggestion of wealth and inevitability, as if the building itself believed fortune to be a renewable resource so long as people kept bleeding into it.

From above, I could see the currents clearly now, the subtle migrations of bodies and attention, the way laughter pooled in some corners and thinned into tension in others.

And threading through all of it, moving with purpose beneath the noise and glitter, was my crew, weaving their tapestry of calculated ruin with quiet confidence.

Julius had found a high-stakes poker table on the first floor, his theatrical charm already deployed at maximum intensity as he regaled a table of minor nobles with some elaborate story that had them laughing—distracted, off-balance, perfect targets for the psychological manipulation he'd been perfecting since before I was born.

But charm, impressive as it was, wasn't doing the real work.

I watched closely as he gestured expansively with one hand, all flourishes and perfect timing, while the other rested near the table, fingers making the smallest, laziest adjustments—motions so insignificant they barely registered as movement at all.

The cards responded. The air above them rippled faintly, like heat haze over stone, and the faces of the cards shifted. A king softened into a jack. A harmless pair quietly promoted itself into something lethal. Values slid, symbols rearranged themselves, and probability was gently escorted out of the room without causing a scene.

Illusion magic, delicate as spider's silk, projecting false tells onto the cards. The nobles adjusted their betting based on completely fabricated visual intelligence, recalculating odds that no longer applied, betting against realities that had already been replaced.

Julius never rushed it. He let the deck settle into its new truth, then calmly scooped in the winnings with a smile that could've sold ice to people actively freezing to death.

Felix had taken a different approach entirely—the shy, nervous routine that made older gamblers want to protect him, teach him, show off their supposed expertise.

He sat at a blackjack table looking overwhelmed and adorable, stammering through bets, asking innocent questions that happened to extract the information he needed about other players' strategies.

When he won, he acted surprised. When he lost—which was rarely—he looked so devastated that dealers actually felt bad taking his chips.

I swear I saw one of them deliberately miscount to Felix's advantage just to stop the boy from looking like a kicked puppy. It was masterful theater disguised as incompetence.

Grisha had simply found the casino's arm-wrestling arena—because of course this place had one, situated in a corner of the first floor where testosterone went to prove itself through displays of physical dominance—and was systematically destroying every challenger who came to face her with the use of her enhancements.

Men twice her size crumbled under her strength, their arms slamming into the table with sounds like gunshots, and she collected her winnings with a smirk that promised violence to anyone foolish enough to question the results.

Willow and Nara had teamed up for what could only be described as coordinated seduction-based distraction, working a roulette table on the second floor where wealthy merchants were placing increasingly stupid bets.

From the balcony, I could see the faint shimmer of Willow's magic radiating from her skin in soft, persuasive waves, subtle arousal spells that made her targets' pupils dilate, made their breathing quicken, made rational thought take a brief vacation while their bodies insisted that impressing this gorgeous creature was suddenly life's highest priority—taxes, spouses, and survival instincts be damned.

She whispered suggestions that pulled their attention while Nara giggled, pressed closer, and somehow managed to nudge the wheel at the right moments when no one was looking.

The lesser men had split up, each of them finding their own niche—some running simple card-counting schemes at various tables, while others thrived in the glorious anarchy of craps games, where shouting, flying chips, and incomprehensible wagers created the perfect fog in which money simply… wandered away.

A few even played it straight, relying on patience and probability alone, their legitimate wins slipping unnoticed into the larger tide of chaos.

It was beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. A symphony of coordinated theft disguised as gambling, each member playing their part with a precision that would've made any professional criminal weep with appreciation.

From above, watching it all unfold, it looked less like a heist and more like an ecosystem in motion—predators, prey, and a great many people enthusiastically volunteering to be neither observant nor sober enough to notice the difference.

I watched them work for a while, content to admire the machinery in motion, before Willow caught my eye from across the balcony and gave me the subtlest of nods.

Just then, she laughed at something one of her marks said—a sound like silver bells dipped in honey—before excusing herself with a whispered promise to return, trailing one finger down a merchant's chest in a way that made him physically shudder.

Her descent from the second floor was deliberate, unhurried, her naked form catching the magical lighting in ways that made her skin seem to glow with an internal radiance.

Nobles and merchants alike stopped mid-conversation to stare, jaws going slack, some of them actually walking into columns or railings because their eyes refused to track anything except the succubus gliding past with absolutely no shame or awareness that clothing was considered mandatory in most public establishments.

She crossed the first floor with that same hypnotic sway before disappearing into the main entrance hall—the same corridor we'd emerged from hours ago when this whole magnificent disaster had begun.

Moments later, I caught sight of her again, gliding out from that same hall with feline grace, her posture loose, satisfied, faintly predatory, the kind of body language that suggested a task completed and thoroughly enjoyed. And in her wake came—

The attendant.

The same attendant from the front desk, the one who'd been professionally distant when we'd first arrived, now stumbled into view looking thoroughly disheveled.

Lipstick stains spotted his face and chest, his uniform was askew, his hair looked like he'd been electrocuted, and his expression carried the glazed quality of someone who'd just experienced something that had fundamentally altered their understanding of pleasure.

He stumbled around aimlessly for a moment, clearly trying to remember which direction the bathroom was, before finally orienting himself and heading toward what I assumed were the facilities with the unsteady gait of someone whose legs weren't quite cooperating with motor commands.

Willow raised her hand triumphantly, fingers curled around that strange black box from earlier, he sort of object that didn't merely catch the light so much as intercept it, weigh it, and then return it with the dull, confident gleam of perfectly polished metal.

She trailed back toward the second floor balcony where I waited, that devious smirk stretching across her wine-dark features, slow and deliberate, like a blade being drawn just enough to remind you it existed.

When she reached me, she lifted the box and held it out between us, showing it off with the reverence of a hunter presenting a particularly impressive trophy.

"Got it," she purred, clearly proud of herself and whatever methods she'd employed to acquire the object.

I took the box from her carefully, feeling its weight—heavier than expected, dense with mechanical complexity—then, ever so slowly, opened the hinged lid to reveal its contents.

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