Four hours before dawn, Duke Maximilian sat at his desk, illuminated by the soft glow of antique mps. His usually organized study was in a state of controlled chaos as he made the final adjustments to his pn. Three of his cats observed from various perches—Archimedes from the top of a bookshelf, Newton from a cushioned window seat, and the smallest, Euclid, directly on the desk beside a stack of papers.

  "The pcement must be precise," Maximilian muttered, adjusting the position of an ornate leather journal. "Not too obvious, but findable by someone searching my study."

  He opened the journal to review his handiwork one final time. Page after page contained detailed technical drawings and notes—circuit diagrams, power calcutions, and mechanical schematics. To a modern eye, they would be recognizable as basic computer components and electrical systems, but to someone from Orlov's court, they would appear as arcane, indecipherable mysteries.

  "This should reveal his true intentions," he said to Euclid, who responded by batting at his pen. "A perfect test to see if my consort is truly Orlov's spy. If these pages are copied or reported, I'll have my answer."

  Maximilian adjusted his unnecessary gsses and gnced at the small device hidden on his bookshelf. To casual observation, it resembled an antique clock, but behind its face was a preserved digital camera capable of recording anything in his study. He'd recovered it from his pre-evolution collection and spent two nights making it operational again.

  "The security measure is in pce," he said, checking that the camera's view encompassed his desk and the journal. "Now we wait."

  Maximilian carefully arranged other documents around the journal—territory reports, correspondence from allied nobles, and agricultural yield analyses—creating a pusible work environment that would make the presence of the journal seem natural rather than staged.

  "Perfect," he decred, stepping back to assess the scene.

  Before retiring for the day, Maximilian performed his usual dawn routine with exaggerated thoroughness, ensuring any staff or his consort would notice his departure for his daytime rest. He made a point of mentioning to his butler that he'd "left some important territorial analyses unfinished" and would "resume after sunset."

  As the first hints of dawn appeared on the horizon, Maximilian sealed his sleeping chamber and slipped into his daytime rest, leaving his trap perfectly set.

  The midday sun streamed through carefully filtered windows as Elias moved through the halls of the duke's estate. This was his twenty-ninth day of marriage, and he'd learned the household rhythms with careful precision. He knew exactly which staff members would be where, when the quietest hours occurred, and most importantly, when and where he could move without observation.

  These daylight hours were his greatest advantage. Unlike most vampire consorts who also rested during the day, his unique physiology—his "fw," as Orlov's court had called it—allowed him to remain awake, needing only a brief rest in the afternoon. Today, he had a specific mission.

  Following the tense letter from Archduke Orlov demanding results, Elias had resolved to find something—anything—to report. The rising sense of dread had kept him from proper rest, leaving him with little choice but to provide some information, even as the thought turned his stomach.

  He approached Maximilian's study with practiced casualness, nodding to a passing servant who barely looked up. Once alone in the corridor, he slipped inside the room and quietly closed the door.

  The study smelled distinctly of Maximilian—ink, old parchment, and that unique scent Elias couldn't quite identify but associated only with his husband. The thought made him pause, the word "husband" still strange in his mind. Not the clinical "target" Orlov had instructed him to think of, but a person who had shown him more consideration in a month than Orlov's court had in his entire life.

  Elias shook his head, pushing away the uncomfortable thought. He had a task to complete.

  Moving with practiced grace, he began a careful search of the room. He examined shelves, checked beneath stacks of papers, and methodically worked through the drawers of Maximilian's desk. Nothing. He had almost given up when he noticed a leather journal partially hidden beneath territorial reports.

  "What have we here?" he murmured, carefully extracting the volume.

  The journal's cover bore no title or marking, but it had clearly been handled recently. Elias opened it and found himself staring at pages of the most bizarre diagrams and notes he had ever seen. Circles connected by lines, strange symbols, calcutions with unfamiliar notation, and drawings of objects with no discernible purpose.

  His eyes widened as he realized what this must be—the technological secrets of Duke Maximilian's territory. The advanced knowledge that Archduke Orlov had sent him to discover.

  Except... he had no idea what any of it meant.

  Elias sank into Maximilian's chair, journal open before him. This was exactly what Orlov wanted, but the diagrams might as well have been written in a foreign nguage. He understood basic words here and there—"power," "connection," "flow"—but the concepts themselves remained utterly incomprehensible.

  "Flow of... electric energy through... circur pathways?" he attempted to interpret, squinting at a circuit diagram. "For what purpose?"

  He gnced toward the door, then back at the journal. Should he simply copy it all, word for word, diagram for diagram? But what if Maximilian noticed the journal had been disturbed? And more troublingly, what would happen when Orlov received information that was clearly beyond Elias's ability to expin?

  Elias ran a hand through his hair in frustration. This wasn't like the court intrigue he understood—subtle social cues, political alliances, careful management of appearances. This was entirely foreign.

  He stood abruptly and began to pace, the journal still open on the desk.

  "I could say I found nothing," he muttered. "But after that letter..." He shuddered, remembering Orlov's thinly veiled threats.

  Elias returned to the desk and flipped through more pages, finding increasingly complex diagrams. One appeared to show a small box with a gss front that somehow contained... moving images? Another detailed what might be a communication device of some kind.

  "This is madness," he whispered. "I'm meant to spy on technological secrets I can't even comprehend."

  He gnced around the room, half-expecting Maximilian to materialize from the shadows, though he knew the duke was securely in his daytime rest. The knowledge that he was betraying his husband's trust sent an unexpected pain through his chest.

  His gaze fell on a quill and parchment nearby. He could at least copy a few diagrams—enough to satisfy Orlov temporarily while he determined a better course of action.

  Sitting back down, Elias reached for the parchment, then stopped. The elegant portrait of himself that Maximilian had included in the anniversary gift fshed in his mind—the care and attention to detail, the thoughtful nature of the present.

  "What am I doing?" he whispered.

  Instead of copying the diagrams, Elias began rapidly flipping through the journal, trying to determine if anything within it could pose a genuine threat to Archduke Orlov or traditional vampire society. His limited understanding made this nearly impossible, but nothing appeared overtly dangerous—merely incomprehensible.

  In his haste, he knocked an inkwell with his elbow. With vampire reflexes, he caught it before it spilled, but in doing so found himself in an absurdly contorted position—half-standing, one leg extended for bance, arm stretched across the desk, frozen in pce to prevent disaster.

  Slowly, carefully, he righted the inkwell and exhaled. That had been close.

  After several more minutes of internal debate, Elias made his decision. He would report finding nothing of significance—a technical journal he cked the expertise to understand, containing what appeared to be theoretical specutions rather than practical threats.

  With careful precision, he returned the journal exactly as he had found it, ensuring the territorial reports covered it in precisely the same way. He straightened the desk, erased all evidence of his presence, and moved toward the door.

  At the threshold, he paused for one st look at the study.

  "I'm sorry, Orlov," he whispered. "There's nothing dangerous here after all."

  The partial lie felt surprisingly good as he quietly closed the door behind him.

  Sunset brought Maximilian from his daytime rest with unusual eagerness. Typically, he emerged from his sleeping chamber with the slow deliberation of an academic reluctantly leaving his research. Tonight, he moved with purpose, acknowledging his staff with distracted nods as he made his way directly to his study.

  Once inside with the door firmly closed, he went straight to the small "clock" on his bookshelf. With practiced movements, he removed the front panel and extracted a memory card from the hidden compartment, then inserted it into a preserved device concealed within a hollow book on his desk.

  A small screen illuminated, showing the recorded footage from his study. Maximilian fast-forwarded through the early hours, pausing when Elias entered the room shortly after midday.

  "As expected," he murmured, watching his consort's methodical search.

  He observed with growing interest as Elias discovered the journal, his expressive face shifting from triumph to confusion to frustration. Maximilian leaned closer to the screen as Elias began pacing, clearly talking to himself though the camera captured no sound.

  The moment with the inkwell drew an unexpected ugh—Elias's impossible bance and flexibility as he caught the falling object while contorted in a position that would have been painful for most vampires.

  "Remarkable reflexes," Maximilian commented to Newton, who had joined him on the desk.

  But it was what followed that truly captivated him. He watched Elias's inner struggle py across his features—the debate visible in every gesture, the conflict evident as he repeatedly reached for paper and then withdrew his hand.

  Most surprising was the final decision: Elias returned the journal exactly as he had found it and left without copying a single diagram.

  Maximilian sat back, absently adjusting his gsses as he processed what he'd witnessed.

  "He found exactly what he was looking for," he said softly, "and chose not to take it."

  This was unexpected. Maximilian had anticipated Elias would copy at least some of the material—the trap had been designed to feed misinformation to Orlov's court, not to test Elias's loyalty.

  Yet his consort had passed a test Maximilian hadn't even intentionally set.

  He reviewed the footage again, watching more carefully this time. The moment when Elias's expression shifted from calcution to something softer was unmistakable. Something had changed his mind.

  "Fascinating," Maximilian murmured, rewinding to that exact moment. What had Elias been thinking? What internal calcution had led to this unexpected decision?

  The sound of footsteps in the hallway alerted him to someone approaching. Quickly, Maximilian returned the memory card to its hiding pce and restored the "clock" to its position on the shelf.

  A soft knock at the door preceded Bedford's voice: "Your Grace, Lord Elias inquires if you would join him for evening refreshments in the west terrace."

  "Tell him I'll be there shortly," Maximilian replied, his voice carefully neutral despite his swirling thoughts.

  After Bedford departed, Maximilian gnced once more at the journal still sitting partially hidden under the territorial reports. His trap had revealed something far more valuable than he'd intended—not confirmation of espionage, but evidence of its absence.

  This development required careful consideration. For now, Maximilian decided, he would maintain his vigince. One test passed did not guarantee future loyalty. But perhaps... perhaps there was more to his political consort than Orlov's court had led him to believe.

  With this thought, Maximilian straightened his jacket and headed for the west terrace, curious to observe Elias with this new insight in mind.