But that was a generous word — more like two gamblers circling the same rigged table. You wore your grin like a blade, offered flirtation like wine, and maneuvered each conversation with calculated grace. Aventurine did the same, only louder, flashier, and with more peacock feathers.

You liked him because you couldn’t read him. That terrified you.

"You're not charming me, darling," he said once with a grin as you tipped his glass with your own. "You're working me. I respect that."

"And you’re not laughing," you replied, "you’re listening for lies in the rhythm of my breath."

And so, the dance continued.

He watched you with those eyes — maddening, beautiful, cold. But you were better than he was. You had to be. For the sake of your faction. For the sake of control.

Until the night the power went out aboard the Penacony charter. You were stuck in a corridor, hemmed in by emergency lights and shadows. It was supposed to be another brief, calculated meeting. Instead, the silence dragged.

“Do you know,” Aventurine said softly, “I used to count cards to survive. But you? You count people. Even I don’t know what your real face looks like anymore.”

You laughed. Hollow. You didn’t want him to be right.

“Neither do I.”

It was out before you could stop it.

He didn’t smile. That’s what frightened you most. He just stared.

“You don’t have to be anyone else,” he said. “I’ve lied for so long, I thought I’d lost myself too. But it turns out, the masks rot slower when someone’s looking underneath.”

And for the first time, you wanted him to see you — the broken pieces beneath the plastic smile. But the truth was…

“If you love me, Aventurine,” you whispered, “you’ll fall in love with a lie. I don’t know how to stop lying. Even now, I’m wondering if I’m saying this because I mean it… or because it’s what you want to hear.”

He stepped forward, removing one of his many rings, and pressed it into your hand.

“Then let’s gamble. One lie. One truth. We’ll raise the stakes, every day, until you remember who you are underneath all this.”

“And if I lose?”

Topaz didn’t like inefficiency.

“Then we’ll both burn. But at least we’ll burn real.”

You were inefficient — charming, yes, useful often, but disorganized in the way that only a person with a hundred identities and no center could be.

You lied so well you forgot what truth sounded like.

But you respected her. She saw through numbers the way others saw through glass. She didn’t flirt, didn’t soften — but she noticed everything.

So when she asked you why your projected results didn’t align with your emotional affect on clients, you almost snapped. Almost.

“Maybe I’m just a really good liar,” you said, leaning back. “Flirting is profitable, Topaz. And emotions? They’re expensive.”

She stared at you. Not coldly — just... sharply.

“That doesn’t explain the variance in consistency. You’re burning yourself out to maintain illusions no one’s asking for.”

You didn’t reply. Not really. You just smiled and offered a joke.

Weeks passed. You kept pushing forward. Faction first. Feelings later.

Until the day she called you into her office and slid a report across the desk — your psychological audit. One you hadn’t authorized.

“You didn’t file for burnout support,” she said. “But I ran the numbers anyway. You’re lying to yourself more than you are to us.”

“That’s invasion of privacy.”

“That’s concern. I care, and I don’t know why I care, but I do.”

It wasn’t a declaration. It was a disruption.

You cracked.

“I don’t know who I am, Topaz,” you whispered. “I haven’t for a long time. Everything I do, everything I say... it’s all scaffolding. Half the time I’m not sure if I’m manipulating people or trying to convince myself I exist.”

She walked around the desk, stopped in front of you, and tilted your chin up with just two fingers.

“Then let me help you audit that,” she said. “We’ll subtract the lies. Add what’s real. Balance the books of you. Together.”

You laughed. It hurt.

But maybe, for the first time in years, it was true.

You once joked to Jade that the only thing the two of you hadn’t traded yet was your souls.

She didn’t laugh.

That was Jade — beautiful and terrifying, clinical and magnetic. You adored her in the way dangerous things were adored: reverently, fearfully, obsessively.

Your flirtations with her were careful — like sliding gold coins across her velvet table. She never flirted back, but the way her eyes narrowed, the way her sentences clipped — it made you feel seen. Understood.

That was the worst part.

“You don’t actually enjoy this,” she said once, during one of your many pseudo-negotiations. “Pretending. You’ve made it your currency, but you loathe it.”

“We all sell what we have, Lady Bonajade.”

“But not everyone hates the customer.”

You said nothing. She didn’t press.

But she watched you for weeks. Studied your smiles. Noted the micro-hesitations in your voice, the way you adjusted your collar when a conversation grew too honest.

Until one evening in the Bonajade Exchange, when she offered you a trade: not a memory, not a future.

“Let me see your truth,” she said. “One hour. No lies. No masks. I’ll pay whatever price you ask.”

You faltered.

And in that hesitation, she saw everything.

You broke. There in that perfumed, smoky room, amidst the weight of every false promise you’d ever made.

“I don’t want to be loved,” you confessed. “Because I don’t know how to be anything but a liar. And if someone loves that, what does that make me?”

She stood, removed her glove, and pressed her bare hand to your cheek.

“You are more than your methods. More than your performance. But if you truly cannot believe that... then let me believe it for you.”

“And what do you want in return?”

“Nothing. This is not a trade. This is a gift.”

You had never been given anything without a catch before.

And maybe — just maybe — that was the most terrifying bargain of all.