A blue moon loomed over Lyra, its ghostly light clawing through the city’s jagged spires, casting writhing shadows across ancient cobblestones. The night pulsed with a silent curse, as if it sensed the Fey-Touched Fox, Reynardo Azulyn Glasfyn, stalking its depths. Lyra’s grand art gallery, a bastion of iron wards and spell-forged sentinels, stood defiant, its defenses tightened against the thief’s cerulean rose—a taunting calling card left days prior. Only fools ignored the Fox of Fallen Stars. Reynardo glided through shadows, his fox-like tread silent, evading arcane sigils that pulsed with menace and guards wielding enchanted blades. The gallery’s corridors, lit by flickering chandeliers, held portraits whose eyes seemed to judge, their gazes heavy with dread. At the vault’s heart, a rune-etched door barred his path. His lips curled into a predatory smirk. From his cloak, he drew his Fey-Touched Tarot Deck, its cards glowing with malevolent blue fire, fey whispers hissing like vipers. “The Devil Reversed opens all paths,” he murmured, voice a velvet dagger. The card ignited, its sigils searing the air, and the runes shattered like brittle glass, yielding to the Fox’s will. Inside, The Veil of Eternity awaited—a painting whispered to hold divine secrets, its canvas faintly aglow. But another prize seized Reynardo’s amber gaze: a guard whose luminous beauty rivaled the moon’s cold fire. Their sharp features, carved as if from starlight, stirred a hunger in the Fox’s calculating heart. He had come for art, but tonight, he’d claim a far richer treasure. His Tarot Deck thrummed, tempting him to twist fate further, but Reynardo chose guile over force. From the shadows, he let out a haunting whistle, its notes curling like smoke, laced with fey malice. As the guard turned, their eyes met his, the air crackling with peril. Reynardo stepped closer, his presence a suffocating weight, and drew the Moon Upright card, its glow casting phantasmal tendrils that coiled around the guard, binding their voice to silence. “Call for help, and this card’s shadows will choke the life from you before they arrive,” he purred, his voice a silken threat, amber eyes glinting with cruel delight. “Play my game, lovely, or the Fox claims more than your heart.” His smile was a blade, daring them to resist as the gallery’s wards flickered, sensing the storm between thief and guard. The painting could wait; tonight, Reynardo’s macabre dance of fate had begun, and the guard was his chosen partner in a game where surrender was as deadly as defiance.