“You’ll make contact with a broker named Lareth at a place called The Ember Gate,” Thane continued. “You’ll act like you’re hungry for coin and not picky about your employer. The job is to get hired, find the cargo, and trace it back to whoever’s directing the movement. Do not touch it. Do not open it.”
Riven flipped through the photos again. Some showed marked crates in a dim warehouse, others outlined sigils scorched into wood. He didn’t like the way they pulsed. The shapes were wrong—older than they had any right to be.
“What happens if it’s not just cargo?” he asked. “What if it’s a message?”
Thane’s jaw ticked. “Then I need to know who it’s meant for.”
Riven sat back, studying the Knife of House Virellien. He didn’t look scared, but he looked ready to burn something down. That was worse.
“And what do I get out of this?” he asked slowly. “Besides the honor of serving your family.”
Thane smiled, sharp and humorless. “You mean besides keeping my family from gutting you and using your entrails in some obscure ceremony?” Riven’s smirk flickered, but he locked his jaw and leaned in. “You really know how to make a guy feel wanted.”
“I don’t need you to feel anything,” Thane said, straightening. “Just do your job. And don’t die.” His eyes darkened with something unreadable as he said, “This job should be well within your capabilities. After all, you grew up near the Seam.”
Riven stiffened, surprise snapping through him like a jolt. “How the hell do you know that?”
When Thane answered his voice was low and deliberate, tasting the words. “Curiosity. When I take someone under my roof, I learn everything worth knowing.”
Then he turned his back again, gaze fixed on the city’s glow.
Riven closed the folder and stood, trying not to be shaken by the Beast’s words. The research feltintimatein the worst sort of way. He supposed it was common sense. Why bring a potential threat into your home without knowing just where the danger was?
Riven didn’t speak as he left, but the scent of gunpowder clung to the papers in his hand.
And to the man who’d just handed him a fuse.
Chapter 6
They waited until nightfall.
Riven had been left alone in a room that was nicer than he expected and far too quiet. No one had locked the door, but the unspoken warning was louder than any guard. He spent most of the day pacing, eyes on the skyline outside the narrow window. Atlantis looked slick and glittering from a distance, chrome towers and mirrored lights. But the Seam wasn’t part of that skyline. The Seam slouched low, heavy with smoke and ruin and old, hungry things that didn’t bother dressing themselves in the sheen of modernity.
A knock came just after sunset, not polite but final.
He opened the door to find the same woman as before. “It’s time,” she said. No room for questions. She turned and strode off like she trusted he’d follow.
He did.
They exited through a side hall that sloped downward, the air growing cooler and tinged with the faint tang of oil and salt. She led him to a private garage, a long, concrete space with humming lights and two parked vehicles—an armored car, and beside it, a matte black motorcycle that looked too sleek to be street legal.
Leaning against it was Thane.
He looked different in the dim lighting. Less knife, more shadow. His sleeves were rolled again, exposing forearms corded with muscle and ink, and his jacket was draped over thehandlebars. The curve of his throat caught the low light, and Riven’s gaze snagged there just for a second too long.
“Don’t tell me you’re coming,” Riven muttered.
Thane didn’t smile. “Would you prefer I sent you in blind and alone?”
“I’d prefer not going at all.”
“Not an option,” Thane said coolly. “I’ll be your handler tonight. A voice in your ear, nothing more.”
Riven’s eyes narrowed. “Why you?”
“Because I don’t trust anyone else,” Thane said. “And because I want to see how you move when it matters.”
The words slithered under Riven’s skin. He hated that. Hated how Thane’s voice managed to curl around what he didn’t want exposed.
