He spotted the balcony above the dance floor. Red lighting bled over the edges, and two hulking figures flanked the stairwell like leashed dogs. Muscle, not brains.
Perfect.
Riven moved like he belonged. Not with arrogance—no, that would draw suspicion. He wove himself into the crowd, adopting the posture of someone desperate for a taste of money, for something to lift him from the gutter. He even let his gaze flick up to the balcony, just once, with a flash of calculated longing.
It worked. One of the guards lifted his chin slightly, tracking him.
“You’ve got his attention,” Thane said. “Let them come to you.”
Riven peeled off toward the bar. He ordered something cheap and ugly, then nursed it with his back to the crowd. He didn’t wait long.
One of the guards approached—tall, sallow-skinned, one ear pierced with a Houseless tag. His eyes swept Riven with practiced disdain.
“You look like someone who wants to make a deal,” the man said.
Riven kept his voice low, roughened just enough. “I heard Lareth is making actual money out here, not chump change.”
The guard didn’t smile, but his eyes flickered in approval, or hunger.
“You know how to show respect?”
Riven forced himself to look away first. “Yeah. When it’s earned.”
The man gave a short nod. “Come.”
They led him up the stairs, past a rune line that prickled over his skin. A scan, the kind that registered weapons, glamours, truth spells. He felt it crawl through his bones, tugging at every lie stitched into his being.
For a breathless second, Riven thought it would catch on something deeper—something more than lies.
But the scan passed.
“You’re clear,” Thane’s voice murmured, softer now. “Try not to get killed.”
Riven entered the balcony lounge like it was a den of lions—and made sure to look the part of someone who knew that, and was too desperate to care.
Lareth sat in the center, draped across a velvet divan like he owned the world. His skin shimmered faintly gold under the lights, and his eyes gleamed with the soft red sheen of someone long corrupted by power. He was beautiful, in that vain, cruel way that always came with ambition.
The Ember Gate’s music pulsed through the bones of the old building like blood through veins. Riven stood in the back room, framed by too many eyes and not enough exits. The air smelled like sweat, synthsmoke, and ozone. Lareth lounged across from him, half-coiled in a cracked leather armchair, one leg hooked over the armrest like he owned gravity.
“So,” Lareth said, voice lazy and sharp, “you just…walked in. No contacts. No introduction. And you want work.”
Riven didn’t flinch. “I’m good at what I do.”
“And what is that, exactly?”
Riven let his silence stretch just long enough to be a choice, then shrugged. “Mostly I break into places people think are secure. Sometimes I move product. Sometimes people.”
The elf beside Lareth raised a brow. “People?”
“Not like that,” Riven said quickly. “I just know how to get someone out of a locked building without setting off alarms. Or into one, if that’s what you need.”
Lareth watched him like a cat watches a bird that’s landed too close. “You’re human.”
“Is that a problem?”
“It’s a curiosity.
Riven took a breath and made the first small gamble. “I used to run for the Virellien border crews. A long time ago.”
