But his chest was tight. His hands were fists.
Thane was calm, unreadable, every inch of him in control. It made Riven feel like he was the only one floundering.
“Tomorrow morning, you’ll be briefed. There’s work waiting.”
“Work?” Riven asked warily. “You think I’m just going to fall into line?”
“Yes,” Thane said. “You are here by our acquiescence in place of your sister. Should your services prove…unsatisfactory, we will cancel the agreement and take her instead.”
There was no heat in his words, and that made it worse. He wasn’t trying to scare Riven. He was just telling the truth.
“Sleep,” Thane said, as if it were a command. “You’ll need it.”
He walked out and shut the door behind him, leaving Riven alone with a half-finished room, his own heartbeat in his ears, and a thousand questions buzzing like static in his skull.
And of course, he didn’t sleep.
The bed was too soft, the silence too deep, and his thoughts were violent, gnawing inside his skull. Every time he shut hiseyes, he saw the shape of Thane’s back, the cold calculation in his eyes, the mark still stinging on his skin.
I won’ttouch you until you ask.
Until? Until he asked, as if it were an inevitability. Gods, the arrogance of that elf.
By morning, his head throbbed and his throat was dry. A knock came at the door, sharp and efficient. Riven cracked it open to find a young woman waiting—a sleek elf in tailored black with a tablet in one hand and a gun holstered at her hip.
She looked him over like she’d expected worse.
“You’re Riven Kestrien,” she said, scrolling. “You belong to House Virellien now. Congratulations.”
“I didn’t exactly—”
“Not relevant. Come with me.” The snapping pace of her rapid-fire words caught Riven off guard, as if she was constantly racing a clock, and he followed. It was either that or be dragged.
They moved through a corridor lined with glass and stone, obsidian and sea-glass filtering watery light.
“What do you want from me?” he asked as they descended a curving staircase lit from below. “Or what does the House want, anyway?”
“You’re a thief,” she said, eyes still on her tablet. “A good one.”
“Not good enough, apparently.”
“You robbed several Houses without being caught.” Her gaze flicked up at him, unreadable. “That says you don’t lack skill.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Why does this feel like a setup?”
“We needed you.”
That stopped him cold. Not a denial, then. Had the House truly called in his sister’s debt in order to securehim?
“For what?”
She tapped her tablet. The screen spun into a 3D map, a clean, high-resolution overlay of Atlantis’s underbelly. One zoneglowed red—the deepest reaches of the Seam. The crumbling faultline where the oldest magics still whispered.
“We have a leak,” she said, “a big one. Someone’s moving dangerous drugs through the Seam. Drugs thatwillkill people.”
Riven’s spine stiffened. “You wantmeto find them.”
“You have access. Skills. And a face no one thinks twice about.”
