He angles his shoulders to fit through the frame. That’s the first thing – the adjustment he makes, the slight turn that says he’s been navigating spaces built for smaller beings for a very long time. Then he’s inside, and he straightens, and I understand why the room feels different.
He is enormous. Seven feet at least, broad through the shoulders in a way that is structural, because there is no flesh, no muscle, nothing organic. He is built from interlocking plates of steel, silver-gray, the joints and seams visible at his neck and arms, every part of him suggesting something assembled rather than born.
His face is a smooth steel mask, no features, no eyes – only two narrow slits where eyes would be, and behind them a steady silver glow. I’ve spent years reading faces, and this one gives me nothing, because there is no face to read.
Behind his shoulders, folded close against his back, there are wings. Steel, like the rest of him. I didn’t expect wings.
“Castien.” Yasmin stands. “Thank you for coming.”
“Yasmin.”
His voice is made of two tones, one underneath the other, the lower one metallic and resonant, like a second voice living inside the first.
“I’d like to introduce your client.” She gestures across the table toward me. “Jessa Holloway.”
He turns his head and looks at me.
His eyes hold mine and don’t move, and I hold them back. I’ve sat across from men who use eye contact as a weapon, and I’ve learned not to flinch. But this is different. There is no aggression in his gaze. There’s only his attention, full, total, and fixed.
He doesn’t offer his hand. He doesn’t even speak to me. He stands at the far end of the table and looks at me the way you look at a problem you’ve been handed without asking for it.
I’m not afraid. I register this the way I register everything – as data, as information about the situation. He is seven feet of steel and silence, and he’s looking at me like I’m an inconvenience.
He, however, is exactly what I need.
He doesn’t breathe, and he has no skin that can be pierced and bled. Whatever challenges await in those tunnels, traps that kill, poison, or drown… None of it can touch him.
Chapter Two
Castien
She has blue eyes and electric blue hair, which can’t be natural, because I’ve never seen blue hair on a human before.
I stand there and look at her, and I am aware that Yasmin is speaking, but I can’t process a single word she’s saying.
The woman is small. Five feet, perhaps a little more, which means she barely reaches my chest. She is slim but curvy in a way that my sensors log without my permission, the fitted pullover tracing the shape of her chest and waist, the leather pants so tight they look like a second skin. She stands with her hands clutching the edge of the table and her blue eyes on mine, and she doesn’t move.
Most people move when I enter a room. They push back in their chairs or find something else to look at.
She doesn’t look away, though. She just watches me, steady and waiting.
I’ve stood in front of popes, warlords, condottieri, and men who ordered massacres from behind gilded desks. I never stared at any of them the way I’m staring at her now. I’m cataloguing her, and I can’t stop. She is the most unusual human I’ve ever seen, and I tell myself that is all it is. Novelty. Data. Something to be logged and set aside.
I know I’m lying to myself, and I file that under problems to address later.
“Nice to meet you, Castien,” she says. “I’m looking forward to working together.”
My name coming from her lips does something to my Aether Core that I have no precedent for. It moves through me like a current, and I keep staring like a dullard who can’t produce a single response. I’m five hundred and twenty-four years old, andI have nothing. She waits, the silence stretches, and I’m aware of it but still can’t fill it.
Then she cocks an eyebrow.
“Aren’t you going to acknowledge me?” she says. “Yasmin tells me you have quite a traditional view of women’s place in society, but I must say, this is just plain rude.”
Sheer mortification takes over. I bow my head low, and my wings shudder against my back. They’ve always betrayed me when I feel something I’d rather not feel. I press my fist to my chest in the oldest gesture of contrition I know.
“Miss Holloway,” I say. “I apologize. The fault is entirely mine, and I assure you I am looking forward to assisting you with whatever you require.”
“Call me Jessa,” she says.
