The whispers started before they’d made it ten feet.
“Can you believe…”
“Three weeks, I heard…”
“Matching marks, look at her neck…”
“Heard she’s the one from the Peterson Holdings mess…”
Victor’s grip tightened almost imperceptibly. A spike of protective anger flared from him—quickly suppressed, but she caught it before he could bury it.
Easy, she thought at him, not sure if he could hear her.We knew this would happen.
Whether he heard or just felt her intent, some of the tension eased from his shoulders.
Derek materialized from his cubicle like he’d been launched from a cannon, nearly colliding with a mail cart in his haste. His eyes were wild, his tie askew, and he was clutching a tablet like a security blanket.
“Oh thank god. I thought—when you didn’t answer texts—I mean I figured you were busy but then Cassandra said Malphas wanted to see you and I thought maybe—” He stopped. Actually looked at them. His mouth fell open. “Holy shit. Your marks changed.”
“Good morning to you too,” Ava said.
“They’re like…” Derek made vague gestures at his own chest, struggling for words. “More. They’re more. They’re spreading. Is that normal? Is that a thing that happens?”
“Soul bonds are rare enough that ‘normal’ doesn’t really apply,” Victor said, steering them toward the associate bullpen with a hand on Ava’s back. “Conference Room Three. Five minutes. I need to speak with Malphas first.”
Derek nodded, still staring at their marks. “Right. Yes. Five minutes. I’ll just… coffee. More coffee. Does anyone need coffee?”
He disappeared before they could answer.
Ava’s desk looked exactly as she’d left it Friday morning. Files stacked neatly, organized by priority. Coffee mug washed and waiting beside her keyboard. Monitor dark, waiting for her password. Everything the same, when nothing was.
She touched the edge of the desk. Grounding herself in something solid and real. She was here. They were here. They’d made it back from the Hamptons, survived the partners’ scrutiny, watched Lilith vanish in a cloud of sulfur.
Now they just had to make it through Monday.
“Ms. Feng.”
Her head snapped up.
Malphas stood ten feet away, having appeared without sound or warning, a skill she really wished the partners would stop demonstrating. His too-long fingers were steepled before him, each joint bending at angles that slid away when she tried to count them. His lipless mouth was set in an expression that might have been neutral or might have been amusement. His eye sockets, empty and dark, tracked her with precision despite having nothing visible to track with.
“Mr. Malphas.” She surprised herself by sounding steady. “Victor said you wanted to see us?”
“I do. Both of you. My office.” He turned and glided away, his movements too smooth, too fluid, like something pretending to walk rather than actually walking.
They followed.
Malphas’s officewas a study in controlled precision.
Glass and steel surfaces gleamed under recessed lighting. Papers lay in stacks so perfectly aligned they might have been measured with a ruler. The air smelled faintly of old books and something else: ink, maybe, or the particular scent of contracts signed in blood. Through the floor-to-ceiling windows, Manhattan spread out sixty-one stories below, the humans going about their lives utterly unaware of what happened in rooms like this.
The door closed behind them with a soft click that sounded somehow final.
“Your bond is recognized,” Malphas said without preamble, settling into a chair that probably cost more than Ava’s annual salary. “The partners observed sufficient evidence of genuine connection. Grimm was satisfied. Azrael detected no coercion. Even Beleth found the resonance…” He paused, searching for words. “Pleasing. Which for Beleth is essentially a standing ovation.”
The tightness in Ava’s shoulders loosened by half a degree.
“However,” Malphas continued, and her chest tightened again, “it creates certain complications from an administrative perspective.”
