The quill slipped from the scorched woman’s hand beside me. Someone gasped.
I ducked behind my hair like it was armor, which was foolish; copper waves weren’t exactly camouflage. My heart beat so hard I was certain he’d hear it across the room. He hadn’t seen my face the other night. The fog had been too thick, my hood too deep, but bodies remembered trauma. What if he recognized the way I held my shoulders? The way I breathed?
The Ripper’s icy gray eyes traveled around the room looking for a hint of guilt. For anyone who knew a single thing. As if he could smell it. Or see it in a passive expression. And that was exactly why Calder and Vitoria hadn’t told me. They’d known this moment would happen.
“The Championships will?—”
“No!” A shifter three desks over shot to his feet, his blue and silver lapel pin—Silverbolt colors—glinting. “You’re lying. Not Draven.”
He shoved past two scorched and stormed out, his yell of anger echoing in the stairwell. A bet poorly placed, no doubt.
Chaos erupted.
“I had fifty crowns on him for top scorer,” someone moaned.
“The whole tournament’s fucked now.”
“Who’s going to lead the Bolts?”
“My daughter will be devastated. She has his portrait on her wall?—”
The Ripper stood like a stone in the center of the storm, unmoved by the grief and anger swirling around him. His presence seemed to expand, filling the space, making it hard to breathe. Every hunter carried violence in their bones, but he wore his like a second skin.
Then, the temperature in the room dropped.
Not literally. But everyone felt it the moment Tiberius Veyne entered.
Where the Ripper demanded attention through promising danger, the Magistrate simply took it. Owned it. The chaos died instantly. Even the sprites cowered. Some hid.
Tiberius Veyne was not a large man, but he didn’t need to be. His silver hair was pulled back in the traditional hunter’s knot, his leather coat pristine despite the morning’s work. The twin blades at his hips had names, Mercy and Justice, even though no one living had seen him draw either. He drew his sleeves up, just enough to show the mark that branded him powerful, beyond his role as Magistrate. The twin blades crossed beneath a crescent moon shimmering on his forearm marked him as the leader of every hunter in the world.
The Ripper straightened. Then, impossibly, seemed to shrink two inches. “Father,” he said, and his voice carried none of the earlier menace, only the sharp acknowledgment of a son falling in line.
Tiberius’s gray eyes swept the room once. When they passed over me, I forgot how to breathe. This was the man who’d written every new law that kept witches leashed. Who’d personally executed three fire witches in Blackbriar’s Square.Who served as both Magistrate and hunter Commander because no one dared suggest he shouldn’t.
“The Championship Bracket begins tonight as scheduled,” Tiberius announced, his voice soft but somehow filling every corner of the room. “The opening ceremony will include a tribute to Draven Varrow, whose dedication to the sport brought honor to his home country, Noreya. As representatives of my office, you are all expected to attend. There will be no exceptions.” He turned to the woman with a round belly and swollen ankles, who already looked dead on her feet. “That includes our expectant mothers.”
No one moved. No one spoke.
“Rest easy knowing my hunters are doing what they do best.” His smile was exactly what one would imagine from a crooked politician, icy and fake. “Hunting killers. We will find those responsible. And when we do, their deaths will be... instructional.”
Matthias cleared his throat. “Magistrate, sir, the documentation for?—”
“Can wait.” Tiberius’s gaze found his senior clerk. “I have things to organize. Everyone is dismissed at the noon bell. Expect twice the work tomorrow.”
He turned without waiting for acknowledgment, his son falling into step behind him like a trained hound. As they passed my desk, the Ripper’s eyes swept over me without recognition. But I was still a witch, and he was a hunter. He’d never forget me now.
Only when their footsteps faded did the room remember how to breathe.
I stared down at the documents on my desk. S.B. Collective, P.R. Enterprises, N.K.C. Holdings. Someone was moving massive amounts of money through the Chancellery, using my runes to hide their trail.
And unfortunately, that couldn’t be my problem. Today, my family had killed a hero, and the two most dangerous men in the country, if not the world, were hunting them.
I dipped my fingers back in the water basin, letting the familiar cold steady my shaking hands. Around me, workers began gathering their things, whispering about the memorial, about the Championships, about everything except what mattered.
Somewhere in this city, Calder and Vitoria were waiting for me.
Tonight we’d sit in those stands like good little citizens, cheering for games and pretending we had no idea why the Silverbolts were suddenly short one star player. Just three innocent people enjoying an evening out, definitely not the ones who’d turned someone’s hero into a very expensive corpse.
