Vesper’s brow furrowed. “Come again?”
“Code 77,” Selene said, the words slipping out with iron authority. “Magical Contamination. Look at his hands, Shade.”
She gripped my wrist, forcing my hand into the light. The stressof the encounter was dragging my shadows to the surface; they curled around my fingers in a dark, erratic tremor.
“He was exposed to an unshielded extraction core for twenty minutes,” Selene continued. “The energy is volatile. If you lock him in a shielded van with another active Umbrakynn, the resonance will turn that transport into a pressure cooker.”
She leaned closer, her tone dropping.
“Do you really want to explain to Morrow why his star witness was incinerated in transit?”
Vesper hesitated, her gaze shifting between me and the faint smoke rising from my skin. She understood the theory of resonance and the danger it posed, but the suspicion remained. She tapped her earpiece.
“Dispatch, verify status on prisoner Ashborne. I’m looking at a Code 77.”
The air between us thinned. A second passed. Two. Then, a violent burst of static tore through the channel, loud enough to bleed out of her earpiece.
“WARNING,” a synthesised voice cut through the noise. “Bio-magical hazard detected in Sector 4. Isolate immediately. Repeat: Isolate immediately.”
Vesper recoiled from the feedback, ripping the earpiece out. The risk had become too high for her to gamble on.
“Fine,” Vesper spat, stepping aside. “Transport him yourself. But I want him booked at Central in twenty minutes. If he isn’t in a cell by noon, I’m coming for you, Rowan.”
“He’ll be there,” Selene promised. She grabbed my arm. “Move.”
We moved through the blockade at a brisk, irritated pace—the walk of officers dealing with a hazardous complication. We cleared the glass doors and the cold rain hit my face. Instead of the police vans, Selene steered me sharply towards a No Parking zone where a dark saloon sat idling.
“Get in,” she hissed, opening the rear door.
I slid inside. The interior smelled of lemon bleach and oldleather. Dane Lennox sat in the driver’s seat, his face pale, his grip tight on the wheel.
“Code 77?” Dane asked as Selene dived in beside me. “Since when is ‘Magical Contamination’ a real code?”
“Since Orin overrode the dispatch server thirty seconds ago,” Selene said, slamming the door. “Drive. Before Vesper realises that extraction radiation doesn’t exist.”
Dane hit the accelerator. The car lurched away from the kerb, tyres protesting as the flashing lights of Quinn Tower receded into the rain. I looked at her. She had manipulated the entire board to get me out instead of handing me over.
“Why?” The question sat raw in my throat.
Selene turned. The blankness had vanished, replaced by a fierce, focused intensity.
“You tried to die to buy me time,” she said. “But I don’t need time. I need answers.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
Selene
The city blurred past the tinted windows, a streak of grey stone and rain-slicked asphalt.
Dane drove with a terrifying, silent focus. He wove through the traffic, taking corners fast enough to make the tyres protest, putting distance between us and Highspire.
I sat in the back. Beside me, Riven sat rigid. He hadn’t spoken since we pulled away from the kerb. He just watched me.
His eyes were blue again. The silver-threaded darkness was gone, locked away behind the mask of the consultant. But the exhaustion was visible now—bruises under his eyes, the tension in his jaw. He looked like a man holding up a collapsing ceiling.
He shifted, the handcuffs rattling against the leather seat.
“Selene,” he started, his voice rough. “You don’t know what you’ve done. If Korenth?—“
