“Go home. Call Mira. Help her draft the appeals. You know the regulations better than anyone—find the loopholes she missed. Coordinate the legal push from your flat so it looks like I’m the one burying them in paper. Let Morrow think we’re bogged down in bureaucracy while Riven and I find the answer.”
Dane hesitated. He saw the logic. He hated it, but he saw it.
“You’re sidelining me,” he muttered.
“I’m placing my rearguard,” I corrected. “I can’t watch my back if I’m worried about you passing out in the passenger seat. And if things go wrong, I need someone on the outside who isn’t burned.”
I held his gaze.
“I will call you every six hours. If I miss a check-in, you send the cavalry. Deal?”
Dane let out a long breath, the fight draining out of him. He looked at me, then at Riven.
“Deal,” he said. He pointed a finger at Riven. “If she misses a check-in by five minutes, Ashborne, I’m coming for you. And I won’t bring a warrant.”
“Understood,” Riven answered.
“Let’s go,” I said.
We walked out of the flat and down the narrow stairs. The street was cold.
Dane walked to his car. He watched us for a moment longer, thendrove away, the taillights disappearing into the gloom of the Old Quarter.
“My car is around the corner,” I said, pulling my keys from my pocket.
Riven nodded. He fell into step beside me, silent and watchful, as we walked towards the only lead we had left.
The driveto Seacliff Row was quiet, the engine’s hum the only sound in the dark car.
I kept my eyes on the road, the headlights cutting through the mist clinging to the coast, but my mind remained stuck on the things Riven had said before we left Dane.
“Back at the flat,” I said, breaking the silence. “You said, that my mother knew what Korenth was planning.”
Riven stared out the passenger window, his profile sharp against the passing streetlights.
“She wrote the books,” he said. “The dates align. She was researching the resonance and the alloy right when Korenth was building his first facility.”
“But how do you know that?” I asked. “You said you only found the books recently. How do you know what Korenth was doing two decades ago?”
Riven didn’t answer immediately. The quiet stretched between us, thick and brittle.
“Because I was there,” he said finally. His voice was devoid of emotion, which somehow made it worse.
I glanced at him. “You were working for him back then?”
“No,” Riven said. “I was ten years old. I was a specimen, Selene.”
I gripped the wheel, my pulse spiking as I fought to keep the car on the road.
“What happened back then?” I whispered.
He turned to look at me. His eyes were dark, the magic swirls moving sluggishly.
“From what I can piece together, Korenth has been trying to bridge the gap for a long time,” he said. “Twenty-three years ago, he didn’t have Eamon. He didn’t have the infrastructure he has now. He just had a theory that he could tear the veil if he had enough power to pry it open, and an anchor strong enough to hold it.”
He touched the centre of his chest, absentmindedly rubbing the spot where the tattoo covered his scar.
“Back then, he used me.”
