Varessia turned her head slowly. Her eyes slid over me, dismissive, bored.
“Detective Rowan,” she said. She knew my name. Of course she did. “The new… partner.”
She made the word sound like a dirty joke.
“I’m here for my employee’s effects,” she continued, turning her back on me to address Mira. “My legal team has already filed the paperwork. It was a workplace accident. Tragic, but internal.”
“It’s a murder investigation,” I snapped.
She laughed. A soft, chilling sound. She turned back to me, stepping close—too close. The scent of her was overwhelming: expensiveflorals laced with winter frost—carried the sharp tang of blood on snow.
“You’re very spirited,” she murmured. She glanced at Riven, then back to me, her expression dripping with pity. “He always did have a weakness for strays,” she said, her voice dropping to a whisper meant only for us. “Try not to bare your teeth, Detective. Riven has a nasty habit of putting down pets that get too wild.”
Heat flared in my chest—hot and furious.
My control, so carefully built over the last week of training, slipped. The anger hit my magic like a stone dropped in still water. Under my jacket, the scar on my shoulder warmed.
A sudden, suffocating tension filled the space, heavy and instant. A storm's weight settled over the bay, tasting of copper.
Varessia went still.
She turned her head, scanning the room. Her nostrils flared, tasting the sudden charge in the atmosphere.
“Curious,” she whispered.
Riven stepped between us, his shadow expanding to block her view.
“Varessia—“ he warned, his voice a low growl.
“Hush.” She stepped around him, her gaze sweeping the space, hunting for the epicentre. “That wasn’t you, Riven. That is… new. But somehow ancient.”
My heart hammered against my ribs as I tried to reel the energy back in, swallowing the scream building in my throat, but the fear only amplified the vibration. She sensed the frequency. She was locking on.
She turned slowly, her eyes finding me. “Let me see?—“
The bullpen door swung open.
“Excuse me,” a voice asked a passing officer near the entrance. “I’m looking for Chief Hale? He is expecting me.”
The voice was familiar. Worn. Beloved.
Eamon stepped fully into the room, clutching a manila folder, looking tired and ruffled, his coat damp from the morning drizzle.
And he was glowing.
To my senses, stripped of their filters, he was a beacon. A low, throbbing resonance of magic spilled out of him and crashed directly into mine.
The two signatures—the rising storm inside me and the fading echo inside him—collided in the stagnant air. They were identical in pitch, two notes of the same chord ringing together.
Varessia spun around.
She looked at Eamon. Then back at me. Then back at Eamon.
Her hand dropped. The predatory focus splintered, split between two targets. She looked confused. The resonance in the room bounced between us, an echo chamber of Aetherkind energy.
Eamon halted, assessing the standoff: Riven planted as a shield in front of me, and Varessia waiting opposite. Terrified recognition snapped his features taut. He knew exactly who she was.
But he didn’t retreat. He stepped forward, right into her path.
