“Can I help you?” Eamon asked. His voice was steady, but the tremor of magic rolling off him was undeniable—defensive, desperate.
Varessia stared at him, her nostrils flaring. She tasted the air again. The copper. The static. It was everywhere now.
“Well,” she said, a slow, terrible smile spreading across her face. “This is unexpected.”
She looked at Riven, her eyes gleaming with triumph.
“You didn’t tell me you were hiding a source of this magnitude, Riven.”
She turned on her heel, the white suit snapping with the movement.
“I’ll be in touch,” she called over her shoulder.
She walked out, the click-click-click of her heels sounding like a countdown.
Silence rushed into the bullpen. I sagged against the desk, my knees buckling as the pressure finally broke. Rivenremained rigid. He tracked the empty doorway before his focus snapped to Eamon, horror carving into his features.
For years, my father had kept us hidden, and today, he had walked directly into the crosshairs.
TWENTY-ONE
Selene
The door to my flat clicked shut, locking out the city, the station, and the lingering, cloying scent of Varessia Quinn’s perfume.
We came here because the surge at the station had left my magic dangerously unstable. Riven dragged me out before I could overload in public, insisting I needed isolation to bring the power back under control. But the tension followed us up the stairs, heavy and suffocating.
Riven stood in the centre of my living room. He looked too large for the space, a dark, rough shape against the peeling cream wallpaper. A low, restrained static radiated from him, charging the air and making the hair on my arms stand up.
I moved to the kitchen, needing something to do with my hands. I filled a glass with water, drank it, filled it again.
“She knew,” I said, staring at the sink. “Varessia. She knew the guard was augmented. She didn’t even blink when Orin showed the crest.”
“She knew because she paid for it,” Riven said. His voice was rough, tired.
I turned around, leaning back against the counter.
“The augmentation,” I said, piecing it together. “It’s connected to the alloy. The one you were looking for in the Archives.”
Riven met my gaze. The shadows in his eyes changed, restless.
“Silverite,” he said. “I think it’s the key to the Reapings.”
“My mother’s book,” I pressed, the memory of the diagrams in the study surfacing. “The text you stole explained the exact process.”
Riven exhaled, a sharp sound through his nose. He walked over to the small bookshelf, running a finger along the spine ofThe Tides Beyond the Veil.
”It contained the metallurgy,” he corrected. “She solved the formula for the alloy—how to make it stable. Varessia is the one who turned a scientific discovery into a harvesting tool.”
He turned to face me.
“I heard Varessia use the name years ago. She spoke of Silverite like a holy grail—a material capable of holding raw magic with perfect stability. When I saw the diagrams in your mother’s work… I realised Liora had succeeded where Varessia failed. When the shard was found at the docks… when the analysis came back as an unknown alloy… I knew Varessia had finally achieved her goal.”
“What does it do?” I asked.
“It acts as a superconductor for magic, Selene. It creates a channel so frictionless that magic flows perpetually once inside. I suspect their siphoning tools are built from Silverite components.”
Nausea curled in my gut.
