I pushed the thought away and focused on the threat ahead.
I found Varessia in the atrium. She was staring at a kinetic sculpture of spinning silver rings, her reflection fractured in the moving metal.
“Riven,” she said without turning. “I wondered when you’d stop playing detective and come home.”
I stopped three paces behind her. I forced my shoulders to drop, unclenched my hands. I became the thing she remembered.
“I’m close,” I said. My voice was flat. “The surge you felt at the station. I can bring the source to you.”
She turned then.
“Oh, Riven,” she murmured, her smile sharp and pitying. “You’re chasing a prize we have already claimed.”
She stepped closer, the click of her heels echoing on the marble.
“You don’t need to hunt anymore. We already found what we were looking for.”
I kept my face still, swallowing a spike of dread. “Who?”
She tilted her head. “The old wolf from the station. We picked him up thirty minutes ago. The resonance… it was blinding. I think he’s the one who caused that power surge in the Old Quarter all those days ago. Korenth is very pleased.”
Eamon.
I remained motionless, unblinking. I just filed the information away behind the wall I had built for twenty years.
“Where is he?” I asked. “If his magic is that volatile, I need to assess the containment risk before Korenth arrives.”
“Ever the dutiful servant.” Varessia checked her watch. “We’re heading to the facility now to oversee the final stage. You can drive.”
She tossed me a set of keys. I caught them out of the air.
“The facility?”
“The Industrial Crescent,” she said, walking towards the private lift. “The old pneumatic exchange.”
I went cold. The Blackwood Mill. The exact spot where I recently had snapped her guard’s neck to save Selene. If she knew I was the one who had destroyed that investment, I was driving to my own execution. I forced the sudden spike of adrenaline back down, locking it behind a mask of bored obedience, and followed her.
We got into her car. I drove, the city blurring past in silence while Varessia scrolled through data streams on her tablet with surgical focus.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. Once.
I ignored it.
We reached the Crescent. I steered the car away from the river, towards the main loading bay of the old factory.
Two guards stood at the steel door in full tactical gear. Augmented. Even from across the space, I could smell the metallic rasp of power being forced through veins never meant to hold it.
I parked the car. Varessia stepped out, smoothing her white suit.
“Coming?” she called.
I exited the car. I slid my hand into my pocket and glanced at the screen of my phone, shielding it from her view.
The screen glitched. A broken text from Selene pushed through the interference: …dustrial Crescent…Eamon…
My lungs seized. She was here. She had tracked him.
I clamped down on the panic, ignoring the urge to scout for her car. A fear for her safety fought with the iron-willed discipline I had maintained for years. The betrayal hardened into an unavoidable necessity—a calculated cruelty designed to keep her breathing. My phone vanished back into my pocket as I severed my emotions, leaving only the mission.
