Riley sat cross-legged on the dusty floor, the journal spread open across her lap.
The pages still smelled faintly of fire and ink.
Her name stared up at her, underlined twice. No other name was marked like that—not even the dead ones. Just hers. Like it meant something more.
She wasn't just a footnote.
She was the purpose.
The writing wasn't all Lucien's—she could tell by the hand. The early pages were neater, more angular. Later entries were rushed, ink blotting along the edges. And some names… some were written like curses. Others like regrets.
She flipped back to the beginning.
Twelve names. Eight crossed out. Three marked with a symbol she didn't recognize—a jagged circle broken on one side. Not the Black Sun.
Something older.
She snapped a photo with her phone, quietly.
Then froze.
A sound from above.
Metal shifting. A heel against wood.
The front door.
Her hand went to her blade instantly. She flicked the lamp off and melted into the corner behind a shelving unit. Her breath steadied, slow. Her ears strained.
More footsteps. Deliberate. Confident.
Not Lucien.
Too heavy. The gait was different. Slower.
Then a voice—muffled, low, male.
"…still smells like him."
Riley went still.
A second voice answered. Lighter. Dry.
"Of course it does. He won't stay gone long. He never could."
They were behind the bar now.
One of them opened something—likely the fridge. She heard bottles clinking.
"He should've come back already," the first said. "Should've answered."
"He's stalling. Or hiding."
"Hiding won't save him. Not from her."
Silence.
Then: "Do we wait?"
"No. We leave a warning."
A glass shattered deliberately against the floor above.
Riley's fingers clenched around her knife.
The voices retreated toward the door. She couldn't hear words anymore—just echoes. But just before they left, one of them muttered a name.
"Ashgrave."
Then the door shut.
And the bar fell quiet again.
Riley didn't move for a full minute.
When she finally rose, her legs were numb and her heart was thudding like a countdown.
She didn't know what Ashgrave was.
But something told her—
Lucien did.
The chapel basement was colder than usual.
Lucien's boots thudded dully against stone as he descended the spiral stairs into Rook's forgotten sanctuary—a space cut out of the city's rot like a scar you learn to live with.
The candles lining the walls were lit, but dim. Low flames, as if the place itself was reluctant to be seen tonight.
He hadn't fed.
He wouldn't.
But his hands wouldn't stop shaking.
Rook stood near the altar, sleeves rolled, arms bare, scalp glinting under candlelight like stone. He didn't turn when Lucien entered.
"You reek of old fire," he said flatly.
Lucien didn't answer.
"You burned something," Rook continued, picking up a jar of salt and pouring it around the base of the altar. "Again."
"It needed burning," Lucien said. His voice was hoarse.
Rook turned then. His eyes were pale and unforgiving. "The Crimson Room?"
Lucien nodded once.
"Juno wasn't there," he added. "Silas was."
Rook's jaw tensed. "Still breathing?"
"For now."
Lucien leaned against the stone wall, letting the coolness bleed into his back. "They want me back in. Say she's rebuilding. Quietly. Like it's a revolution and not a relapse."
Rook watched him. "And you?"
Lucien looked away. "I'm not going back."
"Then why come here?"
Lucien pulled the journal from his coat—creased, half-burned—and tossed it onto the table beside the altar.
Rook looked at it. Didn't touch it.
"She found it," Lucien said. "Riley. She was in the bar."
Silence.
"She saw her name in it."
At that, Rook moved. Slowly. He picked up the journal, flipped to the marked page, the underlined name.
"You think you wrote this?" he asked.
Lucien frowned. "It's my hand."
"The first half is. The second isn't."
Lucien blinked. "Then who?"
Rook closed the book and tapped his fingers against the leather cover. "Someone who wanted her to find it."
Lucien's throat went dry.
"She wasn't just passing through," Rook said. "She's not just some hunter on a side job. She was always coming to you. This? All of this? It's not coincidence."
Lucien stepped away from the wall, voice low. "You think she was sent?"
"I think she's not the only one watching you."
Lucien stared at Rook like the room had tilted beneath his feet.
"You're telling me," he said slowly, "that she was planted?"
"I'm telling you," Rook replied, "that Riley Voss isn't who she says she is. And she's not just some freelance silver-slinger looking for monsters in alleyways."
He dropped the journal back on the altar. The pages fluttered like a warning.
"I checked her name after you mentioned her. Deep check. Off-grid channels, the stuff even the hunters pretend doesn't exist."
Lucien's jaw tightened. "And?"
"Her official record ends five years ago. Terminated, status: KIA. Cause of death: redacted."
Lucien blinked. "She's very much alive."
"Exactly," Rook said. "Which means either someone faked her death… or she's working for people who don't care what official records say."
Lucien paced.
"You remember the Black Sun raids," Rook continued. "The quiet ones. No press. No body counts. Whole cells disappeared overnight—labs, couriers, clients. Gone."
Lucien nodded slowly.
"You think she was part of those teams."
"I think she led one."
Lucien stopped pacing.
Rook's eyes didn't flinch. "She didn't just show up in your bar, Lucien. Someone pointed her toward you."
Lucien didn't speak.
He couldn't.
His thoughts ran backward—her first step into the room. The way she'd looked at him. The way she never flinched. The way she'd asked questions, sharp ones, fast ones, strategic ones.
It hadn't felt like a trap.
That's what scared him.
Because if she was sent?
She hadn't acted like it.
Not the whole time.
Maybe not even to herself.
"She's been in the dark too long," Rook said. "Just like you. But that doesn't mean you're on the same side."
Lucien rubbed a hand over his mouth, quiet.
Then: "If she was sent to kill me…"
Rook's voice was cold.
"Then she's waiting for the moment you let her."
The street outside the bar was colder than she remembered.
Riley kept to the shadows, glancing once over her shoulder, then again for good measure. No footsteps behind her. No movement across the rooftops. Just the wind curling between the buildings like a whisper with teeth.
She didn't go home.
Not yet.
Instead, she ducked into a back alley three blocks north and sat on a rusted stairwell where no one would see her shake.
Ashgrave.
She hadn't heard that name in years. It felt like pulling glass from an old wound.
He'd been her handler during her black ops work with the hunter syndicate—back when their orders came in blank envelopes and their missions didn't get filed. He recruited her. Shaped her. Broke her, maybe.
And then he vanished.
Word was, he'd been killed during a failed raid on a Black Sun blood refinery.
But if someone in that bar had said his name—if he was alive—that changed everything.
Because Ashgrave didn't take strays.
He took assets.
And he never let them go.
Riley pulled her phone from her coat and tapped through her dead-drop contacts. Most were grayed out. Some were just gone.
One still pinged green.
She typed a message, fingers slow but certain:
Did Ashgrave survive D6? Confirm or deny. Priority One. —RV
She stared at the screen for a full minute.
No reply.
Then, finally:
Confirm. Active. Transmitting.
Riley swore under her breath.
She stood.
There was no accident anymore. No coincidence. She hadn't found the Black Sun again.
It had called her home.
And it wanted her back in the dark.
The bar was still empty when Riley returned.
She stepped inside without hesitation this time. No lock to pick. The strangers from before had left the front door cracked. Deliberate, maybe. Or just careless.
Either way, it felt like an invitation.
Or a dare.
She didn't linger long—just enough to take in the space again. The stool she'd sat on. The bottle he always reached for. The photo half-tucked behind the bar, now crooked.
She wasn't here to look for him.
Not tonight.
She was here to leave something behind.
Riley crossed behind the bar, opened a drawer, and pulled out a scrap of receipt paper. She flipped it over and took out a pen.
No greeting.
No signature.
Just a single line:
I don't run from monsters. I wait for them to come back.
She folded the note in half and slid it under the rim of his favorite glass. Not hidden, not obvious.
Just… waiting.
Then she turned and walked out.
Lucien returned fifteen minutes later.
He didn't feel the thirst as much anymore—not because it had faded, but because it had settled deeper. Like a needle under the skin, quiet and constant.
The bar was silent.
Still smelled like her.
He crossed to the counter and saw the folded paper.
Picked it up.
Read it once.
Twice.
He didn't smile.
He just closed his eyes.
Because now they were past the lies.
And whatever came next?
Neither of them would be walking into it blind.