Chapter 1
Ember
London doesn’t sleep. It prowls.
The rain slicks the streets until the city gleams like a fresh bruise, neon lights bleeding into puddles that reflect everything and promise nothing.
Engines growl. Sirens wail somewhere far enough away to feel theoretical.
Above it all, the sky hangs low and heavy, as if it might drop onto my shoulders at any moment and finish the job the last three years started.
I pull my jacket tighter as I move through Brick Lane, boots splashing through shallow water, the smell of damp brick and oil and old beer clinging to the air.
My sketchbook is tucked under my arm, wrapped in plastic like it might save me if things go wrong.
It won’t. I know that. But habits die harder than people.
I shouldn’t be here.
That thought has been riding shotgun in my head for weeks now, ever since I realized Owen’s death didn’t make sense—not really.
Not if you looked too closely. Not if you stopped accepting the official story like a sedative and started tracing the gaps instead.
Missing hours. Redacted files. Names that repeated themselves like a bad chorus.
Names that never quite surfaced.
I stop outside a derelict warehouse, its windows boarded, graffiti layered so thick it looks like the building is wearing armor. My pulse ticks faster, not with fear exactly, but with something sharper. Purpose, maybe. Or obsession. The two are easy to confuse when you’re tired enough.
I slip inside through a side door I jimmied open earlier, the metal groaning softly as if it disapproves of me. The air inside is colder, stale with dust and rust and the lingering ghost of something chemical. My footsteps echo, swallowed by the cavernous space, and I pause, listening.
Nothing.
Good.
The vault is exactly where my source said it would be—half-hidden behind a false wall, the keypad already fried like someone got sloppy or rushed. That alone makes my stomach twist. Sloppy gets people killed. Rushed means panic. Panic means someone was here recently.
I kneel anyway.
The concrete seeps cold through my jeans as I work the panel open, fingers moving on muscle memory and instinct. I’m not a hacker, not really, but you learn things when you grow up with nothing but time and anger. When you need answers more than safety.
The vault door gives with a soft hiss.
Inside are drives. Old ones. Labeled in faded marker, dates spanning years. Ministry stamps. Private contractors. I recognize one of the symbols before my brain fully catches up, and my breath stutters.
Masked Riders.
The name tastes like metal in my mouth.
I shouldn’t touch it.
I do anyway.
That’s when I see him.
The body is slumped against the far wall, half-shadowed, blood dried dark against his throat. A bullet wound, clean and professional. Execution-style. His mask lies a few feet away, cracked clean through the crown.
My heart slams against my ribs.
One of theirs.
The realization hits all at once, crashing through me with a sickening clarity: this isn’t just a data drop. This is a crime scene. A message. And I’m standing in the middle of it with my fingerprints practically glowing.
I stagger back, pulse roaring in my ears, and that’s when I feel it.
The camera.
I don’t see it at first. I feel it, like a pressure between my shoulders, like being stared at by something that doesn’t blink. Slowly, I lift my gaze, eyes tracking the ceiling, the corners, the shadows.
There.
A tiny red light.
Recording.
“Oh,” I whisper.
The word barely makes it out.
I should run. Smash the camera. Burn the place down. Every instinct screams at me to disappear, to become another ghost in a city full of them.
Instead, I freeze.
And then—against every shred of survival instinct I have—I look straight into the lens.
I don’t know why I do it. Maybe because I’m tired of being hunted by questions. Maybe because if someone is watching, I want them to see me clearly. I want them to understand that I’m not afraid.
Or maybe I just want them to know I see them too.
The rain outside grows louder, drumming against the roof like applause or warning, and for a moment—just one—I swear the city itself leans closer, listening.
I grab only one drive. Just one. Shove it into my jacket like a talisman and back away from the vault, eyes never leaving that unblinking red dot. My heart is racing now, not with panic, but with certainty.
This is it.
Whatever killed Owen didn’t end with him.
I slip out the way I came, breath fogging in the cold night air, and don’t stop walking until the warehouse is nothing but another ugly shape in my peripheral vision. The rain soaks my hair, my clothes, my skin, but I barely notice.
Because somewhere—somewhere dark and powerful and very, very dangerous—someone just saw me.
And whatever comes next, I know one thing with terrifying clarity…
London has been watching me for a long time.
And I just finally looked back.