Chapter 26
TWENTY-SIX
Selene
Dane’s flat smelled of lemon bleach and damp wool.
It was a sparse, ground-floor box in a quiet part of Midtown. No photos. No clutter. Just the essentials of a man who spent his life working or hunting.
I stood in the middle of the living room, the strap of my kit bag digging into my shoulder. I lowered it to the floorboards, the weight of the journal, books and the lockbox inside settling with a heavy impact. The clock on the wall read 7:05.
Dane was in the kitchenette. He moved stiffly, his back rigid, turning carefully from the waist rather than twisting his spine. But today, instead of pouring whisky, he was making tea.
The domestic normalcy of it caught in my throat.
He set two mugs on the low table and sat down on the sofa with a wince he tried to hide.
“Sit,” he said. His amber eyes scanned me—checking for injuries, checking for the source of the tremor in my hands.
I sat, leaving the tea untouched.
“How are you feeling?” I asked, my voice quieter than I intended.
“I’m upright,” he said, shifting to find a position that didn’t pull at his healing spine. “And I had a feeling you might need help, after what happened recently.”
He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. The concern in his eyes hardened into professional focus.
“We talked about the cover-up at the hospital,” he said. “But you didn’t tell me the rest. You didn’t tell me what actually happened to Eamon.”
I took a breath. It rattled in my lungs.
“It was a lab,” I whispered. “In the Industrial Crescent. Varessia Quinn took him. She… she drained him, Dane. She hooked him up to a machine and siphoned him dry.”
Dane’s hands curled into fists on his knees. His knuckles turned white.
“I was too late,” I said, my voice cracking. “I broke in. I tried to stop it. But I was too late.”
Dane was silent for a long moment, processing the horror. Then he looked at me, his gaze sharpening.
“You broke in? Alone?”
“Yes,” I admitted. “But I held power of my own.”
I looked down at my hands, remembering the way the magic had answered me in the tunnels.
“After the attack, things changed. Marcus assigned me a temporary partner. Riven Ashborne.”
Dane’s jaw locked. “The consultant? Mira mentioned Marcus forced him on you for a few cases. Is he the one the nurse said was watching you?”
“He helped me. He saw my magic slipping, saw me spiralling, and he provided training to control it. He saved my life at Blackwood Mill last week, before Eamon died. He took a knife for me.”
Dane’s expression was a war of emotions—confusion, suspicion, and a begrudging gratitude that someone had kept me alive in his absence.
“He saved you,” Dane repeated slowly.
“Yes.”
“So where is he now?” Dane asked, his voice dropping to a dangerous rumble. “If he’s your partner… where was he when Eamon died?”
I swallowed hard, the memory of the lab rushing back.
“He was there,” I whispered.
Dane frowned. “He was your backup?”
“No.” I met Dane’s eyes. “He was with her. He stood next to Varessia while the machine ran. He watched it happen.”
Dane started to rise, a snarl ripping from his throat. “I will kill him. I will tear his—“
“He gave me the journal, Dane.”
Dane stopped, half-standing, his face twisted in fury. “What?”
I retrieved the book from my bag—the small, battered green diary—and placed it on the coffee table between us.
“After Eamon died… He handed me this. He said Eamon made him promise to give it to me.”
I looked up at Dane, desperate for him to understand the confusion tearing me apart.
“He knew Eamon was going to be taken. He must have. He had the book. But then he walked away.”
“He ran,” Dane spat, sinking back onto the sofa. “Coward.”
“No.” I shook my head. “He went back to them. He told me he was going to buy me time.”
“Or to cover his own tracks,” Dane argued.
“Maybe.” I gripped the edge of the sofa cushion. “Or maybe he’s playing a game I don’t understand yet. He handed me the history of my people, Dane. He handed me the journal and the books. If he was a traitor, why arm me? Why give me the ammunition to destroy them?”
Too agitated to sit, I stood and paced the small room.
“I still don't know where he stands. But he is the only person left who knows the whole story.”
I turned to Dane.
“He is the only lead I have. And he is sitting in the middle of Quinn Enterprises, surrounded by people who want to put me in an extraction tank.”
Dane watched me. The anger in his eyes cooled, replaced by a sharp, tactical calculation. He saw the detective in me rising out of the grief.
“You want answers,” he said.
“I want the truth,” I corrected. “I want to know how he got that journal. I want to know if my father chose this, or if he was forced. Riven is the only one who can tell me.”
“He’s in Highspire, Selene. It’s a fortress. If Varessia has him, he’s either working for her, or he’s a prisoner. Either way, you can’t just knock on the door.”
“I know.”
I stopped pacing and looked at the worn leather book on the table. Eamon’s legacy. Liora’s words.
My father didn’t raise a soldier. He raised a cop.
“I’m not going to knock,” I said. “And I’m not going to storm the place with magic I can barely control. That’s what they want. They want me to be the monster.”
I looked at Dane.
“I’m going to use the one thing they don’t think matters.”
Dane sat forward, wincing slightly as his spine protested. A slow, dangerous grin spread across his face.
“Then we’ll mourn him when it’s done,” he said. “Right now, we take them apart.”
I picked up my phone.
“We’re going to work.”
A couple of hours later, a firm rap at the door broke the silence. Dane pushed himself off the sofa and opened the door.
Mira stormed in first. She was soaked, her auburn hair plastered to her cheeks. She looked straight at me. She dropped her bag and crossed the room in three strides.
“Selene.”
She pulled me up from the chair and wrapped her arms around me, her embrace fierce and grounding. She smelled of antiseptic, rain, and the faint, clean scent of peppermint.
My throat tightened. She was the one who hauled me from the collapsing building and got me home yesterday.
“I’m so sorry Selene.” She whispered into my hair.
I hugged her back, leaning on her strength for a second. Mira had always been the sharpest edge in the room, but right now, she was just a friend holding me together.
She stepped back, keeping her hands on my arms, scanning my face with clinical concern. “You look like hell.”
“I feel worse.” I admitted.
Behind her, Orin shuffled into the room. He looked more dishevelled than usual—his shirt buttoned wrong, his glasses slightly askew—clutching a laptop like a shield.
He looked at me, eyes wide and shiny behind the lenses.
“Selene,” he said, his voice cracking. “The thing that happened… with Eamon. I’m… I mean, the statistical probability of a gas leak was always… I mean…”
He stopped, taking a breath.
“I’m really sorry about your father. He was a good man.”
It was clumsy and awkward and perfectly Orin.
“Thanks, Orin,” I said softly. I reached out and squeezed his arm for a second. He gave a small, quick nod, his gaze dropping to the floor. We both knew there weren't enough words for a loss like this.
Mira turned away from me then, her eyes landing on Dane. He was leaning against the doorframe, watching us. He looked tired, pale, and in pain.
Mira’s expression softened. The professional mask dropped completely.
“And you,” she said, walking over to him. “You signed the waiver.”
“I’m fine, Mira.”
“You’re an idiot.” Her voice was quiet, intimate. She reached out, her hand resting gently on his chest, right over his heart. “You shouldn’t be out of that bed.”
Dane didn’t draw back. He covered her hand with his own. “I couldn’t stay there. Not with this happening.”
They looked at each other. A silent conversation passed between them—worry, history, and a spark that hadn’t quite gone out. The hospital stay had changed something; it had stripped away the bickering.
“Sit down,” she ordered him, but there was no bite in it. “Before you fall to the floor.”
Dane obeyed, sinking back onto the sofa. Mira sat on the armrest beside him, her hand lingering on his shoulder.
“Right,” she said, looking at me. “Orin said you put him to work.”
“I did.” I gestured to the small coffee table. “Orin, walk us through the data you pulled this morning.”
Orin scrambled to clear the empty mugs and opened his laptop. He typed furiously for a moment, bringing up the files he had been compiling since my call, bypassing firewalls I didn’t even want to know about.
“Okay,” Orin said. “You called me earlier, asked me to dig into Varessia Quinn. Specifically the guard found at the Industrial Crescent—the one she claimed was her employee.”
“Miller Cross was a low-level thug until three months ago,” Orin explained. “Then he vanished off the grid. His bank account didn’t. He started receiving weekly deposits from Aegis Logistics—the security firm we already tied to Quinn Enterprises.”
“We know she hired him,” Dane said. “That’s not a crime.”
“No,” Mira cut in. “But what he was doing is.”
She pulled a flash drive from her pocket and tossed it onto the table.
“I ran the autopsy on Cross before Varessia showed up to claim the body,” she said. “When we still had access. I saved the data locally, off the main server, just in case Darian tried to wipe it.”
She looked at me, grim satisfaction in her eyes.
“That guard was more than augmented, Selene. He was pumped full of volatile, experimental compounds. His adrenal glands were shredded. His heart was twice the size it should be. Whatever they were injecting him with, it was killing him long before his neck was broken.”
“Illegal magical experimentation,” Dane said. “That’s ACD jurisdiction. Darian will bury it.”
“He would,” I said, scanning the spreadsheet on Orin’s screen. “If we charged her with a magical crime.”
My gaze snagged on a column near the bottom. A sudden clarity snapped into place. “Orin,” I said, standing up. “Print it. All of it.”
“What are you looking for?”
“A loophole Darian Morrow can’t close.” I grabbed my jacket, the fatigue in my bones vanishing under a flood of pure adrenaline. “We only need to prove she’s a bad employer.”
I looked at the team.
“Pack up. We’re going to Highspire.”
Mira and Orin left to file the paperwork, leaving the flat quiet.
Dane moved to the window, watching the street, his posture rigid against the pain.
I opened my kit bag. At the bottom, beneath the spare clothes and the journals, lay a black steel lockbox. I punched in the code, and the latch clicked open. Inside sat my service pistol. I picked it up, checking the magazine—full. I holstered the weapon at my hip.
I fished out my phone and dialled a number I hadn’t used in a year.
Sergeant Vance was an old-school cop who despised the ACD’s interference in police work.
More importantly, he hated Highspire’s grip on the city.
Last year, Vance and his team had raided the Nursery—a warehouse where Anthony Graves held children, priming them to become Scorch users.
We had the ledgers tying the drug money directly to Quinn Enterprises, but Highspire had buried the connection.
No executive was ever questioned, and Vance had never forgiven them for it.
“Sergeant Vance,” a gruff voice answered.
“It’s Rowan,” I said. “I’m executing a high-risk warrant at Quinn Enterprises.”
“Is this ACD sanctioned?” Vance asked immediately.
“No,” I said. “It’s a police matter. Corporate manslaughter. Mira is bringing the evidence file to the precinct right now. I need you to fast-track it through the duty magistrate and have the signed paper waiting for me out front.”
Vance absorbed the charge without missing a beat.
“And Vance,” I added. “Quinn’s people will try to use magical jurisdiction to lock us out. I need enough uniforms at the front doors to make that impossible.”
A pause stretched on the line. Then, a chair scraped back. Vance let out a low grunt of approval.
“I’ll have the warrant stamped and meet you at the doors with three units in twenty.”
“Do it.”
I hung up and turned to Dane. He was eyeing the gun on my hip, his jaw set in a stubborn line.
“I’m coming with you,” he said, pushing himself off the windowsill.
“Absolutely not,” I countered, zipping my kit bag. “Your spine is barely held together, Dane. If you walk into Highspire and a fight breaks out, you’re a liability.”
“I’m not letting you walk into that fortress alone.”
“I need to get Riven out of that building so I can interrogate him without the ACD or Marcus breathing down my neck,” I told him, my voice leaving no room for debate.
“It’s an off-the-books extraction, and if they catch us bypassing the Council, there will be hell to pay.
I’m taking the risk because I have to, but I refuse to let you gamble your career on it. ”
Dane grabbed his jacket from the back of the sofa, wincing as he slung it over his shoulder. “Then I’ll stay in the car. Passenger seat. Out of sight.”
He gave me a hard, amber-eyed stare that brokered no argument.
“If things go sideways in there, you’re going to need someone watching the street,” he insisted.
I looked at him, knowing the wolf wouldn’t back down.
“Fine,” I said. “You stay hidden. Understood?”
“Understood.” He opened the door. “Let’s go get him.”