Raevyn stared at the photograph, her blood running colder with each passing second. The image of Kairos Faelen—still sharp-jawed, silver-eyed, and colder than winter steel—burned into her mind like a brand. She remembered the man from distant war rooms and shadow-draped balconies of her childhood, always standing beside her parents, silent and observant. A ghost in fine robes. A knife dressed in diplomacy.
Leo's voice barely cut through the static in her mind. "He's already accepted."
Raevyn stepped away, the cup of cinnamon foam untouched on the counter, her knuckles white. "No."
Leo blinked, taken aback. "What?"
"I said no. Find someone else."
"You agreed to the case—"
"I agreed to the case," she snapped, turning to him with eyes that shimmered violet with fury, "not to him."
The silence crackled.
Jacqueline.
The name alone hit her like a blow.
Jac had been her partner—sunlight incarnate, all laughter and glitter and southern sass in a world made of knives and fog. Jac with her too-short shorts and glitter pens. Jac who'd called her Rae and meant it with love, not irony. Jac who could smile at the worst of monsters and make them hesitate.
It had been a simple recon—Void-touched bodies found near a rift fragment in the cliffs. They should've gone in together. But Jac had rushed ahead, impatient and reckless, like she always was.
And Raevyn had let her.
She'd found her too late. The air had tasted of copper and burning roses. The creature—a Nyxwraith, malformed and furious—was already halfway dissolved, slinking back into the tear it was born from. Jac's body lay broken in its wake, her light dimmed forever.
Raevyn hadn't screamed. She'd knelt beside her friend's body and whispered promises to the void. She'd buried Jac with her own hands.
She snapped back into the present, eyes stinging.
Leo stood in the doorway. "Raevyn, he's not Jac. No one is. But he's the best shot we have."
She didn't answer.
"I said no."
He exhaled, long and slow. "Okay."
Raevyn set the mirror down. Her hands were steady again.
"But I'll need access to everything," she added. "Every report. Every Void breach. Every death."
Leo nodded slowly. "You'll have it."
She walked past him, collected her coffee from the counter, and finally took a sip.
Raevyn sipped again. Bitter. Just how she liked it.
Leo hesitated then, the soft sound of leather shifting as he adjusted his stance. "Look," he said, more gently this time, "He's not your partner. Not in the field. Think of him as... a liaison. An analyst. A supervisor at best. He's here to support, not to shadow."
Raevyn paused, eyes narrowing. "Supervisor, huh? What's next, performance reviews and quarterly morale checks?"
Leo gave a dry chuckle. "You'd fail those spectacularly."
"I'd make a graph to show how much I don't care."
"You already did. It was shaped like a dagger."
She tilted her head. "Exactly."
"And Leo?"
"Yeah?"
"If he so much as breathes in my direction like we're friends, I'm stapling his report to his forehead."
A ghost of a smile touched Leo's lips. "Duly noted."
He moved toward the door, slowing only briefly to glance back at her. "Just… give it thought. He answers to you. Not the other way around."
Raevyn didn't reply. But the tremor in her fingers had faded, and her eyes no longer burned.
She watched the door close slowly, the sound of it soft, and stood there in the quiet, the weight of the past heavier than ever—but for the first time in years, she didn't turn away from it.
She set the cup down gently. Too gently. Her hands were trembling.
"Why him?" she asked quickly honing her voice flat to avoid suspicion.
"Because the creatures aren't random anymore. They're forming with purpose. With patterns. We need someone who can see the architecture of madness."
"And you think he'll listen to me?"
Leo shrugged. "He's already accepted. Said your reputation precedes you. Which, for someone like him, is practically poetry."
Raevyn looked again at the photo. Those eyes—unreadable, gray as fog before a storm.
"I don't like it."
Leo said before closing the door shut. "You don't have to like it. You just have to not die."
Raevyn was walking. Past the kitchen. Down the hall. Into the room she never entered unless the weight of memory demanded it.
She opened the mirrored armoire slowly, breath stuttering in her chest. Inside, beneath neatly folded blankets and charm-stitched robes, lay a polished hand mirror. Old, fae-forged, rimmed with obsidian roses. She picked it up with shaking fingers.
In its reflection, she turned her back to the glass. Slowly pulled her shirt up.
The scar ran jagged across her shoulder blade—pale against her tawny skin, still faintly glowing from old magic. A mark of fire. A mark of loss.
Jacqueline.
The name alone hit her like a blow.
And just then—like a wisp of thought—Jac's voice echoed in her mind, half-laughing, half-serious:"Try not to get yourself killed without me, Rae. That'd be rude."
Another memory followed, softer."You always frown when you think too hard," Jac had teased once, drawing a glitter heart on Raevyn's paperwork."One day that brow of yours is gonna crack open and let the sunshine in."
And one night, after a close call—bloodied but victorious—Jac had cupped her face and said,"You don't always have to be the blade, Rae. Sometimes it's okay to be the hand that holds it."
Raevyn blinked hard. Then said nothing.