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Marcus slammed the file shut so hard the desk lamp jumped.
Evira's ears were still ringing from the look on his face when he'd shoved the photo back into the folder. That woman. Thirty years dead, maybe. Thirty years gone, definitely. And wearing Evira's jaw, her eyes, her fucking bone structure down to the slant of the brow.
"You're out," Marcus said.
Flat. No room for argument. He was already turning away, yanking open a drawer, pulling out a second folder. This one had requisition stamps all over it. Transfer papers.
"Out where?" Evira stayed in her chair. Her legs didn't want to hold her up right now anyway.
"Out of this case. Out of my training roster. I'll reassign you to perimeter sweeps in the southern quarter. You'll finish your rookie contract there. Safe. Boring. You'll hate it."
He wasn't even looking at her. Just filling in a form, his pen scratching too fast. The letters were going to be illegible.
"My brother's already in," Evira said.
The pen stopped.
"Felix is bait," she said. "Whoever took him didn't want ransom. They wanted me to come looking. You saw that file. You saw her face. They know what I am. They knew before I did."
Marcus's hand was still frozen over the paper. The lamp buzzed. Somewhere down the hall, a door slammed, and someone laughed. Normal night in the guild barracks. Normal for everyone else.
"If I leave," Evira said, "Felix dies. Or worse. They'll bleed him to see if he's got the same thing I do. You know they will."
Marcus turned around. Slowly. His face was back to that carved-shut look he wore when they'd first met. She hated that look. It meant he'd already decided, and anything she said would just slide right off.
"Your brother's not in the file," Marcus said. "Vivian doesn't know about him. No one does. You never listed family on your intake form."
"They grabbed him three weeks before I joined. You think that's coincidence?"
"I think you're connecting dots that aren't there."
"Then show me the file again."
"No."
Evira stood up. Her chair scraped back, loud in the small room. "You saw her. She looks like me. That means she's my mother, or my aunt, or—hell, I don't know, maybe this runs in bloodlines and someone in my family got recruited thirty years ago and ended up dead. Either way, Vivian knows. She's been running this breeding program or whatever the hell it is, and I'm on her list."
Marcus's mouth thinned. He didn't argue. That was worse than if he'd yelled.
"I need you alive," he said finally. "You're the only one who can open rifts on command. The only one I've seen do it without dying. If Vivian gets her hands on you, that's it. She'll use you up, or she'll breed you, or she'll dissect you to figure out how it works. I'm not letting that happen."
The room felt too small. Evira could smell old coffee and gun oil and the faint copper tang that meant Marcus had been handling blood samples earlier. Her blood, probably. He'd drawn another vial two days ago. Said it was for testing. She hadn't asked what kind.
"You don't get to decide that," Evira said.
"I'm your instructor. Yeah, I do."
"You're not my father."
Something flickered across his face. Too fast to name. Then it was gone, and he was moving, pulling a key out of his pocket, unlocking the bottom desk drawer. He took out a leather envelope, the kind that hadn't been used in decades. The edges were cracked. The string tie was frayed.
"Her name was Kira Vane," Marcus said. He didn't open the envelope. Just held it, his knuckles white. "She was my partner for six years. Best hunter I ever worked with. She could track a target through three districts and never lose the scent. She was fast. She was smart. And she had the same thing you do."
Evira's throat went dry.
"We were tracking a rogue summoner," Marcus said. "Got too close. He cut her. Not deep. Just enough for blood. She opened a rift without meaning to. Something came through. It killed the summoner. It almost killed me. And then she was gone. Into the rift. It closed behind her. No body. No trace."
He finally looked up. His eyes were the color of old iron. "That was thirty years ago. I've been looking for her ever since. Every cold case, every disappearance, every report of illegal summoning. And now you show up. Same face. Same blood. Same stupid reckless way of throwing yourself at things that want to kill you."
Evira's chest hurt. She didn't know what to say. Didn't know if there was anything to say.
"So yeah," Marcus said. "I want you out. Because I already lost her, and I'm not losing you too."
He turned back to the desk. Picked up the pen. His hand was shaking.
Evira saw the cut then. Across his palm. Fresh. Still bleeding a little, soaking into the cuff of his sleeve. He'd been at the blood archive. The one in sub-level three, the one that was supposed to be sealed. You couldn't get in without a blood lock. Your own blood. And if you forced it, the wards bit.
"When did you open the archive?" Evira asked.
Marcus didn't answer.
She stepped around the desk. Grabbed his wrist before he could pull away. The blood was still wet. The cut was deep, clean-edged. Ward bite. Definitely.
"You went in without clearance," Evira said. "You triggered the fail-safe. Marcus, that's a council violation. They'll pull your license. They'll—"
"I had to know." His voice was quiet. Raw. "I had to see if there were more. If Kira's samples were still there. If they logged her bloodwork before she disappeared."
"And?"
"They did. And it matches yours. Same markers. Same activation threshold. Same genetic sequence in the summoning catalyst region."
Evira's grip tightened. "So she's my mother."
"Or your aunt. Or your cousin. I don't know. The file doesn't list family. Just her intake forms and field reports. And one last entry, dated the day she vanished."
"What did it say?"
Marcus pulled his hand free. Wiped the blood on his pants. "It said Vivian Ash logged a request to study her. Voluntary participation. Kira signed it."
The room tilted.
"She knew," Evira said. "She knew Vivian was dirty."
"Or she trusted her. Vivian wasn't a council member back then. She was just a senior researcher. Well-respected. Published. No one suspected."
"And then Kira disappeared."
"Yeah."
Evira's hands were cold. She shoved them in her pockets. Felt the small glass vial she'd stolen from the blood sample lockup last week. Insurance. In case Marcus turned on her. In case anyone did.
"I'm not running," she said.
Marcus's jaw tightened. "Evira—"
"No." She stepped closer. Close enough to see the scar on his collarbone, the one he said came from a wolf contract gone wrong. Close enough to smell the blood on his sleeve. "You've been doing this alone for thirty years. Looking for her. Trying to find out what happened. And you're still doing it alone. Still taking hits from wards, still bleeding yourself to get into archives you're not supposed to touch. No more."
She grabbed his hand again. The bleeding one. Held it between both of hers.
"No more solo martyr crap," she said. "We do this together. You help me find Felix. I help you find Kira. And we take Vivian down before she breeds any more of us."
Marcus stared at her. For a long moment, he didn't move. Didn't pull away. Didn't agree.
Then he let out a breath. Nodded once.
"Fine," he said. "But we do this smart. No rushing in. No grand gestures. We gather evidence first. We figure out who Vivian's working with. And we find out what they're really trying to summon."
"Deal."
Marcus pulled his hand back. Wrapped it in a clean rag from his desk drawer. "The archive has a second file room. Restricted access. If Vivian logged Kira's study request, there should be notes. Results. Maybe even a location."
"Can you get us in?"
"Not legally."
Evira almost smiled. "Good thing I'm already breaking rules."
Marcus's mouth twitched. Not quite a smile. But close.
They went down together.
Sub-level three was colder than Evira remembered. The lights were dimmer too, flickering every few seconds like the wiring couldn't handle the draw. The blood archive door was still open. Marcus must've left it that way when he came up.
Inside, the air smelled like iron and preservatives. Rows of filing cabinets lined the walls, each one labeled with year ranges. The newest samples were in the back. The oldest were up front, behind a second locked door.
Marcus headed straight for it. Pulled out a thin metal pick, worked it into the lock. Evira kept watch, listening for footsteps. The hall was empty. Most of the guild was either out on contracts or asleep. Only the night watch was up, and they stayed on the main floors.
The lock clicked. Marcus pushed the door open.
The room beyond was smaller. Darker. No windows. Just one overhead light, buzzing like it was about to die. The filing cabinets here were older, wood instead of metal. The labels were handwritten.
Marcus went straight to the back. Pulled open a drawer marked 1994–1996.
Flipped through folders. Stopped.
"Here," he said.
He pulled out a file. Thin. Too thin. Evira's stomach dropped before he even opened it.
Marcus opened it anyway.
The first three pages were intake forms. Kira's photo was clipped to the top—young, maybe mid-twenties, dark hair pulled back, eyes sharp. She looked ready to fight. She looked like Evira.
The fourth page was a blood work summary. The fifth was a field report, signed by Marcus. The sixth—
The sixth was gone.
The paper was torn. Ragged edge still caught in the folder's metal clasp. Someone had ripped it out. Recently. The edges weren't yellowed like the others.
Marcus's face went blank.
Evira leaned in. Saw the corner of a wax seal still stuck to the torn edge. Dark red. Stamped with a small emblem—a triangle inside a circle.
Vivian's personal seal.
And it was still warm.