LOCATION: Remote neurological clinic

Vairo-controlled blacksite

TIME: 3:19 a.m.

The woman across from Ember had eyes like frost.

Steel-gray. Precise. Surgical.

“Subject E1–Ash,” the doctor said. “Are you ready to see what he left behind?”

Ember didn’t flinch. “Rafael’s dead.”

“Dead men still whisper if they cut deep enough.”

The doctor Dr. Lyra Dell was one of Rafael’s final recruits. Not loyal. Not sentimental. Paid to map minds and erase them.

She now ...