The mansion waited at the edge of the city like a dying star.

Once Agnetha’s private estate, now abandoned and sealed by the Ethics Commission, it stood on a cliff overlooking Corban’s harbor (black stone, green-flame wards flickering weakly, windows like empty eyes). The MDFG-9 had silenced every curse inside, but the building itself remembered.

Laken went alone.

At 11:47 p.m., three nights after the siege, she kissed Reed on the porch (frost-fire wings ...