---
London was restless that night.
Not the ordinary kind of restlessness—the muted hum of pubs spilling laughter into cobbled streets or the midnight carriages clattering over wet stones. This was heavier. Tighter. The kind of stillness that pressed against the lungs, warning that something unnatural stalked in the alleys.
The rain fell in sheets, each drop carrying the taste of iron.
Emily Rookwood stood beneath the charmed awning of a derelict bookstore, wand at her side, her breathing sharp in the damp cold. Around her, the strike team of Aurors adjusted their enchanted gear—leather reinforced with runes, boots silenced by wards. They weren't here for a drunken brawl or a smuggler's nest. Tonight, their quarry was something else.
The Architect.
At least, the whispers claimed so. His influence had begun to stretch into London's veins, leaving behind coded parchments and subverted wards. It was too neat, too intentional. Tonight was their chance to cut off one of his channels before it solidified.
"Positions," Emily ordered, her voice clipped.
Six wizards melted into shadows, another three covered the rooftops. The bookstore's cracked sign swayed in the storm, creaking like a gallows rope. Their target was supposedly inside—a network of enchanted relay crystals seeded across London. A hub. Destroy it, and perhaps they could buy time before the Architect infected more of the city.
But Emily's gut told her this wasn't going to be simple.
---
Across the river, on the roof of a burned-out factory, Eric Dillan watched the scene unfold.
His eyes weren't just eyes anymore. The Leviathan orb—hovering like a miniature sun above his palm—projected leyline overlays across his vision. He saw the Aurors moving like faint silhouettes of heat, their wards drawn around them like spiderwebs.
He smiled.
So predictable.
So confident.
The Leviathan fed on their energy the moment they cast their detection wards. By stepping into his net, they had already bled power into his system.
"Regulus," Eric murmured.
The younger Black stood behind him, cloaked, his eyes calculating. He didn't flinch at the rain dripping from the shattered rafters. "They brought Rookwood herself," Regulus said. "Ambitious. She wants blood."
"She'll have it," Eric replied. "Just not ours."
He traced a hand through the Leviathan's interface, rethreading the city's magical arteries. Every defensive ward the Aurors raised became a pathway for him to redirect, siphon, distort. Their shields were no longer shields—they were reservoirs he could tap at will.
But Eric wasn't here for slaughter.
Not yet.
This was about demonstration.
Proof of inevitability.
---
Inside the bookstore, Emily gestured. "Clear it."
Two Aurors advanced, wands out, sending soft waves of blue light across the shelves. Books dissolved into dust—the entire shopfront was an illusion. Beyond the dissolving glamour lay the true heart of the trap: a ring of crystals humming with steady green pulses.
"Containment runes," muttered one Auror. "Advanced."
Emily stepped forward, squinting at the sequence. The runes weren't just transmitting—they were recursive, feeding back into each other. Whoever had designed this hadn't been setting up a message relay. They had built a circulatory system.
She raised her wand. "On three—"
The floor buckled.
Cracks split outward in jagged lightning patterns, swallowing shelves and beams. The crystals brightened, pulsing like a heartbeat. And then the rain outside…stopped.
Not slowed. Stopped.
Each droplet froze midair, glinting in the torchlight like a ceiling of diamonds. Aurors glanced upward, horror etching their faces.
"Wards collapsing!" shouted one.
"No," Emily whispered, chest tightening. "Not collapsing. Reversing."
The crystals shattered in unison.
---
On the rooftop, Eric's hand clenched around the Leviathan's threads. He guided the collapse, directing the shards of energy into a focused surge. The bookstore erupted with a soundless implosion—light folding inward, then blasting outward as a pulse wave that cracked windows for three streets in every direction.
But no Auror died.
That was intentional.
When the light cleared, the strike team found themselves standing in the rain again. Only now, the frozen droplets moved in reverse, sliding upward into the storm clouds. Their wands sparked erratically, unable to channel spells.
A voice drifted across the street.
Low. Calm. Precise.
"You walk into systems you do not understand. You bring fire into the Leviathan's waters and expect not to drown."
Emily spun, wand raised. Across the cobblestones, a figure stepped from the shadows—tall, cloaked, his face half-hidden. Not a mask. A presence.
The Architect.
Her pulse roared in her ears. "So it's true," she said, forcing steadiness into her voice. "You're not a ghost or a rumor. You're just a boy hiding behind stolen power."
Eric tilted his head, amusement flickering in his dark eyes. "And you're just a soldier. Brave, but replaceable."
With a flick of his fingers, the rain shifted again—forming strands of water-light that coiled like serpents between him and the Aurors.
---
Regulus watched from the roof, tense.
"Are you going to kill them?"
"No," Eric said, eyes never leaving Emily. "I'm going to show them why resistance is inefficient."
The serpents struck.
Aurors raised shields, but their barriers bled into the Leviathan's circuit, each spell unraveling into Eric's control. In seconds, their protections became bindings—watery coils hardening into chains. Wands slipped from hands, sparks sputtering into silence.
Emily was the last standing.
Her shield flared white-hot, resisting the drain longer than the others. Eric admired that. For a moment, he almost considered letting her escape—to spread the story of tonight's failure.
But she looked him dead in the eyes and snarled, "We'll burn your system to ash."
And she lunged.
---
The clash was sharp, brutal. Emily's curses cracked the air, each one honed with battlefield precision. But Eric was beyond duels now. He caught spells mid-cast, bending their trajectories into spirals that disarmed or bound without lethal force. His Nemesis gauntlet gleamed, chaining her fire curses into arcs of lightning that scorched the cobbles at her feet.
She fought like a storm.
He fought like inevitability.
When she faltered—breathing ragged, shield flickering—Eric closed the distance in three strides. His hand pressed against her wand arm, siphoning the last spark of energy from her shield into the Leviathan.
Emily dropped to her knees, panting.
Eric crouched, his voice low, almost intimate.
"Tell your masters this: the world will not burn. It will be rewritten. And you, Emily Rookwood, will watch as your fire drowns."
He released her, stepping back as the rain returned to its natural fall. The Aurors lay bound but alive, their wards absorbed, their pride shattered.
Eric turned, cloak trailing in the storm. Regulus joined him silently, his gaze unreadable.
"Too merciful," Regulus murmured as they vanished into the night.
"Not mercy," Eric corrected. "Message."
And in the silence of London, the message echoed louder than thunder.
The Architect had revealed himself.
And the war had truly begun.
---