The room was dark.
Not completely.
A single blue flame flickered atop a crystal communication artifact resting on a the polished ebony table infront of her.
Its glow painted the room in shades of sapphire and shadow.
The rest of the bedroom remained hidden beneath darkness.
Luxurious curtains of deep burgundy velvet hung from tall windows. A chandelier crafted from silver crystal rested overhead, unlit. Shelves lined the walls, filled with books, ledgers, journals, and sealed lockboxes containing secrets worth more than kingdoms.
The circular bed alone was large enough to accommodate several people, draped in expensive silk imported from distant lands.
Yet none of it held Tess's attention. Her eyes remained fixed on the flame. The call had ended hours ago and it was now well into the night. The artifact should have been extinguished already. Instead she sat motionless on a cushioned chair, elbow resting on the armrest, fingers supporting her chin. She was a slender woman, shrouded in loose translucent silk that caught the faintest light and transformed it into something almost ethereal. Her features were sharp but not severe, her droopy eyes the color of aged amber, her hair a cascade of rose gold that spilled over one shoulder.
Thinking.
The blue flame danced lazily. The only witness to the storm hidden behind her calm expression.
Her fingers traced the edge of the artifact.
Jamie.
The girl had left a stronger impression than Tess had expected. A welcome one, but a surprise nonetheless. Most children were predictable.
Impulsive.
Emotional.
Easy to manipulate.
Jamie was none of those things.
She was impulsive, certainly.
Following six operatives into a hidden safehouse beneath a city qualified as madness by any reasonable standard. Yet every reckless action had concealed layers of preparation and observations. The girl entered dangerous situations willingly. But never blindly.
A small smile touched Tess's lips.
Roric.
The resemblance was irritatingly obvious.
The same habit of appearing careless while analyzing everything around them. The same tendency to laugh in situations where most people would panic. The same stubborn refusal to commit until they understood every angle of the board...
Her smile faded and her gaze lowered toward the artifact.
Tess had expected anger. She had expected grief. She had expected the kind of desperate, hungry questions that came from someone who had lost everything and was looking for something to hold onto.
Instead, Jamie had asked for information and Tess had tried to discourage her.
Not directly.
Not forcefully.
Simply enough to steer her away.
The girl hadn't budged.
Revenge was a poison that consumed the one who drank it. The need to understand, the need to uncover, the need to know—it was not the same poison, but it was poison nonetheless. It would consume her just as surely.
But Jamie had not wavered. She had not even paused because she wasn't asking for the sake of vengeance or for justice but for understanding. Because revenge implied a destination.
A conclusion.
An ending.
Jamie wasn't seeking any of those things.
"I'm not interested in revenge," the girl had said. "I want to get to the root of it. I want to know why."
The kind of understanding that exposed truths people spent entire lifetimes burying.
Tess knew because she had built an empire around that exact principle.
Information changed people. Knowledge carried consequences. Sometimes ignorance truly was mercy. Jamie would learn that eventually.
Hopefully not the hard way.
Her fingers tapped softly against the chair.
A distant memory surfaced.
Years ago...
Long before Grapevine became what it was today. Long before the powerful whispered about her organization behind closed doors. Long before kings killed for information she already possessed. Roric had come to her. A request, simple on the surface, layered with meaning beneath.
He had spoken of a woman, his wife. She was a foreigner who required documentation.
Identity records.
Citizenship papers.
The sort of thing Tess specialized in arranging.
Normally Tess would have investigated, done background checks, verification, cross-referencing and confirmed the womans identity before commiting herself.
Instead Roric had told her not to. He vouched for the woman personally. She had trusted him. Of course she had. He was Roric. He was her friend. He was one of the few people in the world she would have trusted with her life. So she had made the arrangements even though she didn't know who the woman was till this day. The final details had been overseen by Alaric and Elara. The only people besides Roric who knew the woman's true identity.
Years later, she had heard that Jamie's mother died. Murdered. The past had caught up with her. Even then Roric requested something unusual. He asked Tess not to investigate.
She had not.
The unbidden memory made her jaw tighten.
Slowly.
Painfully.
She should have looked into it. She should have used the resources at her disposal. She should have found out who was responsible, what had happened, why the woman s
he had helped conceal had been killed.
Perhaps she would have discovered something.
Anything.
A warning.
A threat.
A name.
Enough to at least give him advance notice...
Her fingers curled around the armrest. The movement was subtle.
Controlled.
Yet the emotion behind it wasn't. Because now he was dead.
Dead.
She shook her head.
No. That was the past. The past could not be changed. And even if she could go back, she knew Roric. He would have refused her help. He would have told her to stay out of it. He had always been like that—protective, stubborn, determined to bear his burdens alone.
A memory surfaced. The memory drew an unwilling smile from her. Back then she had possessed more courage than sense.
A younger Roric, standing in a dusty courtyard, a grin on his face. He had come to back her up against a group of boys who had decided that a girl from her background didn't belong among them and thought they could intimidate her. They had not known she was already trained in knifeplay. They had not known she was already deadly. And they had not known that Roric was watching from the branches of a nearby tree, ready to intervene if she faltered.
She had not faltered.
He had grinned at her afterward, clapped her on the shoulder, and said: "You had that under control huh?"
"Of course I did."
"I knew that."
"Then why were you there?"
"To watch."
She smiled at the memory. Then the smile faded.
Naturally, the had not told Jamie about her involvement with her mother. It was too soon.The girl was far too young to carry that kind of loss.
Tess exhaled slowly.
Ascension complicated matters. Children matured rapidly. Flow accelerated growth.
Mind.
Body.
Soul.
Awakened often appeared and acted older than their years until children seemed like adults. But appearances lied. Jamie might act older and she might think a bit maturely but she was still young.
No matter what the world demanded of her. No matter how many burdens she carried. No matter how convincing the act became.
Tess closed her eyes briefly.
'The truth would come later. When she was ready.' Tess muttered. For now, she had other problems.
Igor Patrovski.
The name surfaced with a familiar weight. He had contacted Grapevine months ago, requesting their courier service. A simple task: retrieve a certain object from a small island off the coast of Kemet and deliver it to a location in Aerthos.
The couriers had been successful. They had retrieved the object. They had returned to Aerthos. And then...nothing. The trail vanished completely.
No coded messages.
Nothing.
That wasn't normal.
People disappeared all the time. Information did not. Especially not from Grapevine. For ten years she had built systems specifically to prevent situations like this.
Networks.
Contacts.
Backup channels.
Emergency protocols.
Layer upon layer upon layer.
Yet somehow two of her couriers had vanished. And now S.K was dead, another fact she should have known. That bothered her more than she cared to admit. If it happened once, coincidence was possible.
Twice?
No.
Twice suggested intent.
Twice suggested interference.
Her gaze sharpened.
Who?
And more importantly—
How?
There were only two main questions to be asked here.
Is this blindspot internal or external?
An external breach could be handled. Grapevine had protocols for that. They had survived external threats before. But internal—a traitor, someone within the organization who knew the codes, the channels, the secrets—that was different. That was dangerous. That was an enemy who could destroy everything she had built.
Tess hated that possibility.
Not because it was impossible but because it was plausible. That made it dangerous, very dangerous.
How powerful are they? Do they have backing? What is their end goal?
She had no answers. Only questions.
The Hydrangea Festival was approaching in Aethelberg. It would provide cover for her agents to move more freely—a festival meant everyone would be distracted, everyone would be celebrating, everyone would be easier to watch and harder to track. Unlike missing couriers, Igor Patrovski was significantly easier to locate though actually contacting him was tricky.
She knew that he was a former chaplain connected to the Sacred Orthodox Church despite his... eccentricities. Tracking him down would take time. But not much and the festival was the perfect cover for this investigation.
The timing couldn't be better.
She stood slowly.
The silk blanket draped around her shoulders slipped slightly and the translucent fabric shimmered under the blue glow.
The movement revealed a slender frame hidden beneath layers of loose silk.
Elegant.
Graceful.
Deceptively delicate.
She crossed the room.
Bare feet silent against polished hardwood. The artifact continued burning like a tiny blue eye.
Then her gaze drifted toward the window. Toward distant lights beyond the city.
Another annoyance surfaced.
Aethelberg.
She should have established a permanent branch there years ago.
Resources.
Agents.
Infrastructure.
The location was too important.
Yet she never did. Why? Because someone had talked her out of it, her twin flame.The thought earned an irritated sigh.
'He's always cautious. Always conservative. Doesn't he know I'm older than him?'
Always insisting she think three steps further ahead.
Sometimes she wondered how two people could agree on so much while simultaneously disagreeing about everything.
"Such an uptight boy."
She sighed. He had his reasons. She knew that. But that didn't make it less frustrating.
Fortunately she possessed alternatives. Connections, favors and benefactor hidden in the shadows of the Privy Council. Influence existed in many forms. Not all of them required official branches.
Still.
A permanent presence would have made current events significantly easier.
The blue flame continued to flicker.Tess watched it silently for a long moment.
Her expression hardened, decision made. With one smooth motion she leaned forward. The blue flame vanished beneath her breath and darkness swallowed the room.
For a heartbeat everything disappeared. Then moonlight streamed through the curtains. Enough to illuminate her silhouette. Tess turned away from the table, the translucent silk slipped from her shoulders pooling softly across the floor.
She crossed toward a wardrobe carved from blackwood. Its doors opened silently and new clothing replaced the old.
Practical and elegant.
By the time she finished dressing her earlier uncertainty had vanished entirely and only resolve remained.
Somewhere inside Grapevine a leak existed. Perhaps a mole. Perhaps something more extensive Whatever the answer was she intended to find it.
Personally.
No one stole information from Grapevine.
No one hid pieces from her board.
She moved toward the door and opened it, light from the corridor spilled across the room. For the briefest moment golden light caught her hair, bright and beautiful.
And dangerous.
Then she stepped into the hallway.
The door closed behind her.