Location: Ashwick Corridors — Andreas Ferrano's Private Suite — Night
The room was wrong.
Not the furniture—the furniture was the same: dark wood, leather chairs, the massive desk where Andreas had spent countless sleepless nights. Not the lighting—the lamps still glowed amber, casting the same shadows across the same walls.
The people were wrong.
Andreas sat in his chair, but his body was not his own. His spine was curved, his shoulders hunched, his hands pressed flat against the desk as if he was trying to push himself through the wood and disappear on the other side. His eyes were wide, too wide, the whites showing all around. They moved constantly—left, right, left—tracking Elijah's face, the door, the window, back to Elijah's face.
He knows, Andreas thought. He knows there's something inside me. Something that doesn't belong. Something that—
His hand moved to his chest.
His fingers pressed against his sternum.
It's still there. I can feel it. Wiggling. Waiting.
Watching through my eyes.
Roman sat on the couch.
His body was rigid, military, the posture of a man who had been taught to stand at attention and had forgotten how to relax. His scarred face was pale, almost gray. His hands were clasped in his lap, fingers interlaced so tightly that the knuckles had gone white. His eyes were fixed on a point on the floor somewhere between his feet.
I should kill him, Roman thought. I should kill him and run. I should—
His hand twitched.
His fingers didn't move.
I can't. My body won't listen.
The centipede won't let me.
Mei-Lin stood near the window.
Her arms were crossed over her chest. Her crimson dress was rumpled, still torn at the shoulder from the fight. Her hair was loose, falling across her face. Her eyes were fixed on the street below, on the dark windows of the buildings across the way, on anything that wasn't Elijah.
I can feel it, she thought. Moving behind my eyes. Crawling through my thoughts.
It doesn't hurt. That's what scares me.
It doesn't hurt at all.
Elijah sat in the center of the room.
His posture was relaxed. His hands were folded in his lap. His face—Diego's face, soft and round and forgettable—was calm.
Ferrano, he thought. The corridors. The restaurants. The drugs. The money.
I thought it was the center. The heart of the operation. The place where decisions were made and orders were given and the money flowed outward like blood from a heart.
It's not.
It's a station. A tower. One of many.
Like communication relays scattered across the country—each one receiving, each one transmitting, each one funneling money upward to something bigger.
Vaulcoins. Digital currency. Untraceable. Like Bitcoin, but different. Like Ethereum, but colder. The kind of money that leaves , no paper trail, no evidence.
Fifty percent of the profit from each corridor goes upward. To the Lacera faction. To Zhang Han.
Fifteen percent goes to the corrupt cops. The ones who look the other way. The ones who take envelopes of cash and pretend they didn't see.
The rest—the scraps—is divided among the people here. The ones who do the work. The ones who take the risks. The ones who think they're in charge.
And Andreas thinks he's the king.
He's not even a pawn.
Elijah's internal thoughts churned.
The Mysterium clan, he thought. I knew they were powerful. I knew they had their claws in everything. But this—
This is different.
This isn't a spiderweb. It's a lattice. A grid. A structure that spans the entire country, and probably beyond.
And I've only seen one node.
One tower.
One station.
How many more are there?
How deep does it go?
---
Wonko's voice pressed against his skull.
"You sound surprised."
"I am surprised."
"You underestimated them."
"Yes."
"Naive. Naive and foolish and—"
"I know."
Wonko was silent for a moment.
Then he chuckled.
Not a happy sound.
"Do you understand now? Do you see? The Ferrano corridors are not the epicenter. They never were. They're a backwater. A small operation. A drop in the ocean."
"I see."
"The Mysterium clan is unfathomable. You cannot comprehend an organization where something as powerful as the Epsilon program—the thing that broke you, the thing that made you—was just one initiative among hundreds."
He paused.
"And they are not even the top."
Elijah's internal voice was quiet.
"What do you mean?"
"They are the fruition of someone else's idea. Someone else's vision. The real powers—the unfathomable beings—they are beyond you. Beyond me. Beyond anything you can imagine."
"How strong?"
"Strong enough that you should be afraid."
Elijah was silent.
"I am afraid," he thought.
"Good."
"But I'm not going to stop."
Wonko sighed.
"I know."
---
A knock at the door.
Three raps. Slow. Deliberate.
Andreas's head snapped toward the sound. His hands pressed harder against the desk. His breath came in short, shallow gasps.
"Come in," Elijah said.
The door opened.
A man stepped inside.
He was tall—not massive, but lean, the kind of lean that came from centuries of training, not months. His hair was silver, long, pulled back in a tight knot. His face was ageless—impossible to guess his age, impossible to read his expression. His eyes were pale, almost colorless, and they moved across the room with the patience of a predator who had never needed to hurry.
He wore a dark coat, tailored, expensive. His hands were gloved. His boots were polished.
He looked at Andreas.
Andreas flinched.
He looked at Roman.
Roman's knuckles went whiter.
He looked at Mei-Lin.
Mei-Lin's arms tightened across her chest.
"Leave us," the man said.
His voice was quiet. Not loud. Not commanding. Just... present.
Andreas stood.
His body moved without his permission.
His face was the face of a man watching himself drown.
He walked toward the door. His steps were stiff, mechanical. His eyes were fixed on Elijah—not with anger, with pleading.
Help me, his eyes said. Please. Help me.
Roman followed.
His body was rigid. His scarred face was pale. He didn't look at Elijah. He didn't look at anyone. His eyes were fixed on the floor.
Mei-Lin followed.
Her crimson dress whispered against her thighs. Her hair swayed. Her face was calm, but her hands—clasped behind her back—were trembling.
The door closed behind them.
Elijah and the man were alone.
---
The man sat.
Not in Andreas's chair. In the chair across from Elijah. The leather creaked beneath his weight. His hands rested on his knees. His pale eyes studied Elijah's face.
"Your little antics," he said.
His voice was amused.
"The casino. The phone call. The way you manipulated Roman and Mei-Lin into fighting each other. The way you turned them against one another."
He tilted his head.
"None of it escaped me."
Elijah's expression didn't change.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Of course you do."
The man's lips curled.
"I have eyes everywhere. Ears everywhere. The Ferrano corridors are full of them. You think I wouldn't notice when my subordinates started acting... strangely? When Andreas began trembling at shadows? When Roman's men stopped reporting? When the Muchachos all started moving in unison, like puppets on the same string?"
He leaned forward.
"I knew something was wrong. So I watched. And I waited. And I saw."
"Saw what?"
"You."
The man's eyes narrowed.
"You, with your soft face and your soft voice and your soft hands. You, who appeared from nowhere and wormed your way into Andreas's confidence. You, who killed a man in a bathroom and made it look like an accident."
He paused.
"You, who uses the old arts."
Elijah's internal thoughts churned.
The old arts, he thought. He knows about the Xototl. He knows about the centipedes.
How?
"There is a tale," the man said. "An old one. From six centuries ago, when the aristocrats of European continent were overthrown by invaders from beyond the stars."
He settled back in his chair.
"They came in silence. In shadow. In dreams. They wore the skins of the dead and walked among the living. And no one knew—not at first—because they were careful. Patient. They replaced the lords and ladies one by one, and by the time anyone noticed, it was too late."
"What does that have to do with me?"
"The invaders brought arts with them. Strange arts. Arts that had never been seen on this world. One of them was the art of puppetry—the ability to control the bodies of others, to make them move like dolls, to make them speak like parrots."
He raised his hand.
His fingers moved—slow, deliberate—as if conducting an invisible orchestra.
"The mechanists called it the Soul Weave. A gift from beings who dwell in the frequency fields of the sun. A technique passed down through generations, from master to student, from servant to servant."
"And you think I have it?"
"I know you have it."
The man's eyes met Elijah's.
He smiled.
"I've seen it before. The Erynder clan—of which Wycliffe are dogs to—they practice a similar art. But theirs is refined. Elegant. Yours is... rough. Brutal. Effective, but rough."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Of course you don't."
The man's smile widened.
"You must be wondering why I haven't alerted the Lacera. Why I haven't told the three families about you. Why I haven't called for reinforcements and had you eliminated."
"The thought had crossed my mind."
"Because I'm curious."
He leaned forward.
"Your path is... deviated. The Erynder would never lower themselves to work for mortals. They would never hide in a place like this, wearing a face like that, pretending to be someone they're not."
"So who are you?"
"That's what I want to find out."
The man's eyes moved across Elijah's face.
"You're not Diego. You're not even from here. You're Nathan Drayke—the foreign bloke who humiliated the Morreccas. The one who walked out of the Freakshow alive. The one who survived an encounter with the Erynder clan's prototype aethernova user."
Elijah's expression shifted.
Not much. Just enough.
"How do you know that?"
"The Calvetti have eyes everywhere. And ears. And sources. You think your little tricks would escape their notice? You think the death of Frederick Morrecca and the disappearance of his godson would go unremarked?"
He laughed.
"You're not as clever as you think, Mr. Drayke. Not everyone is as dumb as you imagine. I am of the noble Sutran race. My ancestors have walked this earth since the dawn of civilization. We have survived resets, cataclysms, the rise and fall of empires. Do not think that one mortal can steer trouble through puny antics that don't lead anywhere."
He stood.
"Do not poke the bear. Even if it appears kind. You might not like what wakes up."
---
He walked to the window.
His back was to Elijah.
"Something happened months ago," he said. "Something that caused panic in the Mysterium clan. A disturbance. A tremor. A star node opened—a beacon—and the frequency that emerged from it was... unprecedented."
He turned.
"One in a hundred billion. That's what the analysts said. The probability of such an event occurring naturally was one in a hundred billion."
"What are you talking about?"
"The Mandate."
Elijah's blood went cold.
"The celestial empress of the inner and outer lands. The power that appears once every few millennia. The thing that the Sutran have been waiting for—and dreading—since the first reset."
He stepped closer.
"You know what I'm talking about, don't you? You've felt it. The power inside you. The thing that makes you different. The thing that makes you dangerous."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Of course you do."
The man stopped in front of Elijah.
"Right now, there is strife among the Sutran bloodline. A clash of ideals. A war of philosophies. The old way versus the new. And —the return of the Mandate—has raised the stakes."
"Raised them how?"
"Another reset is coming. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But soon."
He spread his arms.
"I will leave all of this for you to digest. To wonder about. To analyze. Come up with your own conclusions."
He walked toward the door.
"You have a lot to think about, Mr. Drayke. I suggest you start now."
The door opened.
He stepped through.
The door closed.
---
Wonko's voice was quiet.
"Your cover is blown, boy."
"I know."
"I told you. Your cheekiness would be your undoing."
"I know."
Elijah leaned back in his chair.
His eyes were fixed on the door.
"But I'm still here."
"For now."
"That's all that matters."
He closed his eyes.
The room was silent.
---