Dmitri’s palm hit the desk, papers bursting away and some sliding across the timber floor. “You let the Knight walk, and now we’re paying for it.”

  Indigo Crane sighed, removed his glasses, and pinched the bridge of his nose. He wondered, not for the first time, how a man of such predictable temper had climbed so high in the organisation.

  “We agreed that Sir Damien wasn't a prisoner. He was a guest. And I was unaware our elite surveillance teams could be outmanoeuvred by a homeless man breaching a secure perimeter.”

  “Are you blaming me, Professor?”

  “Not at all. But as you know, my jurisdiction is research.” Indigo tilted his head, a small hint of amusement in his voice. “Suffice to say, beyond tracking quantum signatures and studying interdimensional anomalies, I am quite useless, Chief.”

  Dmitri glared at him, knowing full well the subtle jab. “We’re overstretched. Agents are deployed globally to contain this so-called ‘flu’ and everything that’s come with it. Half of them are sick themselves.”

  Indigo pulled out a checked handkerchief and began to polish his lenses. “Before we address the flu, let me be clear: what’s done is done. Sir Damien walked out, took a jet and a pilot, and was gone before I had the chance to stop him.”

  “And your quantum computer still hasn’t found him?” Dmitri’s irritation was clear. “Facial recognition is too much to ask?”

  Indigo slid his glasses back on and looked up. “The system has two live priorities. One: track the wormhole linked to his origin. Two: predict crimes and deploy agents in advance. The surge in sexual assault predictions has pushed it close to capacity.”

  “So have our field teams, or what’s left of them. Even the Van Nassaus offered people.”

  “Are they affected too?” Indigo asked.

  “They’re not exactly known for sharing data, are they? Tell me, Professor, is the Eye a portal or not?”

  “We’ve compared Damien’s quantum resonance with the distortions surrounding the Eye. The results remain…” Indigo paused. “…inconclusive.”

  "Translate.”

  “It means if Damien reaches The Eye, there are two outcomes. One: he steps through, the anomaly collapses and our research goes down the drain.”

  “And the other?” Dmitri’s eyes narrowed.

  “He attacks it and opens something we’re not equipped to contain,” Indigo replied.

  “You’re absolutely certain?”

  Indigo nodded. “The flu is not behaving like a normal virus. The symptoms indicate a kind of neuroimmune collapse, as if their own arcane energy is turning against them. The spike in sexual assault cases might be linked.”

  “So this isn’t contagious? You’re saying it’s supernatural?”

  “It isn’t moving through contact,” Indigo explained. “The pattern is too scattered, too global. Think external disruptor, perhaps a frequency that vitiates cognition.”

  “English, Crane. What the hell does that mean?”

  “Something we don’t yet understand, likely tied to the Smoke Monster we disturbed when we touched the Eye.”

  Dmitri’s fist hit the desk. “I thought we agreed to stop assigning blame.”

  Indigo sighed again. “I’m not assigning blame. I’m setting priorities. And right now, our priority is finding Sir Damien before this spirals beyond control.”

  Dmitri’s jaw clenched so tightly it looked painful. His temper was a weapon, but Indigo had long since learned how to let it pass through him like wind.

  Finally, Dmitri leaned back. “What’s your proposal?”

  Indigo smiled. “Suspend quantum frequency mapping.”

  “But—“

  “Temporarily,” Indigo added. “We need to maintain the assault-pattern predictions, and redirect the rest of the system’s processing to scanning Alchymia. And the wider world, to be thorough.”

  “And how do you plan to bring the Knight back?”

  Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

  “We reinstate Adrian Van Nassau.”

  Dmitri froze. “You cannot be serious.”

  “Adrian’s persuasion Gift is the best chance of talking Damien down.”

  “He humiliated himself in public.”

  “Under our orders,” Indigo countered. “As our scapegoat. But Chief Advisor… there is only one person who can convince Sir Damien. What would you choose?”

  Dmitri’s fingers tapped against the desk.

  He had maneuvered Adrian out of the equation using the Blackwood scandal. It had been a strategic move to rid the Council of a Van Nassau, a family he had never trusted and never wanted in their ranks.

  But now… it was either let the world spiral or seek their help. If Adrian was their best chance, then there was no real choice at all.

  “Fine.” Dmitri conceded. “I’ll make the arrangements.”

  And he hated, more than anything, that Indigo Crane was right.

  Astra leaned closer to Eydis until their shoulders brushed. Together they went through pandemic reports on Eydis’s laptop. So far, the illness was described only as a mysterious fever with no trace of a viral strain, reaching across the continents.

  Eydis spoke quietly. “Why is the Council pushing this as just a flu? What are they trying to hide?”

  “The real question is… what aren’t they hiding?”

  “Ah. Omission. Tell the masses just enough to keep them complacent.” Eydis paused. “Even to you?”

  Astra nodded.

  "I wonder if the scale of this issue is limited to just the flu,” Eydis mused.

  “Especially now that it’s global.” Astra gestured to the spread of red across the world map. “Do your Sins usually have this much reach?”

  That was exactly what Eydis wanted to know.

  Since when had Lust gone viral?

  “Not as I knew it,” she said.

  “You sound uncertain.”

  “Lust is a connoisseur. A voyeur. So it watches.” Eydis met Astra’s gaze. “Intimately.”

  “So it couldn’t watch multiple people at once?”

  “Temptation is a slow unravelling. Lust likes to immerse itself, to savour the experience. Mass corruption was never its style, or its strength. And yet, somehow, it has corrupted this many people this quickly.”

  Eydis paused. “Though… the effects weren’t as severe as I expected.”

  Severe, as in something more devastating than a flu.

  Astra seemed to understand. “The Council is doing what it can. But this world isn’t like ours. Could Lust evolve?”

  “Not in raw power. But adapt? Exploit? Absolutely."

  Astra clicked another link. The screen changed to show a breakdown of cases. "The spread isn’t uniform. It’s global, but look…” She traced the densest zones with her fingertip. “Most cases are in the US. Meanwhile, China and Iran have almost no recorded cases.”

  Eydis’s eyes narrowed. It did not add up. Lust should have first appeared in Alchymia, where magic was raw and volatile, where Natalia and, apparently, Melissa’s date had already succumbed.

  “That’s not a coincidence, Astra. What makes them different?”

  “Genetic resistance, perhaps. Political landscape, perhaps.” Astra studied a few neighbouring countries. “If that were the case, these regions would show similar immunity.” She pointed at places where the spread persisted. “They don’t.”

  She turned to Eydis. “The Sins you’ve already captured… how did they adapt?”

  Eydis tapped her lips, and Astra’s crimson eyes flicked toward the movement, seemingly distracted for just a second.

  “Gluttony manipulated cold-storage systems, poisoning food supplies without detection. Greed exploited betting networks, toyed with the Blackwood election, and preyed on gamblers and socialites chasing an ‘unpredictable’ win.”

  “So… technology.”

  “But global influence…” Eydis’s eyes widened. “Unless it’s using a medium to amplify itself...”

  Astra stiffened beside her. Their gazes met. “The internet,” they said in unison.

  A long silence followed.

  Eydis let out an unimpressed sigh. “Oh, of course. Lust finally figured out how to go viral—literally.”

  “And, a certain website that's conveniently banned in the unaffected nations.” Astra’s cheeks dusted pink as she cleared her throat. “It’s—”

  “—I know,” Eydis said. She didn’t need Astra to name it. She already knew.

  Because she’d visited that cursed adult site last weekend. She hadn’t watched for long, of course—a second, maybe two. She could justify it as curiosity, or simply an academic interest in the mechanics of influence.

  And yet…

  The videos had been everywhere. Alluring in the way a fire was, even as it threatened to burn. She had dismissed them, but not as quickly as she should have.

  Because for a moment, she had wondered.

  What if—She left the thought unfinished.

  If Lust had embedded itself within the vast sprawl of the internet, then tracking it down would mean navigating its domain.

  That presented a complication: she wasn’t entirely sure she could do that without…

  Astra’s gaze flickered toward her, assessing in that sharp way of hers. “I could ask my—”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Eydis cut her off.

  "You don't trust him?"

  “I trust no one from the Council, Astra. Least of all him. We agreed. No outside involvement. If we bring him in, we risk exposure."

  Eydis expected resistance, a logical counterpoint about priorities, maybe a sigh of exasperation and some tightly worded comment about her paranoia.

  Instead, Astra’s lips quirked. “Interesting way to avoid saying you're jealous.” Her voice was light, teasing.

  Eydis blinked. "Jealous? That's a—"

  "—pedestrian emotion," Astra finished for her, her smirk settling into something small but irrevocably insufferable. “Defensive, Your Majesty.”

  Infuriating. Unbearably attractive.

  Eydis tipped her chin as though she were considering something of great importance. Then, she laughed. “Oh, I’m not defending anything.”

  Astra’s breath caught; so brief, so faint, that anyone else might have missed it.

  Not Eydis.

  “But I do wonder…” She let her gaze wander, linger, before meeting Astra’s again. “If I were jealous… what, exactly, would you do about it?”

  Astra leaned in. “I’d say… You’re not making this easy for me.”

  “To do what?”

  Astra’s next words were almost too quiet to catch. “To be patient.”

  Eydis could hear her own breathing, feel the way Astra looked at her. She almost leaned forward to close the distance.

  But not now, with Lust still out there, and the last thing Eydis could afford was Astra waking up one day and looking at her with regret.

  Regret.

  Just like Natalia had. And Natalia wouldn’t even speak to her now. But if it came from Astra?

  No. No.

  Astra seemed to sense the change and drew back. “We’ll find another way, Eydis. To track Lust.”

  Eydis nodded, even as uncertainty continued to grow.

  “We’ll find another way.”