The car didn't stop at the gatehouse.Every noble estate Wren had ever visited stopped guests there — logged them, walked them in on foot.House Draven's driver didn't even slow down. The grounds kept unfolding after that, the way grounds only do when a house wants you to know exactly how small you are.Beasts lined the drive. Not chained. Stationed — the way soldiers stand post.Horned things the size of draft horses flanked a fountain. Something long and scaled coiled along a garden wall, one eye open, watching her pass. Further back, near the trees, shapes she didn't have names for and didn't want to guess at.House Draven didn't just have a guardian bond. House Draven had an army wearing fur and scales, standing at attention.A steward met her — not at the front doors. A side entrance. Past a hallway of portraits she didn't recognize, the air gone hushed and wrong, the kind of quiet built to remind visitors they'd already gone somewhere they weren't invited.Wrong. Something in he

"Get up," Alex commanded.Rowan got up.Alex wiped his blade once and put it away. "Listen carefully, because I'm going to say all of this exactly once.""I am listening." Rowan straightened."Lord Draven died today by his own son's hand. A family matter. A grievance twenty years old. There was no outsider in this house — no outsider at the gate, no outsider on the grounds, no outsider in this hall." Alex's voice didn't change at all. "That's the only version of today that exists. Can you hold it?""In front of who, sir?""The district magistrate. The Wardens. Everyone."Something moved across Rowan's face. It might have been the closest he'd come to a smile in a year."Then yes, sir. I can hold it." Rowan's voice went flat and certain. "Can you let me command the Draven house?"Alex nodded slowly. "It is yours.""Forty-one holdings across three districts," Rowan said. "I've kept the books on all of them since I was fifteen, because my father didn't trust a clerk and didn't consider m

Varan offered a cold, dead-eyed smile."Here’s the deal," he said. "Get on your knees. Right there, in front of the lens. Confess to murdering my brother, beg for forgiveness, and hit the floor in a ten-count kowtow.""And then?""Then it's quick. One clean cut on your neck. You won't feel it." He shrugged."And if I don't?"Varan's voice didn't change at all."Then I start with your fingers," he said. "One at a time. Then your hands. Then your arms. And I keep going until you confess. Until you beg. Until you try to kneel and find out you don't have knees anymore."Behind him, three hundred soldiers stood and listened.Six hundred thousand people watched at home.Alex looked at him. He looked almost bored."You'll die in one move," Alex said. "Why would I kneel to a dead man?"The whole factory went still.Varan let out a dry laugh. "You have no idea who you're dealing with—or the nightmare waiting for you.""Quiet," Alex said flatly. "You get one warning, and this is it. Clear out o

Cornelius Hargrove hung there in Alex's fist and finally understood the question.“You won’t dare to hurt me," he said.“Any reason you believe you are untouchable? Because thsis mayabe your last chance to still alive. “alex said."Ferrowgate." Cornelius was talking fast now. Faster. " Ferrowgate. Was on my back, if youd are to hurt me. They will destroy you and Regetn group."Sixty miles away, in Ferrowgate’s glass office with a view of the whole city, a very old man listened to a tile on his desk.Silas Kessler was seventy-one. He had white hair, a good suit, and a face like a closed ledger.He had not raised his voice in forty years. There had never been a reason to."Charges are live, sir," the tile said. "We have three inside — the girl, the Steinmeyer woman, and the target. Hargrove's in there too with some magicians form tower.""Yes," Kessler said."Sir — Mr. Hargrove and the magician are in there.""I heard you."There was a pause on the line."Sir, we can give them thirty se

White Tower stood two hours outside New Avalon, at the end of a road the state had stopped repairing.Beatrix drove them herself."You should know what you're walking into," she said."I read the file.""The file's three years old. It's worse now."She wasn't exaggerating.The gate had rust on it. Half the outer wall was scaffolded, and the scaffolding itself looked older than the crack it was holding up. Weeds came through the courtyard stones in lines, following the joints, the way weeds do when nobody has pulled them in a very long time.Alex counted four people in a courtyard built for four hundred.Two of them were sweeping. One was asleep in the sun."Five hundred years," Beatrix said quietly. "This place taught magic for five hundred years.""How many students this year?""Nine.""Out of how many applicants?"Beatrix didn't answer that one, which was an answer.If somebody had told Alex the White Tower would close next month, he wouldn't have been surprised. He wouldn't even ha