The car pulled away from the estate's outer perimeter with its headlights off, gliding down a service road that wound through the trees like a vein. Jason sat behind the wheel, watching the mirrors more than the road ahead.Vivie sat in the passenger seat, legs swinging slightly since they didn't reach the floor, looking entirely too pleased with herself for someone who had just severed a Congressman's arm."You didn't have to break his arm off," Jason said, glancing sideways at her."He tried to hit a panic button," Vivie said, shrugging. "Besides, a warning that doesn't hurt isn't a warning. It's a suggestion. Men like him ignore suggestions."Jason didn't argue the point. She wasn't wrong."How's the frame holding up?" he asked instead. "Monroe buying it?""Completely." Vivie's smile widened, sharp and satisfied. "He already thinks it's Upstream. I heard him muttering Neil Voss's name before I even left the room. Man practically built the theory himself.""Good." Jason exhaled slow

Inside Javelin Guild's private conference room, President Kyle Harrison tapped a finger against the polished table, watching the scandal unfold across three separate screens mounted on the wall."Upstream's crippled. Summit Group's reeling. And apparently even the mystical forces are distracted right now, whatever's going on with Vivian Cross's disappearance," he said, glancing toward his subordinates. "This is our window."One of his executives leaned forward. "Window for what exactly?""To finally climb into the Big Three," Harrison said, a slow smile forming. "We just need the right talent to make it happen. Someone with a name recognizable enough to shake the industry the moment they sign with us.""There's one obvious answer," another executive offered. "Aria Reeves."Harrison's smile widened. "The Great Mage herself. Weakened, sure, still rebuilding her old strength. But desperate people make convenient deals. And now that she's been cast in that movie role, her reputation's cli

The moment Aria's line left her lips, the sky above the set cracked open with a sound like thunder splitting stone.Real lightning forked across the artificial storm clouds rigged overhead, far too bright and far too loud to have come from any of the equipment the crew had set up. Wind tore through the set with sudden ferocity, whipping loose papers and light debris into the air.Crew members ducked instinctively, several of them shouting in alarm, while others stared upward in stunned confusion."What in the hell was that?" one of the lighting technicians yelled, scrambling backward.Charlie's eyes went wide as she stared at the display above them, then snapped toward her assistant director. "Did we authorize new effects? Who cleared this?"Her assistant shook his head frantically. "Nothing on the schedule, ma'am. That wasn't us."Charlie turned to look at Aria, still standing in the middle of the chaos, completely unshaken by the storm swirling around her, her expression locked into

Aria stood in the middle of the now empty set, the crew gathered at a cautious distance, watching with a mixture of curiosity and nervous anticipation."Just do what you did earlier," Jason called out. "Show her the range."Aria took a steadying breath, gathering her magic power, and let it loose across the set.The ground cracked beneath her feet as compressed wind tore through the standing structures, shredding a mock building facade into splinters within seconds. Sparks of lightning arced overhead, illuminating the destruction in flashes of white light.Crew members gasped, several stepping back instinctively as debris scattered across the set floor.Then, just as quickly, Aria reversed the spell, magic power flowing backward through the wreckage. The splinters reassembled themselves piece by piece, the facade rebuilding itself from nothing until it stood exactly as it had before, not a scratch out of place.Silence blanketed the set. Charlie stared at the fully restored structure

Inside his office on the fourth floor, Superintendent Shim Hyuk-soo stared at the folder on his desk with the particular dread of a man who had been burned twice before and had no reason to expect a third time would be any different."Remind me why I agreed to this again," he muttered, rubbing at his temples.His subordinate, Yang Ji-ho, sighed from the doorway, arms crossed over a stack of case files. "Because the network insisted, sir, and turning down an S-rank ambassador looks bad on the department's public image.""The last two ambassadors made me want to retire early," Shim Hyuk-soo said, voice flat with old resentment. "The one from Golden Wave spent the entire first meeting complaining that our building didn't have valet parking. Valet parking. For a crime prevention office that investigates missing persons and Awakener related deaths.""And the one before that treated every officer here like personal staff," Yang Ji-ho added, grimacing at the memory. "Made one of the interns