"...why bother coming down here yourself?"Thorne's smile deepened, slow and warm, the smile of a man who had been waiting a very long time to be asked exactly that question."Because I wanted to be standing here when it opened," he said.He tilted his head toward the steel door at the far end of the cellar."That vault was never built to keep people out, Mr. Brown. Locks like that are easy. Any competent thief with a few hours and the right tools could defeat one." His eyes came back to Ethan, bright and unblinking. "That vault was built to wait. It answers to one kind of signature, and in the eight years I have owned this estate, it has answered to none. Not mine. Not Gorman's. Not the signature of any Awakener I have ever hired, bribed, or broken."Lira drew a sharp breath beside Ethan. "The biometric check," she whispered. "It was never asking for permission.""No," said Thorne. "It was asking for a Sovereign."The word fell into the cellar like a stone into a well.Renata's face

The east wall was forty meters away, and it might as well have been on the moon.Ethan ran flat out across the courtyard with the Core burning against his palm and the antidote crushed to his ribs, and the floodlights turned the whole vineyard into a stage where every shadow had been stripped away and every man in the Sable Court could see exactly where he was going. Engines roared at the gates. Boots hammered stone. Somewhere behind him, slow and unhurried and getting closer, a pair of polished shoes struck the cobbles in a rhythm that did not match the chaos at all.[Gorman defeated. EXP gained: 900.][LEVEL UP! HOST LEVEL: 3.][All Physical Abilities upgraded to Level 3.]Power surged through his legs like a second heartbeat. The ground felt lighter under his feet, the air thinner, and for a single wild instant Ethan understood that he was faster than he had been ten seconds ago. It wasn't enough. He knew it the moment he saw the culvert grate at the base of the wall, and the two m