THE DISCARDED SON-IN-LAWS GOD-LEVEL DOMINION SYSTEM

Chapter 23

The roof of the Hawthorne Hotel was cold and windy.

Ethan stepped out through the service door into the dark. The party was still going on far below, and the sound of music drifted up like an echo from another world. A thin rain had begun. He did not mind. Water ran down the back of his collar and made him feel awake.

Isabella Hawthorne stood at the edge of the roof with her arms wrapped around herself. The green gown clung wet to her shoulders. Her black hair had come loose from its pins. She turned when she heard his footsteps, and for a moment her cool, controlled face looked almost fragile.

"You came," she said.

"You left a note in my coat pocket."

"I was afraid you would not read it."

"I read everything." He stopped about five steps away from her. "You asked me to meet you alone. I did. Now tell me what you want."

She looked at him for a long moment. The wind pulled at her hair. "I want to stop being my father's daughter."

Ethan said nothing.

"My family has served the Dragon Court for four generations," Isabella said. "For most of that time, we were loyal. My grandfather loved your grandfather like a brother. When I was a child, I remember Alexander Cross visiting our house. He gave me a small wooden dragon and told me that dragons were not monsters. They were guardians." She smiled faintly, but her eyes were wet. "I kept it for years."

"And your father?"

"My father was not like his father." Her mouth tightened. "He is weak. Greedy. Afraid. When Sterling called for the fire, my father said yes in the same breath. He told me later it was for the family. I was fifteen. I understood nothing. I understand now."

The rain fell softly between them.

"You were a child," Ethan said.

"I was old enough to ask questions. I did not." She turned her face away. "That is the part I cannot forgive."

For a time neither of them spoke. Below, the doors of the hotel opened and shut. A car drove away down the wet street.

"What do you want me to do?" Ethan asked.

"Take this." She took a small silver flash drive from her sleeve and held it out. "Julian has been poisoning people for years. Rivals. Witnesses. A reporter who started asking about the Cross fire. Everything is recorded. Dates. Names. The antidote he carries. I took it from my father's safe last month."

Ethan took the drive. It was warm from her hand.

"Why give it to me?"

"Because in three days you walk into the Silver Pavilion. And the Pillars will not let you leave it alive." She turned back to face him. "Unless something changes the balance."

"The balance."

"They fear four things," Isabella said. "Their own secrets. The Seal. The Shadow Guard turning against them. And the old law."

"What old law?"

"The Court was founded on a single rule. No Pillar may harm the Dragon Head's blood inside the walls of the Pavilion. It has not been broken in a hundred years. The first man to break it would lose his seat, his name, and his house." She stepped closer. "My father has been trying to find a way around it ever since the fire. That is why they need you to sign. A signed dissolution cancels the law. Without your signature, no one can touch you inside the walls."

Ethan frowned. "Then why have they been sending assassins?"

"Because outside the walls, you are fair game. They want you dead before the thirty-first so that the seat can be declared void without you." She hesitated. "Or they want you scared enough to sign."

The System opened quietly in his sight.

[Information confirmed: Pavilion law.]

[Hidden mission update: Survive until midnight, October thirty-first.]

Ethan slipped the flash drive into his pocket. "What else?"

"The Shadow Guard." Isabella's voice dropped. "Their captain is a man called Ghost. No one knows his real name. He is the best fighter in the city. Possibly in the country. He has never been defeated. He is the only person my father is afraid of."

"I will remember."

"There is one more thing." She stepped back and wrapped her arms around herself again. "Someone close to you is telling the Pillars where you go. The river road, the estate. They knew within an hour each time. It is not a stranger."

Ethan's eyes narrowed. "You know who?"

"No." She shook her head. "I only know that someone inside your household is a spy. I am sorry."

The wind gusted. The edge of the roof glittered with wet light. Ethan looked at Isabella for a long moment. Then he nodded.

"Thank you."

"Do not thank me." She gave a thin, sad smile. "I have not done anything yet."

He turned toward the door. His hand was on the handle when a sound came from the other side of the roof. A small, soft, mechanical click.

He moved before he thought. He spun and tackled Isabella to the wet concrete just as a bullet struck the wall where she had been standing. Chips of stone flew. The echo cracked across the night.

"Down!"

A second shot tore through the air above them. A third. The bullets hit the stone parapet in a ragged line. Ethan pulled Isabella behind a metal ventilation housing and pressed her flat against the ground.

[Warning: Sniper. Distance: Two hundred meters. Position: Opposite rooftop, northeast.]

[War God Template: Cooldown complete.]

Ethan breathed out slowly. The rain ran down his face. The world sharpened. He could see the glint of a scope on the far roof. He could hear the breath of the gunman across a gap of two hundred meters. He could see the man's finger tighten.

"Stay here," he told Isabella.

"What are you..."

He moved.

Out from behind the housing he ran, low and fast, across the open roof. A bullet struck where his foot had been a half second before. Another cracked past his ear. The War God's speed carried him across the wet concrete like a shadow. He reached the edge of the roof and leapt without stopping.

The gap between the buildings was eight meters. Ethan crossed it in the air with the rain streaming past him. He landed on the far roof in a crouch and rolled. The gunman, a thin man in black with a long rifle, saw him come and swung the barrel around. Ethan caught the barrel in one hand, bent it upward, and drove his elbow into the man's jaw. The rifle clattered across the roof. The man dropped unconscious in the rain.

Ethan stood over him, breathing steadily. He lifted the man's wrist and found a small silver tattoo on the inside of the arm. A tiny black crescent moon with three lines under it.

The mark of the Shadow Guard.

He looked across the gap to the Hawthorne roof. Isabella had come out from behind the housing and was standing at the edge, her wet dress clinging to her, staring at him with wide eyes.

A few minutes later, she appeared through the stairwell door of the building where he stood. She had run down one set of stairs and up another. Her shoes were in her hand. Her hair was dripping. She stopped a few steps from him and looked at the man on the ground, then at the bent rifle, then at Ethan.

"You jumped," she said. "Across the street. Eight meters."

"Please do not mention it to anyone."

"Who would believe me?" A shaky laugh escaped her. She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth. Her fingers were trembling. "I have never been shot at before."

"I am sorry."

"Do not be." She lowered her hand and drew a long breath. Then she reached into the small silver bag at her waist and took out a tiny carved object. It was a wooden dragon no longer than her thumb. The wood was dark and smooth with age, and its tail had been worn almost flat by years of being held. "I told you I kept it. Alexander gave it to me when I was six."

Ethan looked at it but did not take it.

"I want you to carry it," she said. "Not because it is magic. Because someone in the Pavilion should know I was on your side."

He hesitated. Then he took it. The little dragon was warm from her hand. He slid it into his inner pocket beside the iron key.

"Thank you, Isabella."

"Just survive," she whispered.

Then his phone buzzed in his pocket.

He took it out. A message from Mrs. Tan's number. A single photograph.

Mrs. Tan, seated in a chair in a bare concrete room, her hands tied behind her. A gray rag across her mouth. Her hair was down and wild. Her eyes were wide. And behind her, standing in the shadows with his face turned away, a tall figure in a black coat.

Below the photograph, a single line of text.

Bring the ring and the pendant to Pier Fourteen by dawn. Come alone. — Ghost.