Valemont City – Selene’s Apartment, 11:18 P.M.
Selene hadn’t slept.
The clock on the wall ticked steadily toward midnight, but inside her apartment, time felt broken. The curtains were drawn tight against the city lights outside, leaving the room in near darkness except for the soft blue glow of her laptop screen. That light carved her face into planes of exhaustion and resolve.
Her laptop fan hummed faintly, struggling to cool against the long hours she’d kept it running. The screen displayed a simple, merciless prompt a blinking cursor that seemed to taunt her with every silent second.
She pulled her knees to her chest on the couch, staring at the flash drive Cassien had handed her earlier that week. He had recovered it from Magnus’s office, smuggled out before Magnus went undergroun
