The Aetherium, Mayfair
The scar on Hunter’s left hand burned.
Not pain. Memory. The kind that lives in tissue, not mind. He adjusted the starched collar of the borrowed waiter’s uniform—stiff fabric, someone else’s laundry soap, the uniform smell of temporary identities.
The device in his inner pocket—the one Freya had reconfigured overnight—pressed against his ribs like a second, colder heartbeat. Last night, her explanation had been clinical: The vault needs two keys: her live performance, and a device within two hundred meters of specific coordinates. You are the coordinates.
Through the service door’s crack, he watched the main hall. Crystal chandeliers dimmed to a honeyed glow. A single column of light held the stage. The audience—patrons, cultural attachés, women in gowns that co
