The streets were quiet by the time Seth finally returned home.
The examination grounds had been a storm of noise—cheers, recruiters clawing for his attention, the firm hand of the Harbinger Agency pulling him away. But once the deal was sealed, the crowd dispersed.
Seth, uninterested in basking in anyone’s praise, simply slipped away.
His modest apartment on the edge of the city looked exactly as he had left it: cracked walls, a sputtering streetlamp outside, silence heavy in the air. To anyone else, it was little more than a broken shelter. But to Seth, it was solitude.
He set his hand on the rusted doorknob—
—and froze.
The air behind him shifted. Not like a breeze. Not like a sound. Something deeper, primal. A presence that pressed on his skin like invisible chains.
His eyes nar
