We hit the pavement outside Silver Moon Tower on a Tuesday. Early spring.
The city grid looked exactly the same. Grey concrete, grey sky, the heavy, wet smell of asphalt and exhaust. Eight million people grinding out their morning commutes. But I was fundamentally different. I stood by the floor-to-ceiling glass in the penthouse, watching the sun hit the skyline, and for the first time in a year, my lungs actually expanded all the way. We were officially off the clock.
The Hunger was a corpse. The Makers' fatal error, the First Hidden’s five-thousand-year panic attack—all of it, wiped off the board. The ancient talon was currently sitting on my mahogany desk, completely dead. Just a heavy paperweight now. I told Selene to lock it in the sub-basement vault next to Genevieve’s ledger. She
