Episode 9: The Extraction
394 Words
Lyric had come to recognize Caspian’s stillness. It was never calm—it was control, every emotion locked down, every movement calculated. When that control frayed, the cracks revealed far more than his words ever would.
In the afternoon debrief, Dylan laid out the full ambush intel. One hostile had a Suryan Peninsula criminal record. The payment trail led to a three-year-old Thamesford shell company, registered under the name of Evelyn’s former doctoral student.
“Same person,” Evelyn said flatly.
Caspian’s gaze swept the room. “The ambush was designed to extract Lyric, not kill us.”
Dylan nodded. “Their entire formation was built to separate him from you.”
“Why me?” Evelyn asked.
Lyric answered first. “I’m the only one who can verify their relic collection. They need an appraiser who can confirm their stolen artifacts are authentic.”
Caspian’s pause was deliberate. “That’s one explanation.”
Lyric waited for the second. It never came.
Ninety minutes later, Lyric found Caspian alone in Sub-Level Three, palms flat on the ritual map table, staring at the seven red marks.
“The Reclaimer knew I existed before you hired me,” Lyric said.
Caspian didn’t turn. “They know you can read artifacts. They may know more—something about your connection to this collection.”
Lyric’s fingers twitched at his collarbone. “I felt it the first day. The pedestal residue recognized me—not as an appraiser, but as something familiar. A matching frequency.”
Caspian finally turned, his guarded expression cracked open, raw and unguarded. “There are things about this collection I haven’t told you. Things about you.”
“You knew they’d try to kidnap me.” Lyric’s voice was steady. “You knew this job was never just an appraisal.”
Caspian’s silence was confession enough.
Lyric walked away without another word. Back in the fourth-floor office, his phone buzzed with an unknown number.
A single message:
You’ve been asking the right questions—but of the wrong person. The Graves family has hidden your truth since before you were born. Meet me. I’ll show you what they refuse to. — R
Lyric stared at the screen, thinking of Aldous Fenn’s death, the ritual map, Caspian’s quiet, costly silence.
He typed a reply and sent it before he could hesitate.
Where and when.
- Writer
