The woman in Minton’s office narrowed her eyes.

  “That’s a Lord Dragon aura,” she said.

  She stood in the doorway, half turned toward the corridor. Guard footsteps were already closing in, but no one had reached the office yet. For the moment, everything would be decided in this room.

  Minton was alive only because the blade had skated off his armored collar. He stood with one hand at his throat, trying not to show how badly his fingers shook.

  The woman eased back toward the wall. A stun unit rested in her hand. A mask covered her face. Her breathing stayed even. No fidgeting, no rush. She didn’t look like someone who had come in on luck.

  Lothar von Finsterherz stood between her and Stanford Minton. He felt wrecked. After raising the shield, he could barely stay upright. His strength came in stuttering bursts, like something inside him had been cut and spliced wrong. His throat burned as if he’d swallowed fire.

  The woman rolled a shoulder, ready to bolt. One sharp move, slip past him, vanish into the flow outside.

  Finsterherz lifted a hand. Not graceful, not the way a trained caster would do it. Only because if he didn’t, Minton would get a second attempt, and there wouldn’t be a collar to save him twice.

  He tried to raise the aura again and felt it tear him from the inside. The field wavered, cracked, flared for a heartbeat, then collapsed. Lothar staggered and coughed. A bitter taste flooded his mouth.

  The woman smiled with her eyes.

  “Weak,” she said quietly.

  Lothar forced air into his lungs and hit her with the word.

  “Bandesh.”

  It came out rough, but it landed. The woman froze. Not like a statue. More like her body stopped taking orders. Her hand with the stun unit hung in the air. Her foot refused to complete the step.

  He added the second phrase immediately, because Wilt Norcutt had drilled it into him.

  “Silāh tva bar dā.”

  The stun unit slipped from her fingers and clinked on the floor.

  Lothar stayed standing by sheer stubbornness. The word had scraped his throat raw from the inside. But he held the lock with the last of his strength. He already knew that if he let it soften, she would break free.

  She twitched. Bandesh began to strain. It was obvious she wasn’t ordinary. Either she could pull energy, or something in her pulled for her.

  Then she spoke through clenched teeth.

  “You’re an amateur, kid. Nobody taught you that anyone who carries even a crumb of the Nest can pour power into themselves. And with that power you can snap another person’s word.”

  She was talking while locked. Slow, forced, but talking. That was bad.

  Lothar tried to step forward and his legs buckled. He caught himself with a palm on the wall.

  “Wilt,” he rasped.

  Wilt Norcutt was close, but she didn’t step into the center. She watched the killer the way someone watches a door they’re about to break, already choosing the angle.

  “Hold,” the female inquisitor said. “Your job is to buy time.”

  The woman surged again, hard from the inside. Bandesh slid. One more second and she would be gone.

  Then a thin whistle cut the air from the corridor.

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  A dart sank into the woman’s neck just under the ear. She jolted, locked again for a heartbeat, then her knees folded and she dropped heavily onto her side.

  Lothar exhaled like a hook had been pulled out of his ribs.

  In the doorway stood one of the local guards with a pneumatic pistol. His hands shook, but the shot had been clean.

  Wilt flicked him a look.

  “This includes you,” she said, dry.

  Then the female inquisitor crouched and checked the woman’s pulse. Alive.

  Wilt lifted the mask for a second, just long enough to see the face beneath. Lothar didn’t catch details, only the confirmation. Yes, a woman.

  Wilt lowered the mask again.

  “Tranquilizer,” she said to the guard. “Good work.”

  The guard swallowed hard. He looked like he couldn’t believe he was still standing.

  Wilt straightened and wiped blood from her fingertip on her sleeve.

  “When she wakes up, we question her properly,” the female inquisitor said, flat and calm. “In detail.”

  Lothar slid down the wall and sat on the floor. His back was wet. His throat burned. His hands trembled.

  Something stirred inside him, chains shifting, the dragon’s muffled growl. As if it didn’t like the word being used.

  Wilt noticed him drifting and stepped closer.

  “Hey. Don’t check out. Not yet.”

  Lothar let out a breath.

  “I thought it couldn’t get worse.”

  Wilt gave a short, humorless smile.

  “That’s what people think when they don’t know life.”

  She turned toward the guards pouring into the corridor.

  “Seal the level. Cameras. Comms under my control. Nobody leaves until I say so.”

  Then she looked down at the sedated killer.

  “And you. You’re going to tell me everything. Whether you want to or not.”

  “I knew someone was going to try to put me in the ground,” Minton said.

  He sat in his chair, but he held himself like a man still standing on a watchtower. A thin bandage wrapped his neck, the bleeding already slowed. His voice was angry, not shaken.

  Wilt stood at the window, watching the yard, the floodlights, the gray uniforms moving through routine. Outside, everything looked normal. Inside, Minton’s life had almost ended.

  “Fine,” the female inquisitor said. “We’ll find out who’s behind it.”

  Minton gave a hard little laugh.

  “You will. Half the people here would love to see me in a pit.”

  “Then we’ll find them fast,” Wilt said.

  Lothar sat against the wall and said nothing. His throat still burned from Bandesh. Fatigue sat in his bones like wet weight. And there was something else too, a sense of something listening inside him, shifting to catch every word.

  Goodman paced the office, quiet fury. He hated places like this. He hated when a knife walked into a room and then people asked him to play detective. He wanted to leave. But Norcutt had already decided.

  They moved the assassin into the comms room next door. Not because it was comfortable. Because the walls were thicker and the door was stronger. A shock cuff sat on her wrist, her hands bound. Guards took positions along the walls, stiff as mannequins.

  When she came around, the first thing she did was look at Wilt. Calm. No hysteria. Like someone had woken her mid shift.

  Wilt stepped closer.

  “All right, sweetheart,” the female inquisitor said. “Talk. Who hired you.”

  The woman exhaled slowly. Her voice was hoarse, but steady.

  “I don’t know.”

  Wilt didn’t even look surprised.

  “You’re lying.”

  “No,” the assassin said. “You’re Inquisition, right. That’s the point. We don’t know. We don’t see the client. Only a channel. Only money. Only a target.”

  Wilt grimaced.

  “Killer guilds.”

  Minton, standing near the door, made a low, furious sound.

  “Guild. Scum. I’ll”

  Wilt lifted a palm and cut him off.

  “Quiet.”

  She looked back at the woman.

  “Then who gave you the channel. Who was the contact.”

  The assassin’s mouth twitched.

  “You won’t have time.”

  And in that moment her eyes changed.

  The pupils stretched. Her mouth pulled, like something inside was tugging at her from beneath. A split opened at her lip. Not blood at first, more like skin failing under pressure.

  Lothar lifted his head. He felt it before he fully saw it. The room went colder, even though the climate control hadn’t changed. The air thickened.

  The woman’s breathing turned fast. Her back arched. Knots rose beneath her skin as if something was moving under it.

  Then the skin tore, quick and clean, like a shell being cut from the inside.

  Scale spread across her shoulders, dark and wet looking. Fingers lengthened, nails turning into claws. Her face pushed forward. Teeth crowded out.

  The shock cuff flashed, squealed, and shattered like a toy.

  A guard swore and jumped back.

  “For fuck’s sake.”

  Wilt didn’t retreat. She only tightened her grip on her blade.

  “She opened her mind to the Nest willingly,” the female inquisitor said. “And let something through.”

  Goodman stared like it was a nightmare the world wasn’t allowed to contain.

  “Why didn’t she turn into a dragon,” he managed.

  Wilt kept her eyes on the thing.

  “Her body and soul didn’t have enough energy for that,” she said. “Don’t relax. This little thing is dangerous. We kill it fast.”

  The draconoid lifted its head. Saliva slid along its teeth. It looked at them and there was nothing human in the gaze. Only hunger. Only malice.

  And something else. A will that did not belong in this room.

  It took a step. Claws rasped on the floor.

  Lothar tried to rise, but his body refused. His throat flared with pain again, like something had grabbed him from the inside.

  Wilt threw him a short look.

  “Don’t waste the word. Not yet.”

  The draconoid lunged. Fast. Too fast for a body shaped like that.

  And the guards finally remembered they were armed.