Chapter 2 ATTRACTIVE, LITTLE TRAINEE

KIERAN

The Whitfield brief is, objectively, not a complicated matter.

A straightforward private equity restructure, the kind of thing the firm handles twice a month without breaking a collective sweat. Beaumont has prepared thoroughly. Harriet has prepared better. The client himself is reasonable, which is rarer than it should be and makes the whole exercise considerably more tolerable.

I should be entirely present. But my senses are screaming from all corners.

The sensation started during the elevator ride up, a low, persistent vibration beneath my sternum. I have felt it before, this particular frequency, the way the Conduit hums when something presses against it from the wrong side. The way it pitches and shifts when the barrier thins.

The Conduit is fraying.

I keep my face neutral as Beaumont opens the meeting with the usual pleasantries, and allow a small portion of my attention to remain in the conference room while the rest of me reaches outward.

There.

The south. Somewhere beneath the old infrastructure network, the Conduit is pulling apart at a seam that should have been solid for another decade at minimum. I reinforced that particular stretch myself less than three months ago, and the fact that it is already ripping apart again only leads to one conclusion.

Someone has been at it. Or something.

I keep my expression attentive as Harriet walks the client through the preliminary restructure proposal, and fight to keep myself from sighing in exhaustion as she drones on.

The state of the Conduit is getting worse. I am getting drained and I and the other fae’s powers are pulling thin against the forces attacking the Conduit. I figure out who is behind this, and figure it out quickly. Or at least, find a way to prove my theory as to the culprit.

Vaelor.

I can smell the handwork of that human-slaving piece of shit from a mile away. The only problem is, I have not been able to track him down because I have been too preoccupied with keeping monsters from wrecking havoc in the human realm, and my father doesn’t care enough about my opinions to track him down.

If only I had more fae in my service to support me. Or perhaps, a human with anchor abilities.

Only then will I be able to find the time and energy to go after the source.

Unfortunately, the only other anchor I know is well past her years. That’s the sad thing about humans. A couple decades and they are already spent in their use. And I have no idea where I can find another.

Another major issue is the fact that Vaelor has been rumoured to also be looking for anchors as well, to assist in his destruction of the conduit... or rather, to enslave and force to be weapons of his wielding. He has more time than I do. If there is a human anchor out there, the chances are that he has gotten to the person first.

I feel the Conduit tear again and my heart skips a bit as a shocking realisation dawns.

The breach is in proximity to the Hollow Walkers' realm.

I sigh and run a hand through my forehead. Most breaches are nuisances, isolated points of weakness I can seal within an hour with minimal incident. Things get through occasionally, small things, disoriented creatures that stumble into the human world and have to be quietly retrieved before they cause disruption. Irritating but manageable.

The Hollow Walkers are not small things.

They are not disoriented. They are not, by any reasonable definition, retrievable once they have crossed and fed.

I run a quiet calculation. The breach has been opening for several hours at minimum, given the signature of the disturbance I'm reading. I have perhaps until late evening before the deterioration reaches a threshold the Walkers can exploit. Eight hours. Nine to ten if I am fortunate.

I need to be there before then.

I reach for my water glass and am in the process of deciding how quickly I can conclude this meeting when I lift my head and my eyes lock, again with this new disaster of a trainee.

She quickly looks away as though mortified by me, my presence.

I almost smile in amusement. The poor thing. I know this is her first day, because she is a lawyer serving coffee and because we had just approved a new batch of intakes, and today is already going quite awfully for her.

A few minutes ago, she had somehow managed to almost empty an entire carafe of coffee onto the table, an error that I would have ignored if I hadn’t somehow managed to catch the fact that my presence had a direct influence in the accident.

Well, as expected. On earth, I mask as Alexander Sterling, the young hot-shot managing associate of Clevestone and Reeves, an establishment that looks like a law firm, works as a law firm, but in reality, was established by me 200 years ago both to serve as a placeholder for my human identity, and to secretly establish my own quarters of fae assistants.

She looks up and our eyes lock for the third time. Immediately, something shifts.

In that heartbeat, I feel a strange, sharp prickle against my skin, not from the breach, but from her. I realise that she isn't looking at me with awe or nervousness. She is looking at me with a raw, vibrating terror that suggests she is seeing something that isn't Alexander Sterling.

I tighten my glamour instinctively. It’s a reflex, a shimmering shroud of magic that hides my true self; the wings, the pointed ears, the fae nature. It’s a flawless cage. There is no way a human girl, especially one as petite and seemingly fragile as this associate, could pierce it.

The fact that I for a moment, thought she could was probably my senses acting up due to the breach and weakening conduit.

I scan her briefly. She’s attractive, I suppose, in that fleeting, fragile way humans are. Waist-length blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail, blue eyes that seem to hold an odd depth, a shapely figure and a stature that makes her look like a stiff breeze could knock her over. But I have been on this earth for two hundred and thirty-one years, have known genuinely beautiful women in hundreds of countries across the continents, and not one has ever been worth the complication of a second glance.

Still, I watch her for a moment longer than is strictly necessary.

Alvarez, Prescott had called her, an odd surname for a white woman.

Alvarez.

I wonder what her first name is.

"Mr. Sterling?" Beaumont’s voice breaks through. "Your thoughts on the regulatory filing?"

I tear my gaze away from the girl. "The filing is secondary, Beaumont. If the Registrar finds any ambiguity in the transfer, the entire deal collapses before the ink is dry. Refine the language on page twelve."

I don’t look back at her.