I made the call that night.
It rang three times. Then a voice I didn't recognize answered.
"Magnus Valerius's residence."
I hung up.
Siver watched from the windowsill.
"That was productive."
"Shut up."
I ended the call before anyone could speak.
The screen glowed for a moment. Then it went dark.
Ayra was watching me from the driver's seat.
"Who was that?"
"No one."
She raised an eyebrow.
"You don't hang up on 'no one' like that."
I slid the phone into my pocket. The fragment with the Valerius crest was still in my other pocket. I could feel it pressing against my leg.
Ayra didn't push. Instead, she reached over.
"Give me your phone."
"What?"
"Your phone. Give it."
I hesitated. Then I handed it over.
She typed quickly. I watched her save her number. Then she handed it back.
"I added myself to your contacts. And you're in mine."
She held up her own phone. My name was there. Andres.
"Now if you go quiet in the middle of a case, I can text you to snap out of it."
"That's not how quiet works."
"It is now."
She started the engine.
We drove in silence for a few blocks. Then she pulled up outside my hotel.
"Get some sleep," she said.
I got out. She waited until I was at the door before driving away.
I turned off the light.
Siver was quiet for once.
And somewhere in the city, the dead were waiting.
Sleep came faster than expected. No dreams. No ghosts. Just the weight of the phone on the nightstand and the fragment on the desk.
When I opened my eyes, sunlight was cutting through the curtains.
The knock came at eight in the morning.
I opened the door. Ayra stood in the hallway, wearing jeans and a jacket. No badge. No bureau attire.
"You look different," I said.
"No dead bodies today."
She glanced past me into the room. Saw the apple core on the desk. The empty coffee cup.
"Get dressed. I'm taking you somewhere."
"Where?"
"It's Sunday. Even investigators get a day off."
I looked at her for a moment.
"This is a work thing."
"It's a get-to-know-your-partner thing."
She turned and walked down the hall.
Siver floated beside me.
"A date," he said. "She's taking you on a date."
"It's not a date."
"You just hung up on your grandfather and now a woman is picking you up on a Sunday morning. This is the most human you've looked since I met you."
I grabbed my jacket.
Her car was parked outside. Small. Clean. The kind of car someone took care of.
I got in the passenger seat. Siver slid into the back.
Ayra started the engine.
"You never answered my question," she said.
"Which one?"
"Back at the warehouse. You went cold. Like you were looking at something I couldn't see. I wanted to ask yesterday, but you looked worried."
I watched the buildings pass.
"I told you. I have methods."
"That's not an answer."
"No. It's not."
She glanced at me. Then she turned onto a wider road.
"Where are we going?" I asked.
"You've been here three days. You've eaten nothing but apples and coffee."
She pulled into a small parking lot near a lake I hadn't seen before.
"You need to eat something that isn't from a vending machine."
Marionette Lake was dark water ringed with old trees.
A wooden bridge crossed one end. Swans drifted near the shore. In the distance, a stone building with arched windows glowed with warm light.
"The Illura Park Theater," Ayra said. "They do puppet shows. Old stories. History of the city."
"Sounds like a children's thing."
"It's not. The families fund it. They use it to tell their version of history."
We walked along the path. The air was cool. The kind of morning that made people want to stay inside.
Ayra pointed to a small shop near the lake. A sign said Est. 1943.
"This is my spot. Best sandwiches in the city."
She ordered before I could argue. Paid before I could offer.
"You don't have to—"
"Consider it a welcome gift. You need to eat something that isn't apples."
We sat on a bench overlooking the lake. The sandwich was fresh bread, roasted meat, some kind of sauce I didn't recognize.
Ayra watched me eat.
"Better than apples?"
I nodded.
She smiled. Just a little.
Then she pulled out two cups of ice cream. Handed me one.
"Mint chocolate. I guessed."
I looked at the cup. "How did you—"
"You look like a mint chocolate person."
She opened her own cup. Vanilla. With gummy bears mixed in.
"That's unusual," I said.
"My mother used to make it for me. Vanilla ice cream with gummy bears. Said it was the only way I'd eat anything cold."
She took a bite. For a moment, she wasn't a detective. Just someone eating ice cream by a lake.
Siver hovered beside the bench.
"She brought you to her spot," he said. "She paid for your food. She remembered your ice cream preference from a guess."
I ate my ice cream and said nothing.
We walked through the park after.
The trees were old. The kind that had been there for a hundred years. The path wound past a carousel that wasn't running, a gazebo with faded paint, a fountain where children threw coins.
Ayra told me about the cases she'd worked. The ones that made sense. The ones that didn't.
"I joined the bureau because I wanted to find answers," she said. "Turns out most cases don't have answers. They have versions. Someone decides what the truth is, and everyone else accepts it."
"Not everyone."
She looked at me.
"No," she said. "Not everyone."
We walked in silence for a while.
Then: "Why did you become a forensic specialist?"
I thought about it.
"Because the dead don't lie."
She didn't laugh. Didn't argue.
"That's a good reason," she said.
We drove through the city as the afternoon faded.
Ayra pointed out the territories. The invisible lines between families.
"This is Aurelian district," she said, pointing to a row of glass buildings. "Finance. Law. Politics. They fund the city. Hospitals. Schools. Everything runs through them."
We passed through a corridor of embassies and consulates.
Then she turned onto a wider boulevard.
"This is Morcant territory. Security. Defense. Military."
Buildings with razor wire. Training facilities behind high fences. Guards at gates.
"They control what comes in and out of the city. Imports. Exports. Who gets to stay and who gets removed."
We drove through a gate into an older part of the city.
Stone walls. Iron gates. Houses that had stood for centuries.
"And this," Ayra said quietly, "is Valerius territory."
I looked out the window.
The estate was set back from the road. Old stone. Ivy climbing the walls. A wrought iron gate with the three-symbol crest worked into the metal.
I recognized it immediately.
My father's family.
The family I hadn't called.
Ayra slowed the car.
"Valerius handles the things the other families can't. Investigations that cross territories. Secrets that would break the balance. They're the ones who decide what gets buried and what gets uncovered."
She looked at me.
"They're also the ones who owned the warehouse where Elara Vance died. Who employed the records keeper who gave her the documents that got her killed."
I stared at the gate.
"You know more than you're saying," Ayra said.
I didn't answer.
She drove on.
We stopped at the edge of the river as the sun set.
The water was dark, reflecting the last light. Ayra turned off the engine.
"I've been trying to figure you out since you walked into the bureau," she said.
"Did you?"
"No."
She looked at me.
"You see things other people don't. You notice details that don't fit. You go quiet at moments when normal people would react."
She paused.
"And you spaced out three times today. At the hospital. At the warehouse. At the lake."
I looked at the river.
"You asked me before why I space out."
"Yes."
I could tell her. About the ghosts. About Siver. About the Valerius crest in my pocket and the phone number I couldn't bring myself to call.
But not yet.
"Because I'm listening," I said.
"To what?"
"Things other people don't hear."
She stared at me for a long moment.
Then she pulled out her phone.
"I have your number now. So if you space out on me during a case, I'm calling."
"That seems excessive."
"You don't know me yet."
She started the engine.
I looked at the river one more time.
Then I looked at my phone. Ayra's name was in my contacts now.
Not Grandfather.
Ayra.
I put the phone away.
She drove me back to the hotel.
Parked outside. Didn't turn off the engine.
"Tomorrow," she said. "We find Castell. We find the notebook. And you tell me what you're not telling me."
"That's a lot of demands."
"You've been in Riverdark three days. You've already turned over a murder case, identified evidence tampering, and somehow connected a burned lab to a dead journalist. You're either the best investigator I've ever met or you're hiding something that makes you dangerous."
She looked at me.
"Which is it?"
I opened the car door.
"Both."
I got out.
She watched me walk toward the hotel entrance.
"Andres."
I turned.
"Eat something besides apples tomorrow."
She drove away.
Siver appeared beside me.
"She's going to figure it out."
"I know."
"She asked you twice today. About the spacing out. About what you're hiding."
I stopped at the door.
"The third time she asks, I'll tell her."
Siver raised an eyebrow.
"You sure about that?"
I opened the door and walked inside.
The phone in my pocket felt heavier than it should. Ayra's number. Grandfather's number. Two names. Two choices.
I went up to my room. Sat on the edge of the bed.
The fragment with the Valerius crest was on the desk. I picked it up. Looked at the three symbols intertwined.
My father's family.
My family.
Ayra had shown me the city today. The territories. The boundaries. The histories.
But she didn't know I was standing in the middle of it.
I pulled out my phone.
Stared at the contact. Grandfather.
My thumb hovered over the screen.
Then I scrolled down. Looked at the other name.
Ayra.
I set the phone down.
Tomorrow we find Castell.
Tomorrow we find the notebook.
Then I'll know what I'm walking into.
I turned off the light.
Siver was quiet for once.
And somewhere in the city, the dead were waiting.