The first lie was the sun.
It didn't shine in Eidolon the way it did in normal cities. It filtered down through haze, through grime-coated windows and neon-bleached streets like it was afraid to touch anything directly.
Riley walked in just after noon.
No coat. No blade visible.
Just her.
The bar was quiet. Brighter than usual. Lucien was behind the counter, not pretending to clean, not pretending to be surprised.
He looked like he hadn't slept.
She crossed the room slowly and sat on the same stool as always.
Neither spoke.
Not at first.
Then Lucien broke the silence.
"I read your note."
Riley didn't look at him. "Good."
He poured nothing. Offered nothing.
"You break in again?" he asked, voice dry.
"You left the door open."
He nodded. "Convenient."
Riley turned to face him, elbows on the bar. "You going to ask what I found?"
"No," he said. "You already know I know."
"Then let's stop pretending."
Lucien met her eyes.
Something passed between them—slow, brittle, electric.
"I know who you were," Riley said. "What you did for Juno. I know about the Crimson Room. The labs. The disappearances."
She waited.
Lucien didn't flinch.
"I also know my name was in your journal before I ever stepped foot in this place."
Now he looked away.
Not in guilt.
In memory.
"I didn't write it," he said quietly.
"I know that too."
More silence.
Then, softer: "But you saw it. And you let me stay."
Lucien nodded. "I did."
Riley leaned in. "Why?"
He didn't answer right away.
When he did, it wasn't the answer she expected.
"Because I wanted to believe the person they sent wasn't here to kill me."
Lucien didn't move.
Didn't reach for a drink. Didn't look away.
Riley had seen killers lie without blinking, seen vampires charm their way through interrogations with tears and poetry. But Lucien Vale wasn't trying to be convincing.
He was just tired.
"She found me in Berlin," he said. "1991. Cold. Starving. Coming off a three-month bender that ended in six bodies and one missing heart."
Riley didn't interrupt.
"Juno didn't offer me redemption. She offered me control." His mouth twisted. "That was the pitch. Control your thirst. Don't feed. Dose instead. Micro-blood. Synthetic hits. Blood like wine. Like medicine."
He laughed once—short, humorless.
"She wasn't trying to cure us. She was trying to weaponize it."
Riley leaned forward. "You helped her."
"I stabilized the first formula," he said flatly. "Before the addiction. Before the mutations. Back when it was still… theory."
"And after?"
Lucien was quiet for a long time.
"When the screaming started, I left."
Riley didn't speak. The words hovered between them like heat.
"They used addicts. Street vamps. Fresh turns. She wanted to see what happened when you gave power to the unstable." He looked down at his hands. "We didn't just test it. We watched them die."
Riley's jaw clenched.
"I told myself I wasn't like them," Lucien said. "That I didn't drink. Didn't hunt. Didn't kill."
He looked up, dead-eyed.
"But I let it happen. And I walked away before the blood caught up to me."
Riley studied him. Not his face—his posture. The way he didn't shrink. Didn't spin it.
"You think telling me this will buy you something?"
"No," Lucien said. "I just don't want you to pretend anymore either."
A silence stretched between them—longer this time.
Then Riley said, very quietly:
"You talk like someone who wants to be forgiven."
Lucien's voice barely carried.
"I talk like someone who knows he won't be."
The message came through a line that hadn't lit up in years.
A silent buzz. No ringtone. Just a red pulse in the corner of Riley's encrypted tablet—one that meant one thing only:
Shadow-level contact.
She was in a halfway-safe flat on the edge of District Eleven, a borrowed space above an abandoned pawn shop. The only thing inside besides her was a mattress on the floor and three knives within reach.
She opened the message with a breath she didn't realize she was holding.
There was no name on the screen. Just a symbol.
🜏
Her blood went cold.
Ashgrave.
The message unfolded in staggered bursts, like it was being typed in real time.
You've gone quiet, Agent Voss.I assume that means you've found him.
Riley didn't reply.
More followed.
Vale's presence is confirmed.He left Juno, yes. But he built her first. You know what that makes him.
Still, she didn't reply.
Her jaw clenched.
Then the last line appeared, slower. Almost like it wanted to hurt.
Bring him in, and I'll give you the name. The one that went missing. The one you've never stopped asking about.
Riley's pulse spiked.
She stood without realizing it, fingers tightening around the edges of the tablet.
Only one person had gone unaccounted for during the last raid. The final op.
The one person they said didn't make it out.
Ashgrave knew.
And he was gambling on her wanting it badly enough.
She closed the tablet, slow and silent, set it on the floor beside her.
The room felt smaller.
Colder.
She wasn't surprised Ashgrave had eyes on her.
She was only surprised it took this long for him to call.
And now she had to ask herself something she wasn't ready for:
Was Lucien the mission… or the mistake?
Lucien didn't remember walking this far.
The streets had bled together—alley to underpass, bridge to sewer mouth. Eidolon had always known how to swallow its monsters quietly.
Rain slicked the pavement in rainbow smears. The kind that never dried. The kind that felt like residue, not weather.
He stopped beneath a crumbling neon sign that buzzed like it was choking.
Then he heard it.
A voice. Singing.
Off-key.
A lullaby, maybe. Or a hymn.
He turned slowly.
The figure stood barefoot in the middle of the street. Pale. Dripping. Head tilted like a broken doll.
A robe clung to her frame, soaked with blood. Not fresh, not dry. Just… wrong.
Lucien didn't speak.
She did.
"You're late," the girl said. She couldn't have been more than sixteen. But her eyes were centuries wide. "She sent me to remind you."
"Juno?" Lucien asked.
The girl smiled. It cracked her face.
"She says the city will kneel again. This time we won't burn the old gods. We'll drink them."
Lucien took a step forward, cautiously. "And me?"
"She wants you clean. Sober. Sharpened. You were always her favorite knife."
"I'm not hers anymore."
The girl leaned her head the other way. "She disagrees."
Lucien inhaled through his nose.
"Tell her," he said, voice low, "if she sends another prophet, I'll return the body piece by piece."
The girl didn't flinch.
She stepped closer. Close enough for him to smell the copper on her breath.
"Tell her yourself," she whispered. "She's waiting for you."
Lucien's fists curled. But he didn't strike. He didn't feed.
He turned and walked away.
Behind him, the girl resumed singing.
Her voice followed him down the alley like a blade dragged across glass.
The bar was empty again.
It was starting to feel like a pattern.
Lucien stood behind the counter, sleeves rolled, glass in hand—but not drinking. Just… holding it. Like it gave his hands something to do while the rest of him unraveled.
He heard her steps before she opened the door.
Didn't move.
Riley entered like someone walking back into a room she had every right to be in. No knock. No words.
She sat.
He poured her a drink without asking.
She didn't touch it.
"You look worse," she said.
"You're welcome."
Silence stretched.
She studied him. "I got a message today."
Lucien nodded. "Ashgrave?"
Her eyes narrowed. "You knew."
"I know he doesn't stay dead. And I know he doesn't let things go."
She leaned forward. "He offered me something. Said if I bring you in, he'll give me the last name."
Lucien didn't ask which one. He didn't have to.
"What did you say?" he asked.
"I didn't."
"That's not no."
"No," she said, "it's not."
They stared at each other across the bar—two people holding knives without showing blades.
Lucien finally spoke.
"You think I deserve it?"
She didn't blink.
"I think you're what I was sent to kill," she said. "And I think I stopped asking what people deserve a long time ago."
Lucien leaned forward slightly. "You going to turn me in?"
"Not tonight."
"Why not?"
"Because I haven't decided," she said, standing. "Because I don't know which part of me wins."
She pulled on her coat.
At the door, she paused.
Didn't look back.
Just said:
"Don't make me choose between saving you and stopping you."
Then she was gone.
And Lucien, for the first time in a very long time, felt cold in a way no blood could fix.