Alchymia's bars might have all been dreamed up by the same interior designer: polished blackwood counters, amber backbars crowded with crystal and hand-blown glass. Pendant globes pretended to be industrial and landed on sultry instead. Spice smoke, citrus, the hiss of taps.

Astra nodded at the waiter, flashed her ID, and ignored the glances trailing her to the corner booth where Indigo sat.

"I'm surprised you haven't left Alchymia," she said, sliding into the tan leather. Slate platters between them steamed with lamb skewers and wagyu steaks.

Indigo's rueful smile arrived early. "There you are, Miss Astra. Third time lucky. Unless this is where you remember a critical appointment and ask to reschedule."

"That is a deflection."

"That is an observation." He tipped his phone toward the QR code and started tapping through the menu. "Also a trend line. Two cancellations in ten days from someone who used to arrive early for sport." His voice carried a faint British lilt he did his best to suppress.

"You're ordering more?" she deflected.

"Beer, actually." He nodded at the chrome forest of taps. "They brew their own. House yeast and heritage malt from Lake Meran. It would be negligent not to verify."

Déjà vu pressed at her. Lately her dreams felt less like memory than warning. Less like echoes, more like premonitions. She caught herself wondering whether her instincts were still entirely her own, now she knew the Pantheon's power ran in her blood.

Pushing the thoughts aside, she asked, "What are we celebrating? The last time you drank was—"

"Seven years ago," Indigo said softly, "with you."

The corner of her lips twitched.

He looked like he wanted to say more. His eyes flicked briefly to her throat.

"Also, message clearly received. Worth marking the occasion, I think. Whoever this not-a-man is, they have opinions. Possibly the reason our dinners keep migrating across the calendar."

Astra busied herself with the skewer, pretending not to hear the dig. Indigo's smirk said he knew exactly how loud it had landed.

"Fine," she said. "One day I will introduce you. Heads-up: she does not like you. At all."

"Promising start. Critical thinking is an admirable quality in companionship."

She rolled her eyes. "She says you are 'suspicious as hell and probably plotting something that will get Astra killed.'"

"Even better. A realist. We shall get on famously." The amusement softened. "For what it is worth, I am happy to see you… happy. That was the first tell. Not the—" He coughed. "Not the evidence on your neck."

Astra opened her camera app. Lipstick. A neat signature below the choker. She rubbed it off, only to reveal a bruise that looked far more incriminating.

Damn it, Eydis.

Heat climbed Astra's cheeks along with the memory of telling Eydis she needed to see Indigo before tomorrow's flight to Queenstown. Eydis had responded with a look that could have melted diamond.

Message received, Your Majesty.

Indigo caught the smile she tried to suppress. His brow lifted.

The waitress arrived with a jug and two frosted glasses. Grateful for the distraction, Astra poured and took a long swallow. Alcohol barely touched her, poisons neither, one of the stranger benefits of her power. The burn in her face stayed.

They fell into easy talk: the Council, Indigo's increasingly opaque "side projects," everything between. When the next jug came and Indigo loosened his top button for air, she asked, "How long are you staying?"

His cheeks pinked, eyes still clear. Paranoid even when tipsy. He laid his phone on the table, flicked a setting, and the signal collapsed in on itself. Ambient noise vanished. Whatever they said now couldn't be heard by human ear or machine.

"There is a complication," he said. "Ares van Nassau has formally requested full custodianship of the Eye."

Astra's fingers stilled on her glass. "Now? After months of letting the Council run research in Alchymia for some kind of trade?"

"For a very explicit trade," Indigo said. "You know how it works. Without data, the system starts returning false negatives. The Council feeds the system; the system keeps us relevant."

"So when an eldritch entity appeared, it was a gold mine."

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Indigo nodded. "Unfortunately it manifested over Alchymia, Ares's sky. He granted access on one condition: the Council surrendered this year's recruitment rights for the entire Gifted cohort."

Since the Eye appeared over Alchymia it had simply existed and, by existing, warped everything. Council analysts scraped data streams and argued over patterns while the city below learned to live under its shadow.

The stake was high, and the Council had used it to power-broker their relevance. Even Eydis was no longer certain which of her remaining Sins, Pride, Wrath and Sloth, still bound the Eye and which had already been released. They decided to remain vigilant.

"Three months of research and little progress, at least from what yo—the Council admit in public." Astra studied Indigo's face, her eyes narrowing when he looked away. "I suppose Ares has a point."

Indigo stared into his beer.

"If Ares takes control," Astra murmured, "we're blind. The Council's flawed, sure, but at least it isn't owned by a single dynasty."

"Ares is not dangerous because of what he shows, but because of what he hides. Only recently did we learn about Athena's capability, or a slice of it."

"Skeletons enough to stock several cemeteries," she said.

"Elegant, and accurate. His recruitments vanish into his machinery." Indigo's eyes darkened. "People go in, then they are ghosts."

"Then why did they keep agreeing?"

"Perhaps they could not say no."

Astra frowned. Something in his tone sounded personal. Indigo kept secrets. She'd accepted that. But she also knew why he stayed in the Council's orbit. It wasn't just to protect her.

"So. Has he started cutting access?"

"Not yet." He pinched the bridge of his nose, glasses in hand. "Negotiations drag on. The Council cannot afford distance. Work at that scale needs constant observation, and surrendering rights would be reputational self-harm."

Astra swirled the beer, watching foam patterns shift. Tiny eddies formed, collapsed, reordered. Chaotic at first glance, but maybe, just maybe, they obeyed some deeper design.

"Perhaps that was always part of his calculation," she said eventually. "The Eye was never going to be predictable. Someone with his power would have felt that from the beginning. Maybe the Council played straight into his hand."

"If he sequences his moves correctly," Indigo murmured, "the balance tips to him. The world remains on edge, just as he likes it."

"And your project?" She watched his face rather than his words.

"There has been progress. For the first time, I think we might be able to…" He smiled into his beer. "Stir the foam just enough to change the shape of things."

Astra let the silence stretch. An old conversation sparked in her mind. "You never told me your choice. The trolley."

He blinked, a small lag before his eyes found hers again.

"Do you pull the switch, Indigo?" she said. "Since you claim to see the shape of evil."

"I am not a martyr, Miss Astra. I wanted to believe all lives are equal. Then I learned what it costs to watch the trolley keep to its rails. Inaction is still a choice." His smile flickered and failed. "And it carries a price."

Astra topped up their glasses. The thought rang familiar and she could not place why. "So you choose to save the majority?"

His fingers tightened once on the glass before releasing.

"Change is surgical. It asks for patience and a willingness to make cuts that may not heal cleanly, but we might achieve something meaningful." He lifted his gaze. "And sometimes I fear I am Ares by another name. Making choices for others. Playing God."

In the amber light she studied his profile. He had always been evasive about his projects, armouring answers in humour or academic jargon. Tonight felt different. More open, a little valedictory, and yet something coiled beneath.

"Are you planning something dangerous, Indigo?"

He sighed, thumb tracing the rim of his glass, then lifted it and held it between them.

The conversation was clearly over. She raised her glass to meet his.

"Where are you travelling, Miss Astra? It's unlike you to take long service leave."

She thought for a moment and answered honestly. "Not far. Queenstown. It's the only place we can see both winter and the aurora right now."

Indigo's eyes widened, then darkened. "You could wait until the year's end and go to Europe."

Astra didn't reply. She took a drink. She wasn't sure she would be here long enough. The thought tangled inside her. As if she didn't quite want to leave a world that was never hers to begin with.

Indigo fidgeted with his cufflink. "Intel says Queenstown might host one of Ares's secrets. I hope you stay vigilant while you travel."

Astra looked up. "How do you know? I could help investigate."

"You don't need to," Indigo said, gently cutting her off. He smiled. "Have a good holiday with her. Next time we meet, bring her along. Same place?"

"Maybe not a bar."

"Please don't tell me she's seventeen." Mild horror crossed his face.

Astra's stare killed the joke.

"I am only being thorough." He powered his phone down and lifted his glass. "To Queenstown."

She rolled her eyes and clinked. The ambient noise rushed back in, laughter and chatter, as if nothing in the world was shifting.

The crescent moon rose in her mind, the red haze of a dream she could not shake, and a rooftop memory that would not stay separate from it. She was tired of letting truth slip apart because it was easier to keep what she thought of him intact.

Whether she could bear the answer was the only question left.

Winter air met her as she walked without direction, stopping only when she reached Eydis's building. Pulling out her private phone, she typed:

I need you to track something.

The reply came at once. Sure. What do you need?

26 June, the Globe Building, CBD. I need the licence plate of the helicopter that landed between 9:15 and 9:30 p.m.

Understood.

Astra pocketed the phone and watched her breath lift and vanish. She lit a cigarette; a brief firelight reflected in her crimson eyes before the smoke closed over it.

When Astra left and Indigo's secure line rang, he activated the privacy barrier and answered.

"Indigo."

"Professor Crane, Prisoner Zero-Eight-Six has fought off sedation. Heart rate climbing. Authorise—?"

"Yes," he replied, his voice quiet. "Double the dose. Reinforce restraints."

"Understood."

The call ended.

Damien had broken free of his influence. Now under the Council's watch and with Adrian having taken leave, Indigo couldn't use his power on Damien again this time. He had managed to cloud the memories of the rooftop, but nothing older than that.

The Council might soon lose control of the Eye, but they would never part with the Knight. Even the countermeasure, distilled from Damien's blood and tailored to his physiology, was beginning to fail.

He leaned back against the leather and replayed the earlier exchange with Astra, words he had wanted to voice but wisely swallowed.

Tell me, Miss Astra, is the greater evil the hand that harms, or the hand that harms while calling the harm just?

He powered every device down and let the lamplight flicker across the ale, igniting gold in his eyes.

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