Olivia Savin. Twenty-seven. No fixed record until Alto took her in. She currently lived in the garage of the shop. Few connections, even fewer friends. Now Manshu’s newest addition… somehow.
Then I looked into the human records and saw those early photos.
A child in an alley, her small hand wrapped around one that wouldn’t move. Blood pooled too wide for a child that young to understand.
Even though we were only ten at the time, I remembered that case. We all did.
Calix’s parents had dug into it personally, trying to either catch the supe or prove that it wasn't a supe, and it was the first time they’d turned up with nothing. No supe signature. No trace. Just a dead human and a child left behind.
Listening to their hushed conversations, I’d learned they dropped her off in a human orphanage to be raised by her ownkind once they found out she didn't have any supe DNA. Looking at the gap in her paper trail, I could guess that she’d lived on the streets for a while, just trying to survive.
Behind me, Calix laughed again, louder this time, as he snapped another piece into place and sent the humvee skittering back to the ground. It tore forward, faster now, smoother, adapting to every surface like it had been built for it from the start.
My chest tightened.
For a second, the lab blurred, not from speed, not from magic, but from something sitting too heavy behind my ribs.
I knew what that kind of beginning could do to a young mind, how it made you feel all alone in this world. My heart thumped.
My gaze flicked back to him, studying the way he lit up in a way I hadn’t seen in years.
The words were there. Everything I’d learned about her was right at the tip of my tongue. Every reason this was a bad idea. Every angle I could use to shut it down before it started.
I just had to open my mouth and say them.
The box clicked softly in my hand, still empty.
I pulled my hand free, flexing my fingers once before letting them fall to my side, eyes drifting across the room like I might find something, anything, to anchor me.
Anything but the truth sitting in my throat, refusing to move.
She’s just a human, Rack, a reprieve, and that’s all she’s meant to be.
Behind me, tools clinked softly until Calix paused.
“Maybe…” he murmured, but the words weren’t really directed toward me. The stool creaked as he turned, gaze locking onto the fae blade sitting in the center of the room. Light slid across its surface, catching in strange ways as if it were watching him back. “I wonder…”
My jaw tightened.Is he seriously thinking about bringing her into that? Into something like this?
I stepped forward before I could second-guess it. “Calix, I did some digging on the human, Olivia Savin, and I found she?—”
His hand came up without looking at me, stopping me mid-sentence.
“Don’t,” he said, quieter now.
He leaned back in his chair, then tipped his head toward me, and for a second that old version of him slipped through. The one from before he met Valentina.
“I think…” He hesitated, eyes searching somewhere past me before settling again. “I think I want to learn about her from her.”
The words landed heavier than they should have, warring with the unsettling feeling of anger I didn't quite understand.
He pushed up from the stool, setting the humvee aside like it didn’t matter anymore, and took a step closer. The energy in him had shifted, becoming less frantic and more… focused.
“I don’t know what this is, Rack,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck before letting his hand drop. “But she…” His mouth twitched like he wasn’t sure how to finish it. “She makes me feel… something.”
He huffed out a quiet, almost embarrassed laugh and looked down at the floor, scuffing his shoe against it once.
“Something I don’t really want to let go of just yet.”
