She highlighted a string of characters. “Every professional scanner writes a device fingerprint into the file header. Most people don’t know it’s there. This one—” she tapped the screen, “—is a Fujitsu fi-7160. Common enough. But the firmware version narrows it to a batch sold in the Northeast in the last eighteen months.”
“Can you match it?”
“If I get access to the suspect devices, yes. The fingerprint is unique to the hardware. Match the device, match the forger.”
Zeir stood behind her, arms crossed, tracking each data point with the focus he brought to every detail that mattered. Nyx had never failed to find what he needed to find. She operated with the same philosophy he applied to villain-building: follow the logic, trust the evidence, let the architecture of the problem reveal its own weaknesses.
“How long?”
“Depends on how many scanners I need to check. If I have a short list of suspects—” she glanced back at him, “—days. If I’m casting wide, weeks.”
“Lumi’s assistant has a Fujitsu in the studio. She uses it for digitizing reference material.”
Nyx’s fingers paused. One beat. Then resumed.
“I’ll start there.”
The third-floor studiowas dark when he returned. Midnight. Manhattan glowed through the industrial windows—pale silver, the city’s insomnia reflecting off glass towers across Tenth Avenue.
She’s not yours to protect. She told you that. She walked away and you said you understood and you meant it.
He sat at the work surface. Stared at the Nightbloom pages. Sable’s face stared back—defiant, unguarded, the work of a woman who poured the truest things into her art because she had nowhere else to put them.
The studio door opened.
Kael didn’t knock. He never knocked.
“Brenn’s been making calls.” He dropped into the chair opposite. “He’s framing the Stone collaboration as a vulnerability. ‘Outside talent with unvetted loyalties.’ His words.”
Zeir’s hand tightened on the drawer pull. “Lumi’s loyalties aren’t the issue.”
“I know that. You know that. Brenn knows that too—he’s not worried about her loyalty. He’s worried about yours.” Kael met his eyes. “An alpha who’s personally invested in a human artist during a plagiarism crisis. That’s the angle. That’s what he’ll bring to the elders.”
“Let him.”
“Z.” Kael leaned forward. The easy grin was gone. The brother underneath—steady, strategic, unflinching. “Show them the work. The collaboration pages. It’s the best thing this company has produced in five years. Make them see it.”
“If I show them the work, they see how deep this goes.”
“They already see how deep this goes. Brenn’s not blind.” He picked up his coffee. “The question isn’t whether they’ll figure out you’re invested. The question is whether you let them define what that means.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Think fast. Brenn’s not waiting.”
Kael left. The coffee cooled.
His mother called at eleven.He was still at the studio window—Manhattan below, the city’s cold geometry running south toward the harbor.
“I spoke with Ozara today.” Her voice was smooth. Calibrated. The tone of a woman who never said anything without three reasons behind it. “She mentioned Lumi’s been under some professional pressure.”
“Did you and Ozara plan this?”
“Plan what, dear?”
He could hear her smiling.
“The collaboration. The portfolio finding its way to Kael’s desk. The entire convergence of events that put a Stone artist in my studio.”
