Chapter 230: Venna Belmonte.
The car pulled smoothly out of Bala’s yard, Mercury threading carefully between the other black vehicles until we cleared the tall gates and found the open road again. Tires hummed against asphalt as the mansion shrank behind us, its heavy stone walls and manicured grounds swallowed by distance.
Inside the mansion, Sinn was still speaking, his voice probably still cutting through the room like a blade, but we were already gone.
"That speech was completely political," Mercury said, picking up speed as the gates shrank in the rearview mirror. Her fingers flexed once on the steering wheel.
"Everything is political," I replied, leaning back into the seat.
"Yeah." She nodded, one hand resting loose on the wheel, the other tapping a slow rhythm against her thigh. "But I actually support the idea. Imagine everyone having an ability."
The capital streets slid past the windows, unhurried and ordinary. People walked dogs, vendors sold food from carts, kids laughed on street corners—life carrying on at the edges of everything that had shifted overnight.
"Everything comes with a downside," I said, watching a woman adjust her sunglasses as she crossed the street.
Mercury eased off the accelerator a little. "Maybe. But I think the positives outweigh them. And the plan to push life beyond the walls... that part I believe in."
She was convinced. Like Sinn. Like most of the people who had been in that room. Whatever Monica Veyron had built, she had made it sound exactly like the future people already wanted to believe in.
"Still wasn’t right to use Bala’s name for it though," Mercury added, slipping back into the flow of traffic. She changed lanes smoothly, checking her mirrors.
"No," I said. "But that’s how it works."
She let out a small, dry laugh. "And now everything is being pinned on Owen. A man who died the day before yesterday is being blamed for killing both Riya and Lord Bala." She shook her head, black hair catching the sunlight through the windshield. "Imagine."
That was how they’d handled it. The public needed a killer, and they needed him to already be dead. Owen had been convenient in every direction.
We turned off the main road in silence. The pieces around my purpose were starting to lock together, the shape of it becoming clearer with every mile. The one thing still hidden behind a veil was Monica Veyron’s daughter—and the system had already marked her as the most important unmarked name left on the list.
Mercury pulled the car over at the edge of the cemetery and killed the engine.
It was a smaller gathering than Bala’s. Maybe thirty people standing around a fresh grave under the bright afternoon sun. The kind of group that shows up out of obligation more than love. I scanned the faces through the tinted windows, heart beating steady and low.
Sophia Vale. Edgar Belmonte. Monica Veyron—looking exactly like she had in the libra vision: short white hair, unnaturally smooth baby skin, standing with perfect poise. And right beside her, unmistakable from Riya’s photographs...
Venna Belmonte.
"Looks like they’re nearly done," Mercury said, reading the posture of the crowd.
"Yeah," I answered, eyes still moving across every face, cataloging micro-expressions, hand positions, who stood too close to whom.
All three remaining sources in the same cemetery. Every major primordial family represented in one small gathering around one grave. The first time I had been this close to all of them at once.
[Go now. This is the moment for Venna Belmonte.]
The car door clicked shut behind me as I stepped out into the warm afternoon air, carrying the faint scent of cut grass and turned earth. I took one more slow look over the gathering, letting my gaze drift casual.
About thirty people. Ancient faces, composed and still, the specific kind of practiced grief worn like an old coat by people who had been attending burials for centuries. I scanned them one by one—until my eyes stopped cold.
Mute.
He stood among them like he belonged, dressed in a fitted black suit, conversing quietly with the people around him. The same level-three teleporter from Hogsby. The one who was still breathing entirely because I’d let him walk away that night in the corridor.
*What the fuck are you doing here?*
"I’ll probably be a while," I told Mercury, one hand still on the open door, fingers gripping the warm metal. "You can go. I’ll call when I need you."
She raised her middle finger without even glancing away from the windshield. "Living the character. Nothing suspicious about any of this. I’ll leave you with your bunch of weirdos."
I closed the door. Mercury pulled away smoothly behind me, tires crunching softly over the gravel, the sound fading as she merged back onto the road.
I walked toward the cemetery at a measured pace and stopped at a respectful distance from the grave. The sun hung low over the cemetery, casting long shadows across rows of headstones.
The burial itself was finished. People were starting to drift back toward their cars in small, quiet groups, voices murmuring in low clusters. My eyes tracked the movement.
Sophia Vale walked beside Monica Veyron, both of them moving with that effortless primordial grace. Mute stayed right with them, talking easily, nodding at something one of them said, his hands gesturing lightly.
It didn’t add up at all. He was a student. A level-three teleporter who had barely registered on my radar back at Hogsby. And here he was, moving comfortably among primordials who had walked the earth long before the walls ever existed.
Enhanced hearing, I directed the system.
[Not necessary. Focus on Venna Belmonte.]
I let it drop and found her in the crowd.
Venna Belmonte moved between people with quiet composure, accepting brief embraces, managing public grief like someone who had done it before—small nods, touched shoulders, murmured words. Then she turned, her eyes sweeping the space around her like she needed a moment of air. They landed on me.
And stayed there.
Something shifted across her face—not quite surprise. Closer to recognition. The specific look of someone seeing a person they had expected to see... just not here, and not yet.
Excuse me, I watched her lips form to the girl beside her. I’ll be right back.
She handed something off without breaking eye contact with me and started walking straight in my direction. Her dark dress swayed with each step across the grass, sunlight catching on her striking blue hair as the distance between us slowly closed.