Chapter 8 – Wolves in Velvet

The antique bookstore on Whitman Street didn't advertise. It didn't need to. Those who found it were looking for more than books.

Selene slipped in through the back, her steps soundless over creaking floorboards. Dust hung in the air like ghosts too tired to move on. The shop was a mosaic of forgotten knowledge—philosophy, war manuals, maps that didn't match any modern country.

She passed a shelf marked Folklore and turned down a narrow corridor labeled Obscure Histories. At the end of it, behind a curtain of velvet and shadows, was a door with no handle.

She knocked three times. Then once. Then twice.

The door creaked open.

Inside, a woman stood with her back turned, organizing slips of parchment with gloved hands.

"Selene," the woman said, without looking.

"I need a name," Selene said. "And a tool."

Aria DuPont finally turned. Elegant, lean, and too ageless to be trusted. Her long black braid fell down one shoulder like a knife sheathed in silk.

"You already have a name," Aria said. "And you've never needed tools. You were trained to be the weapon."

Selene didn't smile. "I'm not asking as a student."

"No," Aria said, voice cool. "You're asking as a woman with a vendetta."

She motioned to a small wooden box resting on a velvet cloth.

Selene opened it.

Inside lay a black thumb drive shaped like a dagger and a brass coin etched with an ouroboros—snake devouring its own tail.

"The drive carries a silent algorithm," Aria said. "Military-grade. It won't destroy his files. It will copy them. Encrypt them under your DNA signature. Untraceable."

"And the coin?"

Aria looked directly into her eyes.

"That calls in a debt."

Selene let out a slow breath. "I thought I burned all my debts."

"You did," Aria replied. "But some of us buried ourselves in the ashes you left behind."

A flicker of something—grief, maybe—passed across Selene's face, quickly replaced by ice.

"I'm going after Victor. I need to know who's still loyal."

Aria's face remained still. "Half the old network is dead. The other half fears you. Or worse, they want to be you."

"I don't care about fear," Selene said. "I need loyalty. Quiet and absolute."

Aria paused, then slid a second object across the table: a photo.

Grainy. Cropped. But unmistakable.

A man standing in the shadows of a gala. Watching Victor and Selene.

The same man Aidan had flagged.

"You're not the only one chasing ghosts," Aria said. "His name is Calder Vaughn. Ex-operative. Burned three years ago after a mission in Prague. You remember what happened there?"

Selene did.

It was the first time she'd ever spared someone.

"You think he'll help me?"

"I think," Aria said slowly, "he wants the same man dead. For very different reasons."

Selene pocketed the coin, the drive, and the photo.

"Then we have something in common."

As she turned to leave, Aria's voice followed her like a prophecy:

"Just remember, Selene—when you wear velvet and smile like a ghost, even wolves forget you have teeth."