Chapter 15: What Seraveth Cannot Erase

The young man in the corner had not moved.

Mira had been watching him for six minutes—not the young man exactly, but the quality of Seraveth's attention toward him, the way the vampire's gaze had fixed and not released, and how the distance between them had not changed by a single inch despite Seraveth's careful, architectural movement through the rest of the ballroom. He had spoken to Zero-Nine about the defensive geometry of the eastern wall. He had assessed, with audible precision, the rate at which two shadows near the windows were drawing toward Elian's grief-light. He had done all of this without once turning his back on the figure in the corner.

That told Mira something. She was not yet certain what.