The room was lavish. No, not just lavish—that word felt inadequate, like calling a hurricane "breezy" or a volcano "warm." This space was so aggressively, ostentatiously, almost offensively luxurious that it actually hurt to look at directly, my eyes struggling to process the sheer density of wealth packed into what couldn’t have been more than four hundred square feet.
Everything was decked in green and gold—Oberen’s signature colors apparently—but not subtle shades, not tasteful accents, but saturated, vivid hues that screamed "I have more money than sense and I’m going to prove it by assaulting your retinas."’
The walls were paneled in what looked like solid gold leaf, catching the light from crystal chandeliers overhead and throwing it back in blinding reflections. Thick carpets in deep emerald covered the floor, so plush my boots sank into them like I was walking on clouds made of expensive thread.
Bookshelves lined one wall, their contents bound in leather of deep forest green with gold-stamped spines, and scattered between them sat decorative pieces—jade figurines, golden chalices, a clock whose face was carved from a single piece of emerald so pure it looked like captured sunlight filtered through a canopy.
Paintings hung on the walls in gilded frames, depicting scenes I didn’t have time to examine closely but which seemed to involve a lot of naked people in positions that suggested either classical mythology or very expensive pornography.
Sculptures stood in corners—some abstract, some disturbingly realistic representations of what I assumed were Oberen’s enemies in various states of defeat—all of them made from materials that caught the light and held it like captured stars.
It was obscene, really. Beautifully, magnificently obscene—the kind of room that existed solely to remind everyone who entered it exactly how much money its owner possessed and how little they cared about spending it responsibly.
I didn’t care for much of any of it, though. Not the jade, not the gold leaf, not the crystal chandelier, the emerald clock ,or the leather-bound books that probably hadn’t been opened since they were placed on their shelves with careful, decorative intention.
My eyes swept across the room with the efficient scanning of someone searching for one specific thing among a sea of distractions, passing over wealth, excess, and carefully curated status symbols until—
Ah. There it was.
At the far end of the room sat a mahogany desk—dark, massive, and covered in a scattered archipelago of papers—correspondence, ledgers, receipts, the bureaucratic detritus of running a criminal enterprise disguised as legitimate entertainment.
The desk itself was gorgeous, carved with the same green-and-gold motifs that decorated everything else, its surface polished to a mirror shine beneath the chaos of its documents.
Behind it sat a chair that was less furniture and more throne—high-backed, deeply cushioned, upholstered in leather the color of old money and trimmed with gold that caught every available ray of light and held it hostage.
But none of that mattered. None of it even registered, really, because sitting on the desk—between a stack of correspondence and a crystal inkwell shaped like a coiled serpent—was an old telephone.
Not modern, not sleek, not the kind of communication device that looked like it belonged in a contemporary establishment. This was ancient technology, heavy brass and polished wood, the kind of device that had probably been installed decades ago and maintained purely because it connected to lines nobody else knew about.
A rotary dial sat in its center, worn smooth from years of use, and beside it rested a single piece of paper—yellowed, folded once, bearing a number written in careful, precise ink.
I felt a grin spread across my face—wide, genuine, and slightly unhinged—as I skipped, yes skipped, because walking was for people who weren’t currently riding the high of having just pulled off an impossible victory—across the jade floor toward the desk with the barely contained enthusiasm of a child who’d just discovered where their parents hid the cookie jar.
I dropped into the throne-like chair with enough force to make it creak magnificently, settling into its depths with the deeply satisfied sigh of someone who’d earned this exact moment through blood, humiliation, and an impressive quantity of boot-licking.
I set the gun down before trailing my finger along the paper beside the telephone, following the numbers written there with the lazy, exploratory touch of someone reading a treasure map, until I found exactly what I was looking for: a number scrawled in neat handwriting and underlined darker than the rest.
This had to be it—Oberen’s secret communication channel to reach his contacts in the Spire, the auditors and officials he’d bribed or blackmailed into looking the other way on his money laundering scheme. The line he used to keep them informed, to coordinate payments, to maintain the delicate web of bribery and deception that kept his empire from collapsing under the weight of its own illegality.
It was perfect.
I picked up the receiver, heavy and cool against my ear, and began spinning the dial with practiced ease—round and round, each number clicking into place with the satisfying mechanical rhythm of old technology doing exactly what it was designed to do.
The telephone rang for perhaps half a second—barely enough time to draw breath—before the line connected with a sharp click and a man’s voice came through, crisp, businesslike, and carrying the faint edge of someone who’d been interrupted mid-something-important.
"Oberen?" the man started, "Is that you? We’ve been trying to reach you for the past hour—"
"Not quite," I interrupted, keeping my tone light and casual, completely devoid of anything that might alarm the person on the other end. "I’m one of Oberen’s associates. He’s currently... occupied—medical emergency, nothing fatal, very dramatic. He asked me to handle his communications for the evening. I trust that’s not a problem?"
I kicked my boots up onto the desk—crossing my ankles with practiced elegance, the leather creaking pleasantly against the mahogany—then leaned back into the throne with the comfortable authority of someone who absolutely belonged here and would fight anyone who disagreed.
There was a pause, long enough for me to worry I’d overplayed my hand, before the man let out a sigh of relief so profound it practically traveled through the telephone wire and deposited itself in my lap.
"Oh, thank the gods. We thought—never mind what we thought. Listen, the Spire is in absolute uproar right now. Absolute pandemonium. Something about a succubus showing up at our front door and causing a scene that has half the tower’s security force in complete disarray."
I blinked.
Then I face-palmed so hard the slap echoed across the office, because of course Willow wouldn’t be discreet about it. I’d sent her on a stealth mission and she’d apparently interpreted that as "make the most dramatic entrance possible and cause maximum chaos."
I sighed before continuing.
"Has she been taken into custody?" I asked, pulling my hand from my face and focusing back on the conversation with the kind of professional efficiency that comes from having too many problems to give any single one of them the attention it deserved.
"Not exactly," the man said, and I could hear the careful way he chose his words, the slight hesitation that came from navigating a situation his training hadn’t adequately prepared him for. "She’s been... contained, I suppose. Brought under the care of one of our senior Velvets. Goes by the name Iskanda."
My smirk spread across my face so wide it actually hurt my cheeks, satisfaction flooding through me like warm honey because of course Iskanda had gotten involved.
"Iskanda," I repeated, letting the name roll around my mouth like expensive wine. "Tall, muscular, terrifyingly competent, probably threatened at least three people in the process of securing the subject in question?"
"That’s... an accurate description, yes."
"Lovely," I said, letting the word carry just enough warmth to be noticeable. "Listen, I need you to do me a favor. Can you put me on the line with her? I have some questions that need addressing rather urgently, and I suspect she’s the best person to answer them."
The man paused—just a beat, just long enough to register that this was an unusual request—before continuing without further objection. "Right away," he said at last. "Please hold."
The line went silent save for a faint crackling, and I heard the distinctive sound of a phone being transferred through whatever archaic system the Spire used for internal communications. The telephone rang once, twice, three times, each tone making my heart beat faster with anticipation and something else I couldn’t quite name, and then—
Click.
"This is Iskanda." Her voice came through the line, slightly distorted by the phone’s limitations but still unmistakably her—confident, direct, carrying that particular quality of someone who didn’t waste time on pleasantries when there was work to be done. "Who am I speaking with?"
I grinned into the receiver, spinning slightly in the throne-chair with giddy energy I couldn’t quite contain. "Hello, Iskanda," I purred, "Miss me?"