Chapter 198 Chapter 198

Chapter 198 Chapter 198
Apollo

Searching for a sister who spent three millennia mastering the art of political sabotage and shadow craft is not a simple hunt. It’s an exercise in slow, grinding paranoia.

It’s been eight days since Merrick destroyed the catalyst in the iron mines. Eight days of tracking a ghost through the mud while the North settles into its fragile peace.

Right now, that peace feels a million miles away, and if we can’t find Athena it won’t last.

Rain has been falling on Middletown for hours, a misty, continuous drizzle that turns the trash in the gutters into soggy dams and coats the asphalt in a slick, dark sheen. 

The sky overhead is heavy, pressing down on the rotted rooftops like a wet wool blanket. The air tastes of diesel exhaust, stagnant river water, and the metallic tang of cheap, human-made rust.

Goddess, I hate this place. I hated it when I came here to make werewolves, and I hated it when I found my daughter in that tiny little flat. She deserved better, I made sure that she had better in the end, but now I wish I took her away from this place sooner.

I lean my back against the damp brick wall of a dead-end alleyway, balancing my unlit wooden pipe between my teeth. I haven't lit it once since we crossed into the human territory. Fire draws eyes, and in a town this crowded with the supernatural, even a harmless spark sticks out like a signal flare.

It astounds me that Jo never found anything in the woods when she went out hunting for her videos. There are creatures everywhere. Most of them are not friendly though.

"She’s not here," Atlas growls, his voice low, gravelly, and tight with a week’s worth of built-up frustration.

He stands three paces away, crammed into a heavy, dark canvas coat that strains violently across his shoulders whenever he breathes. He looks like a caged animal. His boots are caked in grey road slush, and every time a car rumbles down the main street a block over, his jaw clenches so hard I can hear his molars grind.

"She was here," Astraea corrects calmly.

She hasn't moved from the center of the alley. The rain falls straight through the space she occupies, but the droplets seem to bend around her, shearing off her skin without ever dampening her hair or her silver gown. Her pale eyes are closed, her head tilted toward the heavy power lines stretching across the alley ceiling.

"She was here two hours ago," Astraea continues, her voice smooth as glass, though a subtle tightness at the corner of her mouth gives her away. "And then the thread snapped."

"It didn't snap," I say, pulling the pipe from my mouth and tapping the stem against my thumb. "It was cut. Cleanly."

I point with the pipe toward a rusted steel dumpster sitting under a broken fire escape.

To a human, it’s just a pile of rotting cardboard and discarded machinery. But to me, the air directly above it is warping. A faint, oily shimmer hangs in the space, flickering with a sickly purple static.

"Another decoy," Atlas snarls, taking a heavy step forward.

"Don't touch it," I warn sharply, stepping out from the brick wall to block his chest with my arm. "Unless you want another blast of shadow-rot in your face like the one in the train yard."

Atlas freezes, his golden skin flaring with a sudden, aggressive heat beneath his jacket. He glares down at me, his fists clenching until the leather of his gloves groans under the pressure. 

Three days ago, he’d touched a residual marker Athena left on a bridge pillar. The resulting curse had taken Astraea four hours of continuous light-weaving to purge from his arm, leaving his skin scorched and his temper flaring.

"We've chased four of her false signatures across six towns," Atlas mutters, his voice dropping into a dark, dangerous register. "She's playing with us, Apollo. She's sitting somewhere in a godforsaken human pit, watching us run around in circles like hounds chasing a scent she laid yesterday."

"Of course she is," Astraea says, opening her eyes. The light in her pupils is sharp, cold, and unyielding. "Athena does not engage in open battle unless she knows she can win outright. She is forcing us to expend energy, testing our patience, waiting for one of us to make an arrogant mistake."

"I don't make arrogant mistakes," Atlas says, his voice filled with false confidence.

"You touched the bridge," I remind him with a thin, crooked smile.

Atlas turns his head slowly, his dark eyes locking onto mine with enough threat to wither an ordinary warrior. "Say that again, brother."

"Quiet," Astraea commands.

The sheer authority in her voice cuts through the rising heat between us instantly.

The rain seems to slow, hanging suspended in the air for a fraction of a second. The mundane hum of the town, the distant screech of bus brakes, the buzz of neon signs, the low thrum of human voices, fades into a dense, oppressive silence.

The static in the alley changes tone.

It isn't a sharp, aggressive spike like the decoys. It’s a low, resonant vibration that rises up through the soles of our boots, rattling the loose iron of the fire escape above our heads. A heavy, suffocating scent washes down the alleyway, not of wet concrete, but of scorched pine, copper, and ancient, unholy incense.

"That's not a decoy," I whisper, the humour draining out of my chest as the heat in my veins shifts from a lazy ember to a tight, burning knot.

"No," Astraea agrees, her gaze shifting away from the alley and locking onto the towering, dark silhouette of an old, abandoned textile mill standing along the muddy bank of the river two blocks south.

“It makes sense that she’ll be here,” I whisper. “Jo lived in this town. She came here to taunt me.”

“Oh,” Atlas says with a snarl. “Now it’s all about you?”

“No. It’s all about her.”

My brother nods curtly. “Not just her anymore. Jo and Hope.”

Yeah. And every child Jo has. She will only birth little miracles. A new breed of Lycan with new talents and weaknesses we’ll know nothing about until they emerge

The old textile mill is a black monolith against the grey sky, its high brick chimneys cold and choked with dead ivy. But as I stare at it, the air surrounding the structure warps violently. A thick, invisible dome of blood magic wards pulses against the falling rain, deflecting the water into unnatural, diagonal sheets.

It isn't a hidden trail anymore.

Athena has stopped weaving illusions. She has locked herself inside a fortress of corrupted magic, surrounded by whatever scum the Cabal managed to pull together, and she’s actively bleeding her signature out into the air, inviting us in.

"She's stopped running," Atlas says, his voice dropping into a low, terrifying snarl as the golden light beneath his skin flares bright enough to burn through the canvas of his coat.

"Because she's ready," I say, sliding my pipe into my pocket and letting the sun-fire pool in the palms of my hands. "Don't drop your guard. The moment we step through those wards, we're in her sandbox."