INCONVENIENTLY BONDED

Lila Voss solved one murder. She exposed one network. She packed her bag and told herself she was going back to her shop. She did not go back to her shop. Now she is in Harrow Bay, a coastal city with a body on the harbour cliffs, a shipping company running illegal territorial transfers under everyone's noses, and a ghost operating the whole thing from somewhere no one can find. She told herself this was just one more case. One more city. One more controlled, professional investigation. Then the mate bond started. She does not have a word for what it feels like to sense Adrian's emotions from three floors away. She has several words for how inconvenient it is. He explains what it means with the specific calm of a man delivering news he has been dreading for weeks. She processes it the way she processes everything: methodically, thoroughly, and while pointedly refusing to look at him. The case will not wait for her to sort out her feelings about it. Suspects pile up. A freelance operative named Roane keeps appearing in rooms before Lila gets there. The network they dismantled in Veldenmoor turns out to have been just one floor of something much taller. And somewhere above the Harrow Bay operation, someone has been pulling strings for thirty years. The truth is getting closer. So is everything else. The bond is not metaphorical. This is a significant logistical development. She is handling it extremely well, considering.