Chapter 3: Champagne and Shadows
The new phone was a silent, mundane slab. Kali used it for emails, for calls with clients, for mindlessly scrolling through galleries of designs. It never lit up with a blocked number again. The silence felt heavier than any message.
She told herself it was for the best. She threw herself into work, into the tangible, logical problems of load-bearing walls and client revisions. But her apartment, once a sanctuary of clean lines and her own control, felt different. The floor-to-ceiling windows no longer framed just a city; they were a potential observation post. The elevator’s chime, once meaningless, now made her spine straighten. He had calibrated her to a new frequency of alertness.
A week after the smashed phone, her company landed a flagship contract. Her small team was ecstatic. They insisted on drinks at a prohibitively expensive rooftop bar she’d chosen precisely because it was the opposite of subtle—all glittering surfaces, loud music, and beautiful people vying for attention. Safety in overwhelming visibility.
She was on the balcony, taking a moment of quiet from the celebratory noise, a half-finished flute of champagne in her hand. The city sprawled below, a circuit board of light. She leaned on the cool glass railing, breathing in the distant smell of rain and concrete.
“Champagne seems too frivolous for you.”
The voice came from directly behind her, closer than anyone should have been able to get without her hearing. It was low, woven through with a vibration that moved through the glass into her palms.
She didn’t startle. She’d been waiting, in some deep part of herself, for this. She took a slow sip before turning.
He was exactly as she remembered, and yet completely new in this context. The silver hair was tied back, revealing the sharp lines of his face. The rimless glasses caught the neon from a nearby sign, flashing opaque for a second. He wore a dark suit that looked like it had been woven from shadow, fitting the powerful lines of his shoulders and torso with a silent promise of restraint. He held his own flute, untouched.
“I’m full of contradictions,” she said, aiming for lightness. Her heart was a frantic drum against her ribs.
His blue eyes tracked her face, the movement of her throat as she swallowed. “You are. A creator of solid, lasting things, indulging in the most ephemeral of bubbles.”
“It’s called celebrating. You should try it sometime.”
“Celebration implies a concluded struggle. Mine is ongoing.” He took a step closer. The space between them charged, compressing the sounds of the party into a muffled buzz. “The new phone is adequate?”
“It makes calls. It gets spam. It’s perfectly normal.”
“Good.” He looked out at the city, his profile austere. “The previous… incident… has been resolved. The curiosity was deemed insignificant.”
The way he said it, so clinical, should have been a bucket of cold water. But she heard the tension in his jaw, saw the white-knuckle grip on his champagne flute. He was lying. Or at least, omitting.
“Resolved,” she repeated. “And yet here you are. Is this part of the resolution?”
He turned his gaze back to her, and the full force of his attention was a physical weight. “No. This is a new variable. An unacceptable recurring one.” He lifted his glass, staring at the pale liquid. “I calculated a 2% chance of encountering you here tonight. My calculations are rarely so wrong.”
“Maybe your data set is flawed.”
“The data set is you.” He said it simply. “You are unpredictable.”
Before she could answer, he did something inexplicable. He tilted his own glass slightly, and a single, golden drop of champagne leaped over the rim. It traced a slow, cool path down the column of her throat, over the delicate ridge of her collarbone, before disappearing into the neckline of her dress.
She gasped, more from the shocking intimacy of the act than the temperature.
“A waste,” he murmured, his voice dropping to a register that vibrated in her bones.
He bent his head. His lips, warm and unforgivably soft, met the damp trail on her collarbone. His tongue followed, a swift, searing point of contact that licked away the champagne. The heat of it, the shocking dampness, the pure claiming sensation of it, arced through her like lightning. Her fingers clenched on the railing behind her.
He straightened, his eyes holding hers. There was no triumph in his gaze, only a stark, hungry confusion. “The interference,” he whispered, “is not diminishing. It is consolidating.”
She was breathless, her skin burning where his mouth had been. “What does that mean?”
“It means I am making another error.” His hand came up, not to touch her, but to hover near her cheek. “A profound one.”
The thick velvet curtain separating the balcony from the main bar rustled, then was swept aside.
A man stood there, backlit by the bar’s cobalt lighting. He was tall, elegant in a way that spoke of old money and older traditions. Blond hair swept back from a patrician face, and his eyes, a luminous gold, fixed on them with an avian sharpness. They flicked from Frankenstein’s poised, near-touch to Kali’s flushed face, to the tiny damp spot on her dress.
The air didn’t just cool; it froze.
Frankenstein’s hand dropped. He took a smooth, deliberate step back from Kali, his expression shutting down into blank neutrality. “Lord Regis.”
“Frankenstein.” The blond man’s voice was cultured, pleasant, and as cold as a glacier. “I thought I detected a familiar… concentration of energy. And you must be the celebrated creator.” The golden eyes landed on Kali, appraising her with a dispassionate curiosity that felt more invasive than any blueprint. “Kali Tice.”
“You have me at a disadvantage,” Kali said, forcing her voice to steadiness. She extended her hand, a modern, business-like gesture in the Gothic tension.
Regis K. Landegre looked at her hand for a moment too long before taking it. His grip was cool, brief, and utterly lifeless. “Regis K. Landegre. An associate of Frankenstein’s… employer.” He released her hand as if it were a soiled napkin. “I’ve heard a little. The collision in the rain. The remarkable structural integrity of your person.”
Kali’s blood went cold. He knew. Of course he knew.
“My Lord,” Frankenstein’s tone was a careful, neutral blade. “Your business here?”
“I was in the city. The usual dreary meetings.” Regis smiled, a thin curve of lips that didn’t touch his eyes. “I felt a… disturbance. A ripple in a usually placid pond. I came to investigate.” He turned the full force of his smile on Kali. It was terrifying. “Tell me, Miss Tice, do you often find yourself attracting forces beyond your comprehension?”
The threat was velvet-wrapped, but it was a threat. Kali held his gaze, calling on every ounce of her emotional intelligence to read the room. This was the master’s world. This was the correction he’d spoken of.
“I’m just a woman on a balcony, gentlemen,” she said, her tone light, almost amused. “Drinking champagne that someone is determined to spill. The only force I’m interested in is the one that gets my design proposals approved by boardrooms.”
Regis’s golden eyes glittered. He appreciated the deflection, even as he saw through it. “How pragmatic.” He glanced at Frankenstein. “She has spine. I’ll grant her that. A rare quality.”
Frankenstein said nothing. He was a statue, his energy coiled so tightly Kali imagined she could hear the strain.
“We should return to the party, Frankenstein,” Regis said, the command absolute. “Your presence is required elsewhere. We have matters to discuss regarding the… security feed anomalies from last week.” He emphasized the last words, watching Kali for a reaction.
She gave him none, merely took another sip of her champagne, the taste now ashen.
Frankenstein gave a single, stiff nod. He didn’t look at Kali. “Miss Tice.” The formal address was a wall, a dismissal, a protection.
“Goodnight,” she said, to both of them.
Regis inclined his head, a parody of courtesy, and turned, the curtain falling behind him. Frankenstein followed without a backward glance.
Kali was alone again on the balcony. The city’ hum seemed louder. She looked at the spot where he had stood. Lifting her fingers, she touched the exact place on her collarbone his mouth had been. The skin still tingled.
From inside, through the glass, she saw them at the bar’s exit. Regis was speaking, his head tilted close to Frankenstein’s ear, his expression severe. Frankenstein listened, his face an impassive mask. Then, just before they disappeared into the elevator bank, Frankenstein’s head turned. Not a full look, just a slight, deliberate shift. His piercing blue eyes found hers across the crowded room, through the glass.
It lasted less than a second. But in it, she saw the same stark, hungry confusion from the balcony. She saw the conflict, the loyalty, the danger.
Then he was gone.
She finished her champagne in one long swallow. The victory of her contract felt hollow, a toy victory in a game she was only beginning to understand the rules of. He had called her a consolidating interference. Regis had called her a disturbance.
She looked at her reflection in the dark glass, a small, determined figure superimposed over the endless neon grid. A smile, fragile but real, touched her lips. Good, she thought. Let them be disturbed.
The consolidation had just begun.