Walking through the arched wooden doors, she was hit with an onsught of voices. Eileen scrunched her nose, wincing at the stark difference between the outer waiting area and the rowdiness she was now surrounded by.

  “Hey! Over here!” The man was halfway off his chair as he waved towards a man at the corner of the room. He was sitting at what looked to be the main bar. A little odd for it to be pced near the private rooms, but she supposed the owner must have his reasons.

  Cng! Bang! The man, who was wearing a clean suit despite his clear intoxication gred across the room once more. The background voices a simple hush compared to the tone of his voice.

  “Come on! What the fuck are you waiting for!”

  Another cng and the chime of bells. Eileen gnced back briefly to see the chime was coming from the machine in front of the person the man was calling for. Music filled the room shortly after.

  “The fuck are you yelling for!?”

  Just as Eileen though the room would get better now that he was walking back, another patron decided to chime in. “More drinks!”

  A woman wearing a midnight blue fedora turned to gre at him.“Quiet down over there!”

  “You quiet down!”

  “I-”

  “Kiran,” Raiden walks up to her, grin on his face. “You’re here.”

  Eileen gives him a deadpan look. “Of course I am. I said I would be didn’t I?”

  “You did,” Raiden says, motioning towards a quieter area. “I wasn’t convinced you wouldn’t have suddenly changed your mind in the days since.”

  “Obviously, I haven’t,” she replies with a smile. Then follows it up with a pointed look. “Just don’t think it will be a regur occurrence. I only agreed to one meeting.”

  “I know,” Raiden says with a gnce backwards. “I hold out hope you’ll change your mind on it, but for today, we should get inside. The meeting is about to start.”

  “Alright,” she huffs, a fond smile tugging at her lips before she smothers it.

  Eileen has no intentions of joining this club of his, but it’d still cute that he wants her too. Following him past the dark ebony doors, she finds herself in a extravagantly decorated room, gold patterns across a rich violet wallpaper and red velvet seats around the room.

  She felt her brows rise as she caught sight of an elevated stage as well. In all honesty, it looked just as extra as she had thought it would. Just the sort of space for someone who had lots of dreams and pns to achieve them. Just as pretentious as well.

  There were servers walking around the room with gss cups containing what looked to be scotch. Eileen’s lips turned thin at the sight of it, not having forgotten the st few instances she’d seen Raiden exposed to alcohol. Her nostrils fred slightly as she attempted to tamp down her irritation.

  It wasn’t difficult to gather who could be enabling the behaviour when the men in the room were to preoccupied with themselves to notice anyone had entered the room.

  Raiden cleared his throat to get their attention. Eileen waved away the offer of alcohol to gnce around the room as the men towards him. There were familiar faces in attendance, mostly Raiden’s friends. But she was surprised to see Oliver Holloway talking with a dark haired man in the corner.

  “You all know Kiran,” Raiden says, motioning back towards her. Eileen has to stifle a groan at the flippancy of his tone. “He has agreed to come along today, so let’s give him a warm welcome.”

  Eileen has to stop herself from gring at Raiden as the room turns towards her in unison. Numerous eyes following her movements as she trails after Raiden and takes a seat next to him. Oliver throws her a grin and waves when she catches his eyes.

  The weight stays. Smothering a sigh, she looks up to meet them, leaning back in her chair and throwing them a lopsided smile.

  “Hello,” she says with a levity she doesn’t quite feel, “Kiran Knightwood. Nice to meet you.”

  “The pleasure’s all mine,” the man next to her says, holding out his hand for her to shake. “I’ve heard so much about you. It’s good to finally be able to put a face to the name that has had our high society in such a stir.”

  She’s not sure how to feel about that. Releasing a huffed chuckle, she takes his hand and shakes it. “I suppose that leaves me at a disadvantage. I tend to not stay in one pce.”

  “I suppose it does,” the man says with a good natured ugh, brown eyes gleaming with mirth. “Maxwell Robles. But you can just call me Max. Most do.”

  “Nice to meet you, Max,” she says, a small smile on her face even as she feels a spark of unease well in her stomach.

  Maxwell Robles. She knew that name. It was the name of the son of one of her family’s main political adversaries. And sure enough, at a closer look, she could recognise Kyron Robles features in the shade of his hair and the shape of his jaw.

  “You won’t think that way when you get to know him more,” Raiden tells her, leaning in, a cup of scotch now in his hands.

  Max gasps dramatically, hands going to his chest. “Really? After all our years of friendship, you would betray me like this?”

  Raiden ughs, shrugging lightly. “He’d find out what you were like eventually. Better now than ter.”

  “Asshole,” Max mutters, flipping him the finger, before turning towards Eileen once more. “Don’t let him fool you,” he says, throwing a pointed look at Raiden, “I’m an absolute delight.”

  “You’re an absolute nuisance, is what you are,” Raiden quips immediately, earning another gre.

  “Rude,” Max replies. “And it’s not like you’re any better.”

  Raiden shrugs. “Yes, but I don’t try to pretend otherwise.” Another gre. “What are you doing here anyway? You don’t usually show this time of the year.”

  “I wasn’t busy,” Max shrugs. A pause. “And my father may have told me to attend to make sure he doesn’t miss anything, but that’s besides the point.”

  “Right,” Raiden sighs. “How is the old man anyway?”

  “He’s-”

  Eileen listens quietly as the two men trail into a conversation about their families, moving on from Kyron Robles to other members, interjecting when needed. In the meantime, she allows her gaze to wander, cataloguing those in attendance. Maybe Raiden was right. This might be useful after all.

  Not in the sense that it would give her more leads, but it would give her the chance to interact with the ones she had. The tension coiling through her body eased as the clock ticked on the wall. A sudden hush fell over the room as who she presumed was the st member of Raiden’s little club walked in.

  His eyes seemed to sparkle as he walked onto the stage, smiling at the room as he stood upon it, hands in his pockets. Yet she could see the way he was leaning back, feet fidgeting in pce. The smile grew wider as he met her eyes, the nervous ticks smoothing out, posture subtly adjusted.

  Shaking her head lightly, she picked up the gss in front of her to disguise the smile spreading over her lips. The excitement was cute in a way.

  “My friends,” he says, pausing for dramatic effect. “Welcome to this month’s ACT gathering.”

  Eileen had to stifle a eye roll at the acronym just as she did when Raiden had first mentioned his club’s name; Agents of Change in Teodes. Much like the room around her, it had and still did sound more than a little pretentious. But hey. What did she know?

  After a quick introduction, where Eileen can see him slowly becoming invested in his cause, gait shifting as he spoke. Going from a welcoming host to the leader of the operation in the course of a few sentences. It was a fascinating shift to see.

  And she had to admit, the speech he gave to them was a good one. Amusement dancing through her eyes as she noted it was one her grandpa would appreciate. Talks of making their world a better pce and changing the way they treated their marginalised groups. Eileen agreed that something had to give.

  But the way they were trying to go about it was in a word unfeasible. In another, it was flimsy at best. Contrary opinions on what they needed to put their attention towards. Some thought their treatment of magic was important. Other voiced their protests about vish expenditure when parts of Teodes were starving.

  Both good points. Both things she agreed would need to be addressed if they wanted to enact change. The only problem was, it was obvious they were simply promoting what they thought would benefit their own reputation.

  Judging by the look on Raiden’s face, a mix of resignation and underlying annoyance, he was thinking the same. However, Eileen could also detect a spark of hope in his eyes. It made her balk in writing it off as she otherwise would. A group that couldn’t get its agenda straight could only do so much.

  Yet, she still felt fortunate that she didn’t need to contribute to the discussion. This was after all, a trial meeting. To see whether she’d, or well Kiran, would want to come back for another one. A question she still didn’t have an answer for.

  In the end, it didn’t really matter. That wasn’t the purpose of today’s outing after all.

  Taking another gnce around the room showed no signs of anything amiss. In fact, all of them looked as eager to be here as Raiden had. Different factions had formed as the speech came to an end, all with their own ideas on how to proceed. Max had drifted over to the other side of the room with an apologetic smile once called.

  She could still sense them shooting gnces her way in the middle of their conversations. It was a little strange and more than a little unnerving. Eileen had yet to figure out just what it was she’d done for them to be so fascinated with her. She shot them acknowledging looks and half-smiles every so often and they’d stop for a while.

  Still. It made discreet observation a little more complicated. By the time their meeting came to an end, Eileen accepted she wasn’t going to be able to obtain more information. Not any she didn’t know at least.

  Which is how Raiden finds her, leaning zily in the soft cushioning of the chair, eyes wandering around the room. Her eyes find his even before he reaches her, lips quirking upwards to greet him.

  “Nice speech,” she says, holding her cup up in salute as he once again takes a seat beside her.

  “Thanks,” he grins, “do you agree that something needs to be done? I noticed you didn’t say anything in the discussion.”

  Eileen doesn’t immediately answer, finishing off the rest of her drink, before giving him a small smile. “It was certainly interesting. Although, I can’t say you’ll be able to get done with your members all over the pce.”

  The man simply shakes his head with a small smile. “Does that mean you’ve agreed to come to the next one? Who better to give us some order than Kiran Knightwood himself?”

  Eileen raised her brows, moving to stand up as their companions moved towards the door. “I wouldn’t hold my breath.”

  Raiden shrugged with a smile. “If you say so.” He was going to keep pestering her until she agreed. The persistent bastard.

  “I do,” she tells him, then points towards the door where the remnants of his club’s members are walking out. She can hear some of their voices. “Is there an after party of some sort you forgot to mention?”

  The smile on his face just grows. A hand waves towards the door, as he too makes to stand. “Not exactly. But often we’ve stayed after to…intermingle.”

  Hmm. Gossip he means. Well. She really should have seen that coming with the way this city has a party of some sort every few days.

  To him, she says, “I suppose.”

  “So,” he says as they walk out, “did you find anything useful?”

  Eileen shrugs. “Inconclusive.”

  He stops. “Inconclusive?” Wide grey eyes lock on her, head tilting questioningly. “Meaning you found something that could be useful?”

  “Something like that,” she tells him, “There…”

  The words leave her mouth, eyes catching onto a head of shoulder-length dark hair. He has a cup of liquor in his hand as he leans back zily in his chair. Which on its own isn’t out of pce, but the terrified look on the man in front of him is.

  Eileen’s eyes narrow on him, tracing over the scene with more scrutiny. There’s a gin strapped to his belt. And knives in his boots, concealed by the fred hem of his pants. Scars line the man’s arms, another seen when his hair moves from his neck. A line from halfway up his neck to his jaw.

  There’s a smile on his face Eileen can tell doesn’t meet his eyes even without seeing them. There’s a coldness to the way his lips turn up, an empty sort of mirth in the tilt of them. From her position, she can make out glimmering lights on the knuckles of his fingers.

  Rings. Multiple of them. Expensive rings if the glimmers are to be believed. Her lips thin. She doesn’t need to ask around to see the picture such details paint. As she watches, he suddenly springs from his seat, decisively thumping his cup down on the table and leaning in to whisper something in the man’s ear.

  Eileen takes in the way his companion slumps into his seat, head falling into his palms as soon as the man is turned away. Her eyes follow the head of bck, taking in the purposeful way he weaves through the crowd. The fluidity of it. The danger.

  “What’s wrong,” Raiden asks from beside her. “What are you looking at?”

  Her eyes don’t move from the man moving out. “I think,” she starts, tilting her head slightly, “I may have found something useful after all.”

  “You did?”

  “Yes,” she nods, “I did. And right now, it’s getting away.”

  Eileen doesn’t turn back to see if he’s following before she moves to follow after the man. There’s no knowing how far he could have gone. There’s no time to lose.

  She’s relieved to find it’s not so far as she thought, spotting his form not long after she gets out the door. Footsteps behind her let her know Raiden is not far behind. Eileen allows herself a moment to be gd for it before sneaking after the man.

  If anyone would be able to give her a clue about her parent’s death. Surely it would be a mobster?