A woman approached from the far end of the street. Yellow hair pulled into a clean, high tail that didn't sway with her steps. Pale skin. Blue eyes that didn't glow—but cut. Her presence was not that of a hunter stepping into a scene.
It was the arrival of gravity.
"What is going on here?" she asked, her voice level—flat as a drawn blade laid on silk.
The group froze.
Even Layla—normally the first to tease or deflect—stood straighter.
Irina's expression sharpened with recognition. "Professor."
Jasmine sucked in a breath, wide-eyed. "Wait, wait—Eleanor White?"
Leonard blinked.
He knew that name.
Everyone in the field did.
Eleanor White.
The youngest hunter in modern history to be ranked on the top-ranker lists—Stage 7 by nineteen, battlefield-cleared by twenty-one, offered high-command contracts by twenty-three… and rejected them all.
He had never met her in person.
She wasn't supposed to be active.
Let alone stationed here.
Let alone walking directly toward this table.
