The gate opened before Finn pressed the intercom.

He pulled his hand back from the button and looked at the camera above it. A small green light blinked once and the iron gate swung inward, quiet and smooth on its hinges.

"She already knew we were coming," James said. 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

"She always knows," Finn said. He started toward the house.

James followed him up the driveway.

The house sat back from the road behind trimmed hedges and a low stone wall. Clean windows. Soft garden lights already on even though it was mid-morning. A black Range Rover parked to one side. No visible security except the camera, which meant the security was good enough not to need to be visible.

Finn slowed slightly before the front door.

"Don’t approach her like a guild recruit," he said.

"You already told me that in the car."

"I’m telling you again." Finn turned to look at him. "Maeve is not Ronan. She is not Cillian. She does not care about records or floors. She cares about terms and she cares about people, and right now she does not know you are people." He paused. "Let her talk. Do not pitch."

James said nothing.

"I’m serious," Finn said.

"I understand."

Finn looked at him for another second, then rang the doorbell.

The housekeeper let them in.

The hall was wide and quiet, the floor a dark grey stone that cost more per square metre than James’s mother’s monthly rent. A staircase curved up on the left. Framed photographs along the wall, some professional shots from what looked like red carpet events, some personal — Maeve with an older woman, Maeve as a teenager at what might have been a Tower registration office, Maeve laughing at something off-camera with three people James didn’t recognise.

The housekeeper had barely finished saying she’d let Ms. Callahan know when Maeve appeared at the top of the stairs anyway.

She was not what James had expected.

She was not dressed for anything. Cream coloured loungewear, bare feet, hair up in a loose knot. She looked like someone who had woken up an hour ago and decided not to do anything about it. She also somehow looked like the most composed person in the building.

"Finn."

She came down the stairs and pulled him into a hug before he could say anything, one hand on his back and the other at the back of his head the way an aunt would hold a nephew she hadn’t seen in a while.

Finn let it happen.

"You look serious," Maeve said, pulling back to look at his face. She held his jaw for a second. "You have your father’s face when you’re serious. It’s terrible on you."

"Thank you," Finn said flatly.

She laughed and patted his cheek twice. Then she looked at James.

Not a long look. Just enough to take him in, the way someone reads a room they’ve just entered. Young, quiet, standing slightly back. She didn’t say anything yet.

"Come in," she said.

The sitting room was on the upper floor, facing the garden. Floor to ceiling windows. A low glass table with tea things already set out — which meant she had known they were coming and told someone to prepare before they arrived.

Maeve sat in the chair closest to the window. Finn and James took the sofa.

The room smelled faintly of something warm and expensive. On the walls, framed film posters and one long canvas painting James couldn’t name. A shelf with three awards he recognised from Challenger-adjacent media. Awards for coverage, commentary, analysis. Not fighting. Maeve’s public life had been built in a different ring than the Iron Ring.

"How is Marcus?" she asked Finn.

Finn picked up his tea. "Still Marcus."

"Still turning every dinner into a seminar?"

"He prepared a quarterly performance review for my birthday last year."

Maeve looked at him over the rim of her cup. "Your birthday."

"He had slides."

She let out a short breath of a laugh. "I’ve missed him. He’s completely unbearable, but at least he commits to it." She set her cup down. "How is your head?"

"Fine."

"You climbed Floor 13," she said. "I read the report. The skeleton subjugation."

"It was manageable," Finn said.

"Everyone says manageable and then ends up in the Tower medical ward six days later." She looked at him steadily. "Are you actually fine?"

"Yes," Finn said.

She studied him the way someone does when they’ve known a person long enough to read past what they say. Then she nodded once, satisfied.

She looked at James.

"Finn introduced you at the door as James. He didn’t give me a surname."

"James Ganner," James said.

Something shifted in her face. Not surprise — more like something slotting into place that she’d been waiting to confirm.

"The Necromancer boy," she said.

"I’m not a boy."

"You’re nineteen," she said.

"Yes."

"You’re a boy." She said it without malice. "When you’re my age you’ll understand." She sat back in her chair and looked at him properly for the first time since they’d come in. "I’ve been reading your name for months. The Floor 10 clear. The Blood Writ with the Ganner heir. The thing with the stream." She tilted her head slightly. "You look tired for someone generating that much noise."

"I am tired," James said.

She smiled at that. Not warmly exactly. Something more measured.

"Why aren’t you talking?" she asked. "Finn told you to let me lead, didn’t he."

James glanced at Finn.

Finn looked at the ceiling.

"He told me not to pitch," James said.

"Smart of him." She picked up her cup again. "Finn knows I don’t respond well to pitching. I respond well to honesty." She looked between the two of them. "So. What are you two actually here for?"

Finn set his cup down.

"Maeve," he said.

She looked at him. She already knew what was coming and her expression told him she knew.

"We’re preparing for Floor 15," he said.

The room didn’t change, but Maeve’s posture did, just slightly. She set her elbow on the arm of the chair and rested her chin on one knuckle.

"And you need a support," she said.

"We need cleanse, resistance work, someone who can keep a team stable when the floor starts using status pressure. We need someone who has cleared Floor 14 and knows what that kind of thing feels like from the inside."

Maeve let him finish.

Then she said, "How many parties has Floor 15 killed so far?"

"Two."

"Two," she repeated. "Two full parties. And the government reports still haven’t given a clean account of what actually happened to either of them."

"We have a clearer picture than the reports," Finn said.

"I’m sure you do," she said. "That does not change the number." She looked at him steadily. "I clear with vetted teams, Finn. People I’ve trained with or people who come with serious backing. Not a party that’s want to try to clear a floor just base on hypothesis." She kept her voice even. "I like you. You know I do. But I’ve also buried people I liked, and I don’t intend to add my own name to that list as a family favour."

"It’s not a favour," Finn said. "We’d pay—"

"It’s a favour because you led with family," she said. "If you wanted business, you should have called my manager."

Finn looked at her.

She looked back.

"Family doesn’t get to ask me to die cheaper," she said.

He didn’t have an answer for that.

Maeve was not angry. She was not being cruel. She was just very clearly telling him where she stood and that she would not be moved by the same argument twice.

The room was quiet for a moment.

"How much do you get paid?" James said.

Maeve turned to look at him. She had almost forgotten he was there.

"For a Floor run," James said. "Standard rate. What’s your number?"

She looked at him for a long second.

Then she glanced at Finn. "He thinks money is the thing."

"James—" Finn said quietly.

"I’m asking a real question," James said.

Maeve studied him. She was reading him properly now, the way she had not when he had first sat down.

"One million dollars," she said.