Searching (Radiance)

[Jaxen Marveet]

Zoë Marveet

Zoe tipped her head slightly as she regarded him, picturing a life spent moving effortlessly between cities, in and out of private jets, Moscow reduced to a waypoint rather than a destination. The cadence of his voice suggested Germany, or somewhere close enough that the distinction barely mattered. She smiled to herself and took another measured sip of her Negroni.

“Lucky you,” she said lightly, though the words carried a thread of truth she did not bother to hide. “I’m stuck here most of the damn time.”

The admission slipped out before she could soften it, and she let it stand. There was no reason to pretend otherwise.

“I’m Zoe,” she added, offering her name just as another figure stepped into their space. Her gaze lifted, quick and assessing, and she read him in a heartbeat. The cut of his clothes, the way he carried himself, the faint air of inherited certainty. An ultra-snob, if she had ever seen one. The Marveets were wealthy and powerful in their own right, but their fortune was recent, relatively speaking. This was something else entirely.

Old money. She felt it at once, the weight of Volthström mythology pressing close. And the old one new never mixed well.