The champagne flute cracks in my hand.

Not from pressure. From heat. Mine.

I set it down on the nearest tray before anyone notices, my fingers still tingling with the power I've spent three decades learning to suppress. The stress of this goddamn fundraiser finally found an outlet, and it wasn't words.

Judge Harrington walks away, still chuckling at his own joke about how "certain communities" need to learn their place in the justice system. I didn't respond. I never do.

That's the problem.

I've spent my entire career building a reputation as unshakeable. Kavya Mehra, the prosecutor who never loses her composure. Who never raises her voice. Who wins cases with precision and evidence and absolutely nothing that could be called emotion.

If they knew what lived beneath my skin, they'd burn me.

Not a metaphor. My grandmother still has scars.

"You're glowing."

I spin. A man stands behind me, champagne in hand, watching me with the kind of attention that peels back layers. Sandy blond hair. A suit that fit like it had been built around him. Face I recognize from newspaper photos, Senator Pierce's son.

Bennett Pierce.

What the hell does he want?

"Excuse me?"

"Your hand." He nods toward the one I'm flexing, trying to work out the residual heat. "It's still glowing. Faintly. Most people wouldn't notice, but I've been watching for people like you my whole life."

My stomach plummets.

I've been careful. So careful. For thirty-one years, I've hidden what I am. I don't slip. I don't spark. I don't glow.

Except apparently I do. When a smug judge makes one too many racist comments at a fundraiser for diversity in law.

"I don't know what you're talking about," I say, my voice level even as nausea climbs my throat.

"Of course you don't." His smile is strange, not threatening, not smug. Almost... relieved? "I've been looking for people who don't know what I'm talking about for fifteen years. Since my nanny did something impossible in front of me and made me swear to keep her secret."

I should walk away. Every survival instinct my family drilled into me is screaming to leave. Now.

But I don't.

"What happened to your nanny?"

The smile fades. "My mother happened. She suspected. Rosa was fired within the week. I was twelve. I've been trying to find others like her ever since." He takes a sip of champagne. "To help, not to hunt. Before you ask."

"I wasn't going to ask. I was going to leave."

"But you're still here."

Damn him.

I am. Standing in the middle of this glittering fundraiser where every person represents either a career threat or a career opportunity, talking to a stranger about the secret that could destroy me.

"Why are you telling me this?"

"A conversation. Somewhere private." He glances at the crowd. "Not here. There are too many people who work for my father."

"Your father." Senator Pierce. The man whose "security" legislation has made my grandmother refuse to leave her apartment after dark. "Why would I go anywhere with you?"

"Because something is happening," he says, and the lightness drops from his voice. "People like you are disappearing. I have resources. I have information. And I think you might be able to help me understand who's taking them."

The heat flares again. I clench my fist, forcing it down.

"I'm a prosecutor," I say. "If people are disappearing, file a police report."

"I'm a politician's son," he counters. "If the police could help, I wouldn't be at a fundraiser looking for witches."

The word lands like a slap.

No one says it out loud. No one has called me that since my grandmother taught me, at age six, why we never speak of what we are. Why we hide. Why we pretend to be normal even when normal feels like wearing a skin that doesn't fit.

"I don't know what you're..."

"Ananya Patel disappeared last week," he says quietly. "Priyanka Desai the week before. Both attended events at my father's foundation. Both were..." He pauses, choosing his words. "Like you."

Names I know. Faces from the hidden community, the network of whispers and careful connections that keeps us safe. Keeps us hidden.

Keeps us alive.

"I have to go," I say.

"Kavya Mehra. NYU law, top of your class. Prosecutor for seven years. Ninety-four percent conviction rate." He recites it like a resume. "You fight injustice within the system because it's safer than fighting from outside. I understand. I do the same thing."

"You don't know anything about me."

"I know you're tired of hiding." His voice softens. "I know you're angry all the time and you can't show it. I know you see people like Judge Harrington get away with everything, and you have to smile and play along because the alternative is too dangerous."

My chest is tight. Pressure builds behind my lids.

I will not give him the satisfaction of being right.

"If you want to help," I say, "stop your father's legislation. His 'security' bills are a witch hunt in everything but name."

"That's exactly what I'm trying to do." He pulls a card from his pocket. Plain white, just a phone number. "Think about it. Call me when you're ready to stop fighting alone."

He walks away.

I stand there, holding his card, feeling the heat pulse through my fingers.

The champagne flute I abandoned earlier has developed a crack down the side. No one else has noticed. They're all too busy networking, schmoozing, playing the game that every person in this room knows by heart.

I should throw away the card. I should forget this conversation happened. I should go home, call my grandmother, and remind myself why hiding is survival.

Instead, I put the card in my clutch.

And I go looking for more information about the disappearances.

My grandmother always said the fire would burn us if we kept it caged too long.

Tonight, the char is real.