“I just found out myself.” I leaned back in my chair, relaxing the bite of the bindings. “You can put me under a truth serum if you don’t believe this, but the modifications weren’t consensual.”

“Non-consensual modifications?” Nagi gave the first genuine smile I’d ever seen from him—a slight upturn at the corners of his thin lips. “How the noble Eva has fallen.”

He liked that idea, and diverting his focus from me was likely my best option. “I intend to find out why. And when.”

Doctor Nagi’s smile turned cold. “You think I don’t know your secret?”

My pulse quickened. “Which one?”

“My teams took a thorough look at your history before you were summoned. I can see why Eva would want you.”

I dry swallowed. If he had hard evidence I was a Raven, my act had been useless from the start. “Why would Eva want me?”

“It’s true you don’t fit her typical profile—she favors those who’ve gone through the Trials or lost loved ones to the system.” Doctor Nagi glanced up from his screen. “But with your connections and your disobedient streak… Of course she would’ve recruited you. Perhaps when you took leave from academy? After the incident your family covered up?”

Tendrils of alarm feathered through my chest.

He knew everything.

He always had.

Doctor Nagi smirked, the expression cold and hard. “You’ve played your role rather well, haven’t you Mr. Orpheus?”

My hands involuntarily tugged against the ties. “You knew and you still brought me in.”

“You misunderstand your place, Altair. Your parents may be senators, but a word from me and they’ll commission a new child without complaint.”

The certainty in his words…

Doctor Nagi was right. My parents would go back to the catalog, only this time, they’d choose a son more genetically inclined to the rules. A son who wouldn’t go against them. A son who’d share their desire to scale the social hierarchy.

Maybe he was trying to put me in my place, but I’d known that truth since long ago and it had lost most of its sting. This wasn’t about me at all.

It was about Quanta.

He’d brought me here to test her. To see how we interacted. How my presence might change her reactions.

Even her powers.

“We’ll get to that truth serum,” Doctor Nagi said as he rotated the tablet to face me. “But humor me and explain the difference here.”