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Summary
Rhodes Island returns to Victoria on the edge of a civil war, and Doctor Ophel finds herself forced to rely on the one man she vowed she’d never work beside again.
Puzzle, Fischer, arrives with his usual calm precision, his polite evasions, and the kind of intelligence Victoria teaches only to those willing to be sharpened into weapons. He offers his insight. His maps. His obedience.
Ophel wants none of it.
She remembers their last encounter far too clearly, what it cost her, what it changed, what it left behind. But war doesn’t care about personal history, and every road in Victoria seems to require his knowledge, his language, his quiet, infuriating presence at her shoulder.
Tension coils between them with every mission.
Arguments turn into something hotter.
Blame turns into something dangerous.
And in the long hours between battles, Ophel learns that some wounds don’t heal just because time says they should.Puzzle insists she can trust him now.
Ophel isn’t sure she can trust anything, not her body, not the war, and definitely not the way he says her name.Victoria is burning.
And if they aren’t careful, they’ll burn with it.