the obsidian proxy
The files detailed a bright, artistic young woman, entirely focused on Renaissance art and photography, oblivious to the fact that her new life was the product of a massive, morally compromised, global shadow government.
Elias found her in a quiet, sun-drenched coffee shop near the university campus.
Maya Solis—Elara Thorne—sat at a small table, her head bent over a textbook, a sketchpad open beside her. She had Julian’s dark, severe eyebrows, but her eyes, when she looked up, held a warm, open curiosity. She was beautiful, innocent, and entirely whole. She was seventeen, focused on her exams, and utterly ordinary—the normalcy Elias had never known.