“Correct,” I said. “Which is why I have to look at it.”
“There’s a difference,” he said, “between curiosity and volunteering as tribute.”
“Tribute to what?” Twobble muttered. “Mystical under-floor lighting?”
“I get the reference.” I shook my head.
Karvey hadn’t moved from his post, stone feet planted near the pantry. The light traced around him, wary, like a stream encountering a boulder. The other gargoyles on the roof shifted again; dust tickled down from the beams.
Miora’s knuckles were still white on the chair arms. Her eyes stayed glued to the cellar. She tried once more to speak, with lips forming syllables that never made it to voice. Frustration and fear radiated off her like heat.
That decided it.
I met Keegan’s gaze.
“Whatever this is, it’s connected to me,” I said. “Karvey can feel it. My mark’s reacting. It’s in my cottage, under our feet. And Miora knows what it is but can’t tell us.”
He grimaced. “Which sounds like exactly the sort of thing we should not be walking into.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “We. Should not.”
He narrowed his eyes. “That better not have been you trying to exclude me by grammar.”
I stepped closer. The hum from below vibrated up through the floorboards, into my bones. “I can’t not go, Keegan. If this is another secret the priestess left lying around, I need to see it before she decides to use it. If it’s something of Elira’s, I need to know what she kept from us. If it’s something else…”
“That’s three different flavors of terrible,” he said.
“It’s three different flavors of we don’t get to pretend it’s not here,” I countered.
We stood like that for a breath, the cottage listening. His jaw tight, my heart pounding, the light creeping, Miora silently pleading.
My dad let out a long breath and pushed back his chair. “She’s right,” he said.
Keegan shot him a betrayed look. “You’re supposed to be on my side.”
“I am,” Dad said. “My side is also to find the thing before it finds our kid's side.” He reached over and squeezed my shoulder. “You’re not going down there without backup.”
“Absolutely not,” My mom said. “You’re all insane if you think I’m letting my daughter waltz into glowing unknown magic alone.”
“She should go alone,” Karvey said.
Every head swiveled to him.
“Excuse me?” My mom said, in the tone that had once struck fear into PTA presidents.
Karvey held up both stone hands. “With support at the door,” he amended. “But the magic is rising along her line. If we crowd it with too many presences, it might react defensively. Stone, hedge, fae, wolf—all at once? It could see that as attack.”
“So we send just the Hedge, then?” Twobble squeaked. “Excellent. Let’s put the person we like most in danger.”
“We’re right here,” Skonk said.
Miora thumped the side of her chair with her fist, drawing our attention back to her. Her eyes were fierce, wet, furious at her own silence. She pointed at me with a trembling hand, then at the cellar, then back at me again.
Her meaning was clear:You. It has to be you.
Fear slid cold fingers up my spine. I took a step toward Keegan, closing the space between us.
“I’m going,” I said, softer now. “But I want you at the door. I want Mom and Dad reinforcing topside. Twobble and Skonk stay with Miora. Karvey, you put your granite self in the way if anything tries to come up that shouldn’t.”
