She leans in—just for a moment—and the bond tugs again, hungry, eager, electric. I lower my voice. “If that invocation had been any longer, you would have collapsed.”
She exhales shakily. “I know.”
Rhea looks between us, eyes widening. “Oh. Oh gods. This is worse than I thought.”
Draven folds his arms like he’s settling in. “You havenoidea.”
Piper shoots him a murderous glare. “Don’t you start.”
Draven lifts his hands. “Fine. But we need a plan. Because the entire Ninth Realm felt what happened tonight.”
Newt hops onto the couch, kneads a blanket, and stares at all of us with the disdain of a creature who survived nine of his own lives already.
Rhea plops into a chair. “First order of business? Food. Second? Sleep. Third? Slade explaining literally everything he didn’t tell you.”
Draven grins. “Oh, this will be fun.”
I growl. Piper groans, and Newt purrs loudly. And Rhea? She glares at Draven like she’s already planning his burial. Draven, of course, leans into it—folding his arms, lifting a brow, swagger in every inch like he’s inviting the challenge.
Idiot.
Rhea ignores him entirely and sweeps her attention back to Piper, curls bouncing with each step as she moves into strategist mode—a mode she clearly lives in. “Okay,” she says, pointing at the coffee table like it’s on her shit list. “Let’s get organized. I have contacts.Realones. Not your witchy-woo, bullshit, crystal social media influencers.”
Piper snorts. “I don’t follow any—”
Rhea cuts her off. “You follow two. They cry on live and sell moon water. I worry about the amount of brain cells you’re losing watching that drivel.”
Draven chokes on a laugh. She spins on him. “You. Shut it.”
He raises both hands in surrender. “I’m merely observing excellence.”
Rhea blinks—momentarily thrown—then snaps back to me. “Slade. Tell me everything.”
I fold my arms, meeting her gaze with equal intensity. She has Bellamy steel, that’s certain. A kind of brash confidence most witches fake. Rhea wears it like perfume. “We found Veda’s ring,” I tell her. “The one meant to bind her to my ancestor, Lord Aresh Athalar.”
Rhea’s expression sharpens—calculating, quick. “That would explain why the curse latched onto your line specifically. If Veda broke the bond, the magic could’ve… rerouted? Mutated?”
“Corrupted,” Draven offers.
Rhea nods slowly. “That too.”
Piper wraps her arms around herself. “And the scroll said she vanished before anything could be discovered.”
I continue, “She sought power elsewhere. Something unnamed. Something hidden.”
Draven adds lazily, “Something the archives themselves tried to wake up the minute your girl here opened her mouth at dinner.”
Rhea winces. “Yeah, I felt that blast from three blocks away. Piper, my Christmas cactus bloomed in the middle of the night. InDecember. Do you know howcursedthat is?”
Piper groans. “I didn’t mean to—”
“Oh, I know. That’s the problem.” Rhea paces, tapping thoughtfully at her cheek. “Okay. I have someone. A historian—well, more like a magical antiquarian with questionable morals and a penthouse in Prague—but she owes me a favor. She can dig. Deep.”
Piper brightens. “Really?”
Rhea nods. “But don’t get too excited. She’snotcheap, and she’s definitely not stable. She once tried to resurrect a library.”
Draven looks impressed. “I like her already.”
