Elena jumped slightly, startled. She blinked up at me with wide eyes, then relaxed when she saw it was just me. That softening when she looked at me hit harder than I wanted to admit.
“You scared the crap out of me, Onyx.” She shook her head with a small laugh. “I didn’t even realize you were there.”
I frowned, distracted from her art by the sound of my road name on her lips. It was wrong.
“Reeve,” I grunted.
She cocked her head to the side and stared at me curiously. “Reeve?”
“It’s my name. Not Onyx.”
“Oh, I thought…”
“Everyone else calls me Onyx. You don’t.”
She double blinked, then a pretty blush bloomed on her cheeks. “Okay. Um…Reeve. What did you ask—oh! Right!” She glanced down at her sketchbook, then back at me. “It was part of an exercise. My mentor gave me a photo of a damaged engraving. Said it was good for pattern reconstruction work.”
I crouched slightly, resting my forearm on the table beside her and keeping my voice neutral. “You’re doing more than reconstructing.”
She tilted her head. “What do you mean?”
“You’re building out the language. The structure. These aren’t just variations. They’re weighted. Layered. You’re working through what matters more, the vertical line or the nested hook on the right.”
She blinked. “I mean…yeah. I guess I am. It just felt like something was missing, so I kept adjusting.”
“You ever see this symbol before that photo?”
Her lips parted slightly, then closed again. She shook her head. “No. That was the first time.”
“And your mentor gave it to you?”
“Yes. Jareth sometimes gives me advanced sketch exercises. Partial images. Things like this to practice with.”
My gut tightened.
Too much knowledge wrapped in an innocent package.
Elena wasn’t doing anything wrong. That much was clear. She didn’t know what she was playing with. Her abilities were being specifically honed for this work without her knowledge.
But the motherfucker feeding her these scraps knew exactly what he was doing.
I straightened slowly. “It’s very intriguing. You mind if I take a photo of that one?”
She looked surprised and hesitated. “Um…he doesn’t like copies of my art stored anywhere but in my head.”
“I get it,” I lied, not mentioning how absurd that was.
Elena chewed her lip, looking torn. I knew she was flattered that I would want a picture of her art, but she didn’t want to disappoint her mentor.
An idea popped into my head. “You were working on a sketch for a tattoo the other day. A?—”
“Oh!” Her face lit up, and she shuffled through the pages of her sketchbook, one finger keeping her place on the page of her current project. Then she pulled one out and held it up, letting the book fall back open to her current sketch. “This one?”
“That’s it.” I nodded with a smile. “Mind if I take a photo of that one instead?”
She blushed. “Sure.”
I pulled out my phone and carefully tilted it to snap a clear shot of the amazing artwork she was holding up, while still capturing a view of the symbol on the open page of her sketchbook.
