"What is it?" I asked, reaching for his hand.
"I should have protected you better," he said, his voice barely audible. "If I'd been stronger, faster?—"
"Stop," I interrupted firmly. "Lyra had been planning this for months. She manipulated events to separate us. And even with that advantage, she still couldn't complete her ritual. We escaped. We're together. And now we're going to find a way to break these bonds before our babies are born."
His power curled around my hand. It was cool and familiar. "You're remarkable, you know that? Most people would be falling apart after what you've been through."
I shrugged, aiming for nonchalance despite the fear and rage still churning just beneath the surface. "I don't have the luxury of falling apart. Not when there's a psychotic witch out there who thinks she's entitled to my children's magic."
Aidon's eyes darkened with divine fury. "She'll never touch them. I swear it."
A flutter of movement in my belly caught our attention. Aidon’s hand shot out, and his face transformed with awe as he felt the babies move through my skin. It was as if they were responding to their father's promise with one of their own.
"I think they're planning to hold you to that," I said with a smile that felt genuinely hopeful for the first time since our ordeal began.
"Good," he replied as he pressed gently over the spot where they'd moved. "Because together, we're going to make Lyra regret the day she ever thought she could steal from our family."
CHAPTER 2
The soft knock on our bedroom door three hours later shattered the peaceful research bubble Aidon and I had created. We'd been poring over ancient texts, cross-referencing binding spells with counter-magic. Suddenly, Clio's voice cut through our concentration like a blade through silk.
"I need to examine Phoebe immediately," she announced at the same time she pushed through the doorway. She had her medical bag clutched in white-knuckled hands. Her usually composed demeanor had cracked. The strain of maintaining everyone's health while fighting magical corruption she'd never encountered before was beginning to show.
My stomach dropped, the sensation sharp enough to make the triplets shift restlessly. "The babies?"
"They're fine," she assured me quickly, but her expression remained troubled as she set her bag down with trembling fingers. "It's their connections. They're... more active than they were this morning. And the magical resonance has changed."
Aidon's power flared and flooded the room, responding to his spike of protective fury. The dark energy reached toward mewith desperate tenderness before recoiling as if afraid to touch me in my current state.
"What does that mean?" he asked, his voice tight with barely controlled rage.
"It means Lyra's tethers are evolving," Clio said grimly, already moving toward me with purpose. "They're not just passive drains anymore. They're actively seeking something."
I set aside the grimoire I'd been studying, the leather-bound tome heavier than it looked—all that magic and knowledge weighed more than simple paper and binding. "Help me sit up properly."
His hands were gentle but firm as he adjusted my position, and I tried not to wince at the movement. Everything hurt these days. Clio's hands began to glow with diagnostic magic as she pressed them against my belly. Her touch was more invasive than usual.
I felt the depth of her magical probe reaching past skin and muscle. It followed the mystical connection between me and my unborn children. The sensation was like liquid mercury threading through my bloodstream, carrying with it the metallic taste of foreign magic.
Her eyes unfocused as she traced the paths of Lyra's corruption. My chest tightened when her face lost all of its color. "Bloody hell," she murmured in a voice barely above a whisper. "The first tether is wrapped around your daughter's developing water magic like a python around its prey. The second has latched onto your son's earth-based power, its tendrils burrowing deep into his core. And the third..."
She paused, her frown deepening as her magical sight followed the most insidious connection. "The third is coiled around your son's shadow abilities like a parasite feeding on divine power."
Aidon went perfectly still. "She knew. Somehow, Lyra knew what powers they would inherit before we did." His anger matched mine.
The implications made me sick to my stomach. She was stealing their powers even before our children had begun to develop their abilities. "That's impossible," I protested, unwilling to believe that she had somehow known. "We didn't even know until recently what their individual gifts would be."
"Not impossible," Clio muttered, her magic crackling around her fingers like angry fireflies as she ran another scan. "That psychotic harpy's been stalking you for weeks. She probably spotted the signs before we did." Her jaw clenched. "These connections are surgeon-precise. She's cherry-picking their individual gifts like she's shopping for designer shoes."
The truth of her comment made me want to hurl all over Aidon's fancy Italian loafers. "She wants to steal their abilities. Not just raw power.” I looked up at Aidon and swallowed hard. “She’s taking their actual magical DNA. She wants to become them."
"Well, that's significantly more fucked than we originally thought," Aidon said in the deadly quiet voice that meant someone was about to get their ass handed to them by a God of the Underworld. Then the room temperature nose-dived twenty degrees as his divine mojo reacted to the threat against his kids.
A sharp knock saved us from diving deeper into that particular nightmare. It was followed by Jean-Marc's voice carrying equal parts excitement and panic. "Mom, dad. Nina and I found something. It's either really good news or we're all spectacularly screwed."
"Come in before I lose what's left of my sanity," I called back.
Jean-Marc burst through the door carrying what looked like a magical snow globe on steroids. It glowed and pulsed like a rave for witches. Nina trailed behind him, looking like she'dstuck her finger in a light socket. Her hair stood up everywhere, and her eyes were bright with exhaustion.
