Ezra didn’t look up. “It wasn’t a microwave. Wrong frequency for that.”
I glared. “Speak plainly.”
Ezra sighed, finally meeting our eyes. “Fine. They placed you under a compliance field. Court tech-magic. I helped design part of it. It overrides vampiric reflexes. It’s designed to immobilize you. Make you malleable. It can pick up on one magical frequency close by and isolate it. Brilliant, if I do say so myself.”
I exhaled through my nose. “Another message, then.”
Ezra frowned. “Message?”
“That they still possess ways to weaken me,” I said. “And that I should not grow arrogant in my relative freedom. It is their way of reminding me I am not untouchable, that submission is… inevitable.”
Nadia’s jaw tightened. “That’s disgusting.”
A sharp beep cut through the kitchen—Ezra’s laptop. His eyes darted across the screen, and something flickered in them—fear, calculation, a modicum of guilt. His fingers hovered above the keys without touching them.
I turned fully toward him. “What is it?”
Ezra didn’t answer. A muscle jumped in his jaw. He clicked to another file with deliberate slowness, as if trying to hide what he’d just seen.
“Ezra,” I said, stepping forward. “What happened?”
He opened his mouth, but Nadia suddenly wavered where she stood, one hand gripping the counter.
“I don’t…” Her voice thinned, breath catching. “Cristian, I don’t feel?—”
Her knees buckled. I was at her side in less than a heartbeat, catching her as she collapsed.
“Nadia.” Her name left me harsher than I intended.
Her head lolled against my shoulder, eyes closed, skin gone gray under the kitchen lights.
A terror I had not felt since the night they put me in stasis tore through my chest.
I lifted her into my arms—barely any weight at all—and carried her to the couch. Her pulse was weak. Wrong.
“Nadia.” I tried again, quieter this time. “Open your eyes.”
She didn’t.
Realization struck like a blade drawn across bone.
I turned to Ezra. “What have you done?”
He stood frozen behind the counter, hands braced on either side of his laptop, breath sharp and uneven. The green light from the screen washed over his face, making his panic unmistakable.
“I—I didn’t…” His voice cracked. “I didn’t mean for this to happen.”
“What,” I said, stepping toward him, “did you do?”
Ezra flinched but didn’t run. His eyes flicked to Nadia’s still form, then back to me, guilt strangling his voice.
“I found the bond a week ago,” he whispered. “Its magical frequency. I’d been tracking anomalies, and it lit up my system like a flare.” He swallowed hard. “I thought I could analyze it. Map it. Reverse it.”
My jaw tightened. “And instead?”
His throat bobbed. “I amplified it.”
The words vibrated through me, and a horror so cold it felt like ice in my veins settled in me.
