Magic.
Not raw, untamable power. Not brute force. Something clever. Subtle. Patient. A whisper of power that slipped through unseen like a silent assassin.
“So, she wasn’t lying about whatever she summoned,” he said at last.
“If it was her at all,” I commented, not giving much weight to the possibility.
Torin glanced at me sharply.
“So, you still think that whatever followed her in here is attached to her, even though we were unable to detect it?” I could hear the doubt in his voice, but then again, I could also understand it. Such a feat was unheard of.
Yet despite this, I still found myself saying,
“I know it is.” The certainty in my voice surprised even him.
“That being, whoever the fuck it is, didn’t come here to serve me. It came because she brought it to me and, no doubt, against its will.”
“Hence why the fucking coward hid its presence,” Torin gritted, as he too hated to be bested, something at this present moment we both felt the string of.
“And clearly it doesn’t want to let her go,” I said with a curl of my lip. As that thought alone was enough to make my demon stir, anger and possessiveness rolling beneath my skin like a living thing. The idea that another entity had tethered itself to her, that it had guided her through my domain, protected her from my wards, and then spirited her away again…
Fucking unacceptable!
“Get me everything we have on Eliza Shadowmere,” I said, issuing the order for a second time.
“Her work. Her movements. Her connections. I want to know who she speaks to, where she goes, and who has been close enough to her to leave a trace,” I snapped, knowing I was only repeating myself at this point, but I didn’t fucking care!
She may have escaped my office.
But she hadn’t escaped me.
And whatever had helped her tonight had just made itself my enemy.
Torin did not argue. Instead, he reached into the inner pocket of his jacket and withdrew a slim glass vial. Its surface was dark and intricately worked, etched with fine silver filigree that caught the low light as he stepped closer. The glass itself was old, alchemical in design, the kind reserved for things never meant to be spilled or wasted. Inside, a small measure of blood rested thick and impossibly dark, suspended as if time itself had stalled around it.
“I had Vor retrieve it from the altar,” Torin said quietly, holding it out to me without delay.
“I know you’re certain she’s your Lost Siren, Wye. I just thought… well… proof never hurts,” he explained with a shrug of his shoulders.
I took it from him, fixated on the sight. A thread of apprehension slipped through me, subtle but unmistakable. Fate had already woven its spell, its truth settled deep, and yet I could not ignore the quiet dread of what it would mean if her blood did not echo what I already knew.
Blood of hers that had been given willingly, even if she had not understood the significance of the act. That alone meant that I already owned a piece of her. No one crossed this threshold without offering blood and, once given, the possibilities were limitless. Particularly in the hands of a sorcerer like me.
Torin lingered a moment longer than necessary, his posture rigid, his attention fixed on the vial rather than on me. He knew better than to interrupt, but he also knew the magnitude of what I was about to confirm.
“There is no spell capable of mimicking this,” I told him, gesturing to the vile in my hand with a little shake.
“Unless the gods themselves have learned a new trick,” he mocked, as we both knew that what was Fated could not be undone, not even for the Gods themselves.
As for the weight of this moment, the truth had been coiling through me since the moment my hand had closed around her own. Since the first pull of something ancient and instinctive had snapped taut between us.
Torin stepped back, granting me space, though I felt his presence linger at the edge of the room, alert and watchful. As if prepared for whatever followed.
I broke the seal, and the scent reached me instantly.
Not copper. Not iron. Not the sharp tang of mortal blood.
It was warmth.
