She stood among beings who'd existed for millennia and commanded information like she belonged here.
Caelum's expression flickered before the mask returned. "Of course."
The map shifted, revealing the damage’s progression. Red spread across it, each failure triggering the next.
Dante's eyes drifted back to Caelum.
"You have a solution," Vex said. "You wouldn't have called us without one."
"I do." Caelum moved toward the map. "We pool our power, all of us, and channel it through a single focus point to reinforce the core ward-stones."
Simple enough. And Dante already knew the answer.
"Through you," he said quietly.
Every eye turned to him.
Caelum's smile was gentle. "I have the most experience with peaceful transitions. My power is naturally suited to healing rather than destruction." His eyes met Dante's. "Unlike some of ours."
The dig beneath the diplomacy. Brynn's fingers brushed against his, barely a touch, but he felt her tension. She saw through him too.
"I'll need her abilities as well." Caelum's attention shifted to Brynn with that warm expression that made Dante's shadows writhe. "The ward-architect bloodline will be essential."
Every instinct Dante possessed rejected the idea.
"And then?" Thessa's voice carried distant whispers. "After you channel our power through yourself?"
"Then we pray it's enough." Caelum paused. "I won't lie, if I lose control of that much combined death magic..."
He didn't finish.
But Dante heard what he wasn't saying. If it failed, Caelum died a martyr. If it succeeded, he held the power of all five courts. Either way, he won.
His shadows wound tighter around Brynn.
LXII.
BRYNN
She could feel Dante's tension through the hand at her back. It matched her own growing suspicions.
Something about this felt rehearsed. The concerned friend who reports the theft they committed. The helpful partner bleeding the business dry. She knew this game.
Caelum's magical map rotated slowly above the center stone, all those red warning lights pulsing in perfect synchronization.
The sabotage patterns didn't look random; they looked structural—planned with the kind of intentionality that took years to develop, and the type of intimate knowledge that should have been impossible for anyone outside the ward-keeping bloodline.
"The attacks began months ago," Caelum was saying, gesturing to different sections. "Small failures at first, easily overlooked as natural decay. But they've escalated dramatically in recent weeks."
Right around the time she and Dante had started fixing things. Right around the time someone would have realized she could undo what they'd been building.
She felt Dante's shadows stir against her ankles. He'd caught the same timing.
"How did you detect the pattern?" She kept her voice neutral. "These ward-stones are distributed across individual realms. You shouldn't have visibility into other courts' infrastructure."
Across the circle, Seraphina's hand drifted toward her sword hilt.
"I wasn't monitoring anything inappropriate," Caelum assured her, his smile warm. "I was simply... worried. As the lord responsible for peaceful transitions, I thought it prudent to investigate on everyone's behalf."
