Keegan leaned forward in his chair. “That tracks?”
Gideon ran his thumb along the rim of his teacup, thinking it through before he answered.
“It makes sense she’d send someone after it.”
I shook my head.
“That’s the strange part.”
Everyone looked at me.
“It didn’t feel like she sent him,” I said.
Bella frowned.
“What do you mean?”
“He didn’t act like someone following orders,” I said. “If anything… it felt like he was trying to keep it away from her.”
Gideon’s gaze flicked briefly to Keegan and back to me.
“The martyr,” he said quietly.
I shrugged.
“Maybe.”
The word felt flimsy compared to the memory of that conversation in the woods.
“I don’t really know what he was trying to do,” I admitted. “But he was convinced I had the stone.”
Gideon looked up at that, his attention sharpening.
“Did you tell him I had it?”
I shook my head. “No.”
I took another sip of tea, buying myself a second before I went on.
“But I might’ve let him think I knew where it was.”
Gideon watched me for a moment, weighing that.
“Why?”
“Because he wanted to make a deal.”
The chair beside me creaked as Keegan sat up straighter.
“A deal?”
The word came out a little sharper than he probably meant it to.
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“He said the Priestess had something I needed,” I said.
Nova’s face darkened. “Your mother.”
