The ache in my shoulder had been sitting there quietly for the last few minutes, the way a bad thought does when it knows it can wait you out. I’d been pretending it wasn’t there because there were too many people at the table, too many things still hanging in the air, and because once you admit pain has teeth, it usually bites harder.
But the burn sharpened anyway.
I shifted the compress and changed the angle of my arm, trying to do it without drawing attention to myself. It didn’t work. The movement tugged at the mark, and heat slid down into my shoulder blade hard enough to make me inhale through my nose.
Across the table, Gideon noticed.
Of course he did.
His gaze dropped to my shoulder and stayed there for half a beat too long.
I looked away before anyone else could follow my gaze and gave myself a moment to actually see the room again.
Keegan held my hand under the table, which helped.
One of the vampire ladies moved between tables carrying a fresh pot of tea, pouring with the calm authority of someone who knew very well that nobody in Stonewick should be making decisions in their current state without at least two cups of something hot first.
Twobble had somehow acquired another pastry.
I hadn’t seen him leave his chair. I hadn’t even seen him lean into an arm’s length of anything.
But there it was.
He was halfway through it already.
Keegan sat beside me, quiet and solid. From across the room, he probably looked perfectly calm. The sort of steady presence people leaned on when things went sideways.
Up close, though, I could feel the tension in him. It was there in the way his shoulders held still a fraction too long. Carefully, he watched everything in the room without turning his head.
Calm, maybe.
But not relaxed.
Not even close.
Nova had gone quiet in that particular way of hers that never meant peace. Ardetia sat with her hands folded, looking composed enough to fool a stranger. Bella had one boot hooked around the rung of her chair and the alert expression of someone who was listening to four conversations, two heartbeats, and whatever magic had decided to do under the floorboards tonight.
Nobody at the table was relaxed.
Least of all, Gideon.
He looked worn down around the edges now that the immediate danger had passed. He didn’t look weaker, just more human, which somehow made him harder to read. His cup sat untouched in front of him, the steam long gone. His hands were folded loosely, but there was nothing loose about him.
I set the compress down in my lap.
“If you aren’t going to tell us where it is,” I said, “then at least tell us what it does.”
The table went quieter than it already was.
Twobble stopped chewing.
That was how I knew the question mattered.
Gideon didn’t answer right away. He leaned back a fraction, not enough to look casual, more like he was buying himself a little room to think. His eyes lifted to mine, then slid—again, briefly—to the mark on my shoulder before returning to my face.
It was the first real hesitation I’d seen in him all night.
Which meant the answer was bad.
