Keegan shifted beside me. Just enough that his knee brushed mine under the table. Not accidental. Not possessive. A reminder that I wasn’t sitting here alone.
Gideon noticed that too.
He let out a breath and rubbed his thumb against the side of his cup, though he still didn’t pick it up.
“The stone,” he said at last, “is older than the stories people usually tell about it.”
“That sounds like a preamble,” Twobble muttered.
“It is,” Nova said without looking at him.
Twobble sat back with a deeply offended expression that lasted all of two seconds before he leaned forward again.
Gideon kept talking.
“Most people who know the name think of it as a relic. A source of stored shadow magic. A thing with power and a cost. There were many throughout the years, but this is the only one that remains.”
“And?” I asked.
“And most of that’s true,” he said. “It’s just not complete information.”
My shoulder burned again. Not as sharply this time, but enough to make me want to stand up and pace. I didn’t. I stayed where I was and looked at him across the table.
“What is it really?”
He went quiet again.
Stella, who had been carrying a tray past our table, paused just long enough to set another cup near my elbow. I hadn’t asked for it. She hadn’t asked whether I wanted it. She simply placed it there with the certainty of someone who had outlived entire eras and had no time to negotiate over tea.
“Drink that before you fall over,” she said softly, and sat down behind us.
The cup smelled like chamomile and clove and something deeper I didn’t have the energy to identify.
“Some say the shadow stone is what helped preserve the Priestess,” he said.
“Preserve?” Bella repeated. “That’s a pleasant word for whatever horrifying thing you mean.”
Gideon didn’t smile.
“It helped sustain her,” he said instead. “Or at least that’s the way the oldest accounts describe it. Longevity. Continuance. The ability to remain… more than mortal, but not quite immortal.”
A little chill moved through the table.
Even Twobble didn’t jump in right away.
I stared at Gideon. “You’re saying that stone is why she’s still alive.”
“I’m saying it’s part of why.” He glanced toward Nova, then back to me. “But it isn’t as simple as holding it in your hand and becoming immortal. If it were, half the monsters in our history would have torn the world apart trying to own it.”
“That is not a comforting image,” Twobble said.
“No,” Stella called from across the room, “but it is likely an accurate one.”
“What do you mean it isn’t that simple?”
Gideon’s gaze dropped once more to my shoulder.
The mark burned as if it knew it had become part of the conversation before any of us had agreed to that.
