I had only caught a glimpse of it at the time. She hadn’t known I was looking. She had moved too quickly when she realized she might be seen through a vision, shoving something into the drawer with a sharpness that had stuck with me even after the rest of the moment blurred.
At the time, it had only felt strange.
Now—
Now it didn’t feel strange at all.
It felt important.
And suddenly I was no longer hearing the clink of cups in Stella’s tea shop or the murmur of conversations starting up again at the back of the room. I was seeing my grandmother’s hand move, quick and tense. I was seeing the drawer slide shut. I was feeling that old instinct rise in me, the one that had whispered even then that I had just missed something I should have caught. I’d assumed it was a tincture or a treasure…
My throat tightened.
Gideon was still speaking, but the words had gone muffled at the edges.
“…ritual use in some accounts, symbolic in others, but always blood-bound…”
I blinked hard and forced myself back to the table.
Nova was watching me now, and so was Keegan.
I could feel it without turning my head.
“Maeve,” Ardetia said softly.
I didn’t answer, not because I didn’t hear her, but because, all at once, I could see my grandmother’s face in that memory, too. Not clearly, not enough to name the expression, but enough to know she had looked afraid of being caught.
Not guilty.
Afraid.
My stomach dropped.
“What is it?” Keegan asked quietly.
I looked at the table, at the tea I hadn’t touched, at Gideon’s hands, at the grain of old wood beneath all of it.
And in my mind, over and over, the drawer kept closing.
I sat forward a little, resting my forearms on the table as Gideon stood and walked a few feet away, one hand loosely hooked on the back of an empty chair.
I lifted my chin and met his eyes.
“One question,” I said.
He waited.
“How did you get it?”
He didn’t answer immediately. But something almost boyish lit in his expression, like he’d been waiting for someone to ask.
“Well,” Gideon said, spreading his hands slightly, “when she kidnapped me, I had a bit of time to think.”
Twobble stopped chewing.
Nova didn’t move.
Gideon continued casually, like he was describing a mildly inconvenient afternoon.
