“No,” I whispered under my breath.
Keegan’s brows drew together.
“What?”
I lowered my hand from my shoulder and forced myself to look away from the direction the feeling was pointing.
“It’s nothing.”
That was a terrible lie.
Because now that I’d noticed it, I couldn’t unfeel it.
The mark tugged again.
Steady.
Patient.
And suddenly something else slid into place in my mind.
Something Gideon had said earlier.
I stopped breathing for a second.
The shadow stone.
The thought landed so quietly it almost felt like it had been waiting there all along.
My hand drifted back to my shoulder again.
The warmth pulsed beneath my palm, and the pull deepened.
And worse yet, it didn’t take me anywhere I wanted to go…not to the Academy, my daughter, my mother, or even Shadowick.
It wanted me to walk toward the stone.
A cold realization settled in my chest, and I glanced at Keegan, worried he could read my mind.
The mark nudged me again.
“Oh.” I reached up to my shoulder, and Keegan tilted his head slightly.
“That didn’t sound like a good ‘oh.’”
I shook my head quickly.
“Just… thinking.”
But my mind had already started racing.
Because if the mark was reacting like this…
If it could feel the stone…
Then wherever Gideon had hidden it—
I would be able to find it.
