“Now?” Nat gestured to my work. “Now it’s a bit of an Uno Reverse. If he’s badly injured, he’ll heal faster. Pulling a tiny bit of energy from all the thousands of threads connecting to him. Community on blast. Harmless to others, unless he’s somehow severed from everyone who cares about him, but a supercharger for his healing power.” He then waved a hand at the shimmering, silvery thread connecting Angel to Nox. “And this is clever. A soul tether that doesn’t drain but reinforces. It’s an upgrade.”
The relief made my knees weak. “And it won’t hurt Nox?”
“Your fae dragon? No. The fae are permanently tethered to the source of life itself. They are, for all intents and purposes,cosmic batteries. It’s precisely why power seekers hunt them. Your little dragon here? He practically hums with excess energy.” He leaned closer, studying the link with intense focus.
“Would you have done something different?”
“This skill is beyond me. Far beyond most weavers. I’m not sure most could even read the subtle perfection of the lines you’ve stitched.”
Again, with the not normal. “That’s good?”
Nat gave a slow, approving nod. “It is. But work like this is noticeable. It shines in the dark.” His Reaper’s gaze pinned me. “Be careful where you shine your light, Jude. The things that live in shadows are always watching.”
“That’s what worries me,” Angel said.
“Wise,” Nat agreed. He tilted his head at me. “As is caution.”
“What about the rest of the runes?” My mind was already racing over the other snags in Angel’s soul. I had to study them to understand them, and then even longer to try to reweave. He had dozens of them. “Which should I focus on unraveling next?”
“What you’ve done here is the equivalent of microsurgery,” Nat said. “Attempting a full soul scouring now wouldn’t just unravel your sanity—it could fray Angel’s very essence.” He let the warning hang in the air between us. “It would, quite literally, explode that pretty little brain of yours.”
“Yeah, let’s not do that,” Angel said, his arm tightening around me.
“Let this settle,” Nat instructed, gesturing to the space between us. “A bond like yours needs to solidify. That is your foundation. It could take years to mend all the rest.”
“And we don’t need to,” Angel interrupted, his voice firm. “I’ve made my peace with them.”
“But this one is sound?” I asked, needing the confirmation. “The one I just fixed?”
Nat gave a single, definitive nod. “It is. Trust your instincts, Jude. They are good.” His form blurred at the edges, bleeding into the surrounding darkness. “But remember, you are not immortal. Death comes for us all. Don’t rush to meet it by burning your soul out trying to fix someone else’s.”
With that final piece of grim advice, he vanished completely, leaving us alone in the silent, chilling dark.
“You have the weirdest friends,” I grumbled.
“Says the man who just got life advice from a Reaper,” Angel countered, pulling me toward the road. “Come on. Let’s catch up with the team before they decide to case the place without us.”
42
The midnight aircarried a grave damp chill, breezing across my face like a zombie kiss. Downtown Minneapolis had never been this quiet, not even on the dozen-odd warrants and crime scenes I’d worked. But the fluttering caution tape and the lingering crackle of energy from the nearby Veil split had scared everyone away, leaving the streets silent as a tomb.
We stood shrouded in the shadows across from Bowman’s apartment, watching for any sign of movement. Other than the distant, periodic sweep of a police patrol car, the place was a ghost town. How many people had fled their homes, terrified the whole building would be pulled across the Veil? Now, as I stared up at the facade, not a single trace of the tear remained. A few dozen yards down the road, the old, permanent Veil split merged seamlessly with the mortal world. The strands binding the two were now inseparable, as if woven from a single, chaotic tapestry from the very beginning.
Remi stood beside Angel and me, the three of us contemplating felony breaking and entering while the rest of the team listened from a nearby unmarked van.
“Bold of them not to leave a single cop on site,” Remi grumbled, his voice thick with annoyance. Dressed in a blackstocking cap and form-fitting layers of black, from his skinny jeans to his fitted top, he looked less like a supernatural agent and more like a cat burglar’s wet dream. I tried to study his strands, but the colorful mess warped like a funhouse mirror, a dizzying kaleidoscope that churned my stomach the longer I looked.
“Smells like a trap,” Angel said, his presence a solid anchor, dragging me back each time the threads threatened to pull me under. “Stop analyzing them. You’re just giving yourself a headache.”
“Sorry,” I whispered, blinking hard to focus.
“I need to know more about these threads,” Remi said, already digging through a backpack he’d brought.
“Now is really not the time,” Ezra’s voice snapped through our earpieces. “You are in and out. Fast. This isn’t a field trip.”
“Always gotta burst my bubble,” Remi griped as he pulled out a stick of black chalk. He quickly sketched a simple, geometric rune on the front of my shoulder, another on Angel’s leather jacket, and finally one on his own sleeve. The moment he finished his own, the runes flared with a cool, shadowy light that sank into the material, leaving no visible mark.
A weightless sensation washed over me, like being dipped in twilight. I watched as the color bled from Angel’s form beside me, his edges blurring and blending seamlessly with the deep shadows. When I looked down at my hands, they were little more than a trick of the light.
