“Don’t touch it,” Hazel said sharply. She’d recovered faster than he’d expected, already moving toward the object with professional caution. “That’s a message stone. Blackwood craft.”
She produced a silk cloth from somewhere and used it to pick up the stone without making skin contact. The moment she lifted it, words appeared in the air above the surface, burning letters that hung for several seconds before fading:
THE ASHFORD DEBT IS PAID. YOURS IS JUST BEGINNING.
Hazel’s face went pale. “Tobias Ashford. The fae Viktor killed.”
“You knew him?”
“We’d met. Supplier markets.” She set the stone on the counter, careful to keep the silk between her skin and its surface. “He had daughters. Twin girls.”
Marcus looked at the broken window. At the message stone, still faintly glowing with malevolent intent. At the wards that had failed to stop a simple thrown object, which meant Viktor had someone capable of punching through generational blood magic.
“You need to come with me,” he said. “Now.”
Hazel stared at the message. When she looked up, the defiance hadn’t left her eyes. But she’d gone pale.
“Twenty minutes,” she said. “I need to secure the shop, notify my clients, and pack.”
“Fifteen.”
“Seventeen, and I don’t hex you on the way out.”
Marcus almost smiled. Almost. “Done.”
She disappeared into the back room. Azrael remained on the counter, his enhanced form slowly shrinking back to ordinary housecat proportions. The golden light faded from his claws.
“She won’t make this easy,” the familiar said.
“I’m aware.”
“Viktor Blackwood has killed forty-seven witnesses over six centuries. Forty-seven that we know of.” Azrael’s amber eyes met his. “The last one was a full demon. Senior associate at a rival firm. They found pieces of him in three different dimensions.”
Forty-seven witnesses. A senior demon, dismembered across dimensional boundaries. Methodical. Patient.
“She won’t be the forty-eighth,” Marcus said.
“Bold statement.”
“Accurate one.”
Azrael studied him. Whatever he saw seemed to pass inspection, because he nodded once, a surprisingly human gesture from a cat.
“She trusts slowly and forgives never,” Azrael said. “Her grandmother was the same way. Took me fifteen years to earn a place by the fire.”
“Fifteen years.”
“I’m patient.” The cat’s tail flicked. “The question is whether you are.”
He leaped down from the counter and padded toward the back room, leaving Marcus alone with the broken window and the message stone’s fading glow.
Marcus looked at the symbols carved into its surface. Old magic. Blackwood craft. A message designed not just to threaten, but to demonstrate capability.
They’d punched through her wards. They’d known exactly where to find her. They’d delivered their message within eighteen hours of the murder.
Viktor Blackwood wasn’t just coming for Hazel Wickwood.
He was already here.
