Beneath the printout, a separate sheet. A sketch. Rough, unrefined, but instantly recognisable. Three intersecting slashesforming a crude triad. The same symbol burned onto Talia Merrin’s arm. The same sigil that had radiated malevolent magic from the Umbrakynn in the workshop.
Daniel had drawn it. Twenty years ago.
“He said the bodies were only the beginning,” Mandy said, her voice barely audible. “Said there was something else. Something… drawing them in.”
I barely heard her. My fingers shook as I moved aside the sketch. More notes. Lists of dates. Names.
And one name, scrawled multiple times, almost obsessively, in the margins. Korenth Vhail.
The name landed heavy in the silence of the room. Of course. Korenth Vhail. The untouchable architect of Highspire.
And Riven Ashborne’s handler.
Ashborne hadn’t been in the Archives by coincidence; he was there on Vhail’s orders. The man with the ice-blue eyes was more than a consultant—he was a weapon in the hands of the people who ran this city.
Daniel Thorne found the sigil. He found the truth about Highspire. He found Korenth. And then he ended up dead.
My father carried that guilt for two decades. Now the sigil reappeared. New Calysteri victims, and dozens missing. Dane almost dead, fighting an Umbrakynn marked with the same symbol.
It was far more than a coincidence; it was a pattern. A deliberate, long-game play. Daniel Thorne wasn’t just obsessed; he was ahead of everyone. He saw the threads, the dark design, long before anyone else. And he paid for it.
The unsettling heat of magic began to build in my scar, hot and tight. Grief had hardened into urgency. Cold resolve solidified in my chest, narrowing my focus even as my body dragged.
I looked up at Mandy. She was watching me, her face pale, understanding dawning in her eyes. The pain, the years of unspoken sorrow, finally found a voice.
“He was right, wasn’t he?” she whispered. “He really wasright.”
I nodded, unable to speak, my throat tight.
Mandy looked down at the jumble of papers—the map, the sigil, the obsessive notes. She reached out, her hand hovering over them for a moment before she pushed the box across the table towards me.
“Take it,” she said. Her voice was steady now. “He hid it to keep us safe. But safety didn’t save him. Maybe the truth will save someone else.”
“I’ll bring it back,” I promised.
“Just make it count, Detective.”
“I will.”
I gathered the papers, carefully returning them to the box. I stood up, the springs of the armchair groaning again. I had to grab the back of the chair for a moment as the room spun, waiting for the floor to settle.
“Thank you, Mandy.”
She just nodded, a single tear tracing a path down her cheek. “Be careful.”
I lifted the box. It was just paper and secrets, it shouldn’t have been a burden. But right now, in my depleted state, it felt like I was lifting lead. Muscles burned, a tremor running through my forearms.
I left the house, the sun now fully risen. The busy street still throbbed with human life, but it felt different now. Charged. The Highspire District, with its gleaming towers and political power, seemed less distant. Menacing. Korenth Vhail’s name echoed in my mind, a dark refrain.
I hailed a taxi on the main road, collapsing into the backseat with the box clutched to my chest. I gave the driver the address for the garage first. My car was ready, and I needed it. I needed the familiar scent of old leather and the illusion of control it gave me.
But more than that, I needed sleep.
My reflection in the rear-view mirror was a disaster—pale skin, dark-ringed eyes, a tremor in my hands that I couldn’t hide. If I walked into the MCIU like this, Hale would have me committed. I couldn’t fight a war when I could barelystand.
I picked up the car, the engine purring to life with a reassuring growl, and drove the rest of the way home on autopilot.
Back in the flat, I shoved the box of evidence under the loose floorboard in the bedroom closet—my own little dead drop. Then I collapsed onto the bed, fully clothed.
