Rendel inclined his head slightly. “You’re getting closer.”
Keegan’s patience was thinning. I could feel it. “Then say it plainly.”
Rendel didn’t look at him.
“The stone is leading him,” he said. “And the Priestess knows where it will go.”
“That’s not possible,” Nova said, though her voice had shifted just enough to tell me she wasn’t entirely sure. “The stone only leads bloodlines, kin.”
“Do we know that for certain?” Rendel shot back.
“Everything about this is possible now,” Stella murmured.
I pressed my palm lightly against my shoulder again, the shadow mark cold, steady, present.
“She’s not just waiting for it,” I said. “Maybe, she’s guiding it.”
Rendel didn’t answer.
He didn’t need to.
The truth of it settled in the silence that followed.
Twobble let out a long breath. “Well, that’s just unfair.”
Keegan looked at me again, his gaze sharper now. “You still think you should go alone?”
I hesitated but only for a second.
“Yes,” I said with a quick nod.
His jaw tightened immediately. “Maeve—”
“Like Rendel said, use the element of surprise, and I doubt she expects me to go alone.”
“That doesn’t make it safer.” He kept his eyes on me.
“I’m not trying to make it safer,” I replied. “I’m trying to make it work.”
That didn’t sit well with him.
It didn’t sit well with me either, to be honest.
But it felt right.
Or at least, it felt like the only direction that didn’t end with all of us walking straight into whatever she had waiting.
Nova stepped in, her tone calm. “We adjust the approach. Not the goal.”
Stella nodded. “We don’t abandon the plan. We refine it.”
Twobble perked up slightly. “Refining sounds better than abandoning.”
Keegan ran a hand over the back of his neck, his frustration clear. “And where does that leave us?”
I met his gaze. “It leaves you where you can still help without stepping into the exact trap she’s set.We can't all be trapped by her net.”
“We’re a team. That’s not how this works,” he said.
