I’m consulting the coven’s oldest records for further information and will let you know if I find anything of interest. I’m glad to hear you’re eating well.
With love,
Elizabeth
The last line made my chest tighten. She’d slipped it in casually, like it was an afterthought. But I knew better. She’d been worried about me for years, watching me burying myself in research and avoiding people.
She was telling me she noticed the change—probably through magical scrying.
She was telling me that she approved.
I read her message again, making sure I hadn’t missed anything, then handed it to Feral without comment.
He dried his hands on a rag before taking it. He read it once and set it down on the now-clean desk surface. Then he picked up his rag and went back to the bookshelf.
Three seconds later he stopped. Set down the rag. Turned back my way.
The implications were hitting both of us at the same time. I could see it in his face. His jaw worked, and his eyes went distant.
I gathered my maps and field notes, spreading them across the surface of his father’s desk. Feral brought over the territory map, unrolling it beside my documentation.
We stood side by side, looking at the evidence laid out in front of us.
Late morning light came through the window at an angle, highlighting dust motes in the air and casting everything in warm tones. In the distance, I caught sounds of the pack goingabout their day. Normal life continuing while we pieced together something that felt increasingly out of place.
“The seals haven’t been maintained,” I said. “That much is clear from my grandmother’s information.”
“Or they’ve been deliberately unmaintained.” Feral traced the seal site markers on his map. “My father performed ceremonies. Were they done at these locations?”
“If he was the one maintaining them, and no one took over after his death…”
“Then they’ve been degrading for thirteen years. From the roots up. Which would explain why the symptoms appeared gradually rather than all at once.”
I considered that. The timeline fit. Thirteen years since his father died. The shifting sickness appeared in the last year. “We could be dealing with progressive degradation that accelerated over time as the seal structures weakened.”
But something about it felt incomplete.
“We’re assumingpassivedegradation,” I said. “Natural erosion from lack of maintenance.”
“You don’t think that’s what happened?”
“I think it’s one possibility.” I pulled out my duskburst location diagrams, laying them over the seal site markers. “But there are others. Someone could’ve interrupted the renewal process deliberately, removing the original plants before they completed their binding cycle and placing others in an incorrect way.”
Feral leaned over the diagrams. “Why would they do that?”
“To weaken the seals without appearing to break them directly. If they could create instability, it might look like natural degradation.” I traced the pattern of duskburst locations I’d mapped. “Or someone could have substituted plants in a way that mimicked ritual placement without actually completing the binding.”
“Using duskburst, but getting the timing or preparation wrong.”
“It might look right to a casual observer but fail to anchor the magic properly.”
He went quiet for a moment. His hands settled on the desk edge, gripping it.
“There’s a third option,” he said. “The ceremonies could’ve been sabotaged while my father was still alive. Something might’ve been done to undermine his renewal work without him realizing it. The effects might not have shown up until years later, after he was gone and couldn’t correct it.”
I hadn’t considered that. The idea made my stomach turn.
“That would require someone with access to the seal sites,” I said slowly. “Someone your father trusted enough not to question their presence.”
