“Or if they ever truly did,” I say.
The implication hangs between us, heavy and cold.
“If one survived,” Bob says slowly, “or if something disturbed wherever they were sealed… Yellowstone would be a beacon.”
“Power,” I agree. “Convergence. And…” I hesitate, then force myself to say it. “Elias.”
Bob looks at me sharply. “You think it’s fixated on him?”
“I know it is,” I reply. “It reacted to him. Not the land. Not the wards. Him.”
Bob is silent for a long moment. Then he nods once, decisively. “Frank needs to know.”
Relief and dread crash through me in equal measure.
The Yeti—Frank—is not someone you contact lightly. He didn’t build the Network to micromanage it. He built it to endure. When he intervenes directly, it’s because something has gone catastrophically wrong.
“I’ll draft the message,” Bob says. “You stay here. I need to speak to the gargoyles in attendance first. Don’t let Elias outside the wards.”
“As if I would,” I mutter. At the moment, I may not be able to see him, but I grasp his whereabouts easily by scent and an innate awareness of where the human who has my heart so completely is at any given moment.
Bob’s mouth quirks. “You’re in deep.”
I don’t bother denying it.
When I leave the command space, the festival grounds feel louder, brighter, almost surreal in their normalcy. Laughter drifts through the air. Creatures greet one another, old rivalries set aside in the name of the Solstice. The energy is high, expectant, joyful.
Elias spots me immediately.
He breaks away from Christopher with an easy smile and crosses the space between us without hesitation, slipping his hand into mine like it belongs there. The simple contact steadies me more than I expect.
“You look serious,” he says quietly.
“I am,” I admit.
He squeezes my fingers. “Talk to me later?”
“Yes,” I promise. “When it’s safe.”
His brow furrows, but he nods. He trusts me. That trust settles heavy and fierce in my chest.
I look around the grounds—at the wards humming strong and sure, at the gathered power of beings who have weathered centuries of fear and myth and survival. Inside this space, Elias is protected by layers of magic older than most civilizations.
Outside it? Outside it waits something that should not exist.
My jaw tightens as I pull Elias closer, one arm coming around his shoulders in an unmistakably possessive gesture. He leans into me without question, warm and solid and real.
Let the Shade test the edges of the world if it wants. It will not cross these wards.
And if it tries to take what’s mine, it will learn—very quickly—why some legends are not meant to be rewritten.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
ELIAS
Something is off with Boone.
I know it the way you know when the weather is about to turn—not because of anything obvious, but because the air carries a tension I can’t quite explain, because the birds don’t land where you expect them to, because the quiet hum under everything shifts pitch.
