Page 26

Guy shifted closer, his eyes locking onto the center of the drawing. “Bernie?”

Knox set the pencil down, his jaw locking. “What is it?”

Bernie traced one particular, jagged intersection of the geometric lines with the tip of her fingernail. “Part of this structural reinforcement… This is exactly what the Magic locking those bulkheads looked like?”

Knox gave a single, definitive nod.

“It resembles the type of infernal reinforcement woven into Arrhythmia's original Wards.”

The room temperature seemed to plummet five degrees.

Knox nodded toward the drawing. “Meaning Fogarty?”

“Meaning nothing that specific yet,” Bernie warned. “I'm not saying Fogarty stood on your rig or ordered what happened. But the architecture is related. Same family of Spellwork. Beyond that, we'd be guessing.”

As Bernie's fingertip traced the jagged intersection, Knox sucked in a sharp breath. The Hellmark on his forearm flared with sudden, blinding intensity.

I opened my Alicorn Sight on instinct as the room exploded into a hyper-detailed matrix of hidden frequencies.

“Don't move!” I ordered sharply as my eyes locked onto his arm.

“Wasn't planning on dancing,” Knox ground out through gritted teeth, his muscles tensing as the Hellmark brightened to a scorching, blood-red glow.

Through my preternatural sight, the almost invisible thread didn't just pull; it vibrated. The geometric sigil burned into Knox’s flesh began to shift, its internal lines stretching and rearranging themselves in a rhythmic, terrifying dance.

I dragged my gaze from his arm and shifted my Alicorn Sight to the sketch.

The breath caught in my throat. The puzzle pieces didn't just fit; they locked together with a horrific, metallic click. The shifting geometry inside Knox’s Hellmark mirrored one specific, complex portion of the pattern he had just drawn. It wasn't completely identical, but the structure, the flow, the Magical dialect was the exact same language.

“What do you see, Maisie?” Bernie quietly asked, her voice steady but laced with deep apprehension.

I swallowed hard, the cold reality settling heavily into my stomach as I looked from the drawing back to the glowing, pulsing brand on Knox's skin.

“You weren't marked after they sent you to Hell, Knox,” I whispered, my voice stark against the silent kitchen. Looking directly into Knox’s guarded eyes, I went on, “I think they marked you so they could send you there.”

7

“I think they marked you so they could send you there.” The words were out of my mouth before my brain engaged, and…

Knox went absolutely still.

He wasn’t angry. At least, not immediately, as far as I could tell. Nope, that would have been easier to handle. Rage had edges. Rage moved. Rage made noise and gave everybody in the room, especially me, something to dodge.

Silence was worse… Way worse.

The big Dragon Guardsman sat so motionless in Guy’s kitchen that for one insane second, I wondered if he had turned himself into a very attractive statue. The coffee steam curled around his scarred face. His hand stayed locked around the mug. His hazel eyes remained fixed on the sketch Bernie had spread across the table, and the Hellmark burned ugly and black and red against his forearm.

I couldn’t help but wonder what the Dragon King he shared his soul with had to say about what was happening. It was really driving me crazy. Was he furious? Did Knox want to Shift and kick some serious ass? Hell, I had no clue, but the one thing I did know was that the very air around the table felt heavy.

Something in Knox's expression shifted. His gaze went distant, focusing on a voice none of us could hear. Then he breathed, “Aye,” like he was answering someone inside his own head.

I wanted to ask, “What’s happening? Was your Dragon King talking to you? Tell me. Tell me. Tell me.”

But I didn’t. For once in my life, I used some restraint… It sure wasn’t easy and definitely wasn’t fun.

I had made it about fifteen seconds when my patience ran out. Opening my mouth, I was just about to ask what was happening when Knox’s fingers tightened around the mug. A second later, he spoke. His voice was raspy, as if he’d been screaming for about a week as he translated. “Sully believes that they built the cage before they opened the door.”

Nobody had a smartass response. Not me. Not Bernie. Not Guy. Definitely not Knox.