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The communication spell hummed. Light shifted, dimming and brightening in several sharp pulses.

Then Carrick spoke again. “I found something.”

Everyone leaned toward the table.

“Not proof,” Carrick warned.

“Obviously,” I said. “Wouldn’t want proof to show up and ruin our steady diet of ominous breadcrumbs.”

Bernie gave me a look.

I zipped my lips with two fingers.

Carrick continued, “It’s a fragment from Keevandrie’s recovered ritual notes. I never had enough context to interpret it with confidence.”

Ghostly text appeared above the table in a thin strip of blue and white light. The script was sharp, angular, and extremely unfriendly. Like the letters had been carved into bone with a bad attitude.

Carrick translated. “Kin answers kin across the Veil. A living signature will seek its own.”

For one second, nobody breathed.

Then every eye in the kitchen shifted to Guy.

Then Knox.

I ran all the fingers on both hands through my hair. “Well, that’s not creepy at all.”

Bernie’s voice was careful. “It doesn’t name the MacAllens. It doesn’t even necessarily mean blood relatives. Kin could refer to Magical resonance, Bonded pairs, lineage, species, shared origin⁠—”

“But combined with everything else,” Guy said grimly.

Knox looked at the glowing text. His hand curled into a fist. “It’s another piece.”

The Hellmark reacted.

Knox jerked so hard his chair scraped backward across the floor. The black and red sigil flared beneath his skin, every jagged line burning bright as fresh iron dragged from a forge.

Guy’s house trembled.

Not an earthquake. Not even close.

Just enough to set every cup in the cabinet rattling violently.

Outside the window, the Arrhythmia Wards pulsed.

Once.

Twice.

Something deep and primal rolled through Knox’s Magic. A growl that I felt more than heard. Guy’s eyes flashed as Lou answered from inside him, bronze-gold and furious.

I stared toward the window. “Oh, I hate that.”

Then I opened my Alicorn Sight. Not by accident. Not because Knox touched me. Not because panic threw my Magic into the room like glitter fired from a cannon.

Deliberately. Carefully.

I inhaled, reached inward, and pulled the Sight through my eyes like sliding a lens into place. The world unfolded.