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Knox noticed instantly. His hand came out, but he did not grab me. He only offered.

I looked at his open palm. Then I put mine in it.

No Magic this time. No tactical necessity. Just because I wanted to.

For the first time since I met Knox MacAllen, holding his hand was not part of a strategy to confuse Hell. I liked it better this way.

Smoke curled past the edge of my vision. I turned. Hank’s forearm was bleeding through the blackened remains of his sleeve.

“Your arm is smoking.”

Hank looked down. “Occupational hazard.”

“Sit down,” Bernie said.

“I’m fine.”

“That wasn’t a request.”

I looked at Knox. “See? It’s not just you.”

Knox’s thumb moved once against the side of my hand. It wasn’t a laugh, but it was nice… And my heart did a little flip-flop.

Carrick’s projection fought its way back into existence above the ruined circle. We got half a Dragon Elder, a slice of silver hair, and one judgmental eyebrow.

“The Topside relay is dead,” he said through the static. “The active Infernal tether is gone from Knox. Arrhythmia’s primary Wards have stabilized, and nothing is currently probing them.”

For a second, nobody trusted breathing enough to try it. Talk about weird.

Carrick’s eyebrow got more judgmental. “The watch station remains isolated until Guy can inspect it and reintegrate it safely. No more Magical experiments. No more ‘one little test.’”

“Excellent. I officially retire from Magical science. It’s hazardous to my health.”

“You were never employed,” Bernie said.

“Even better. No paperwork.”

Carrick did not disappear. His damaged projection narrowed toward me, and my stomach sank. “There is one more matter.”

“I hate when people say that.” I sighed. “And coming from the renowned Dragon Guard Elder makes it about a hundred times worse.” One more huff and I added, “Hit me. Rip that Band-Aid off.”

“The response lattice has collapsed. I compared the bleed-through pattern before and after the Topside relay was destroyed. The pressure outside Arrhythmia’s Wards vanished with it.”

I understood before he finished. “The painting.”

“You were not receiving a prophecy,” Carrick said. “Nobody chose you. Your Alicorn nature detected pressure leaking across the boundary because Earth-and-Sky Magic perceived what the rest of us could not.”

His image flickered. When it came back, I could see both of his eyebrows. They were furrowed as he explained, “Because you are an artist, your mind translated what you could not consciously identify into composition, shape, shadow, light, cages, and the pulsing sphere.”

The half of his mouth I could see settled into a solemn line. “You did not paint the future, Maisie. You painted pressure.”

I stared at him. “My subconscious painted a Magical gas leak. Is that a real thing?”

Hank nodded gravely. “Apparently, it’s art.”

The joke barely covered the relief that moved through me. Destiny hadn't drafted me. I had seen a danger before I understood it and painted the only language my mind trusted.

Then another thought hit me. “Oh, shit. My canvas.”