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A dark splotch clung to the girl like an aphid on a vine, latched on to suck the life from her. I took a step toward the bed, fingers outstretched, reaching into the thrumming brightness. Cold pain slid over my fingertips and up my arm, blossoming in frost-like crystals, the sharp ache of frostbite, but I wrapped my fingers around the dark blob and pulled.

Cadence gasped. Her eyes rolled back. She went limp.

“Jesus, fuck,” Ezra whispered.

The nurse’s face paled. “Is she crashing?” She asked as she caught the girl.

But the monitors told a different story. Erratic spikes smoothing. Heart rate steadying.

I stood there, cold needles of pain dancing through my nerves, and said nothing. The frantic energy around the child dissolved into clean stillness. The dark current faded. The stain was gone, a hole left in the thrumming ley lines, where I’d pulled out the rot feeding on it.

The nurse studied the monitors. “I think you should leave.”

I nodded, keeping my face averted. My eyes hadn’t changed back. And I wasn’t certain I could force them right then. “Thank you for your time. I hope she feels better.”

I led my team out, the nurse’s bewildered stare burning into my back.

In the hall, under the mocking gaze of cartoon animals, I leaned against the wall. My breath unsteady.

I’d just ripped out the blob. A parasite? The stain?

I glared at my fingers. My nails had gone black and sharp, claws, not fingernails.

“What did you do?” Wade whispered, using his body to shield me from the room.

“There was something feeding on her.”

“You pulled it out,” Remi added, his gaze on me, but voice hushed. “Some kind of parasite? Was it left by the changeling?”

Was that what it was? I could still feel it, the slimy wriggle of it, beneath the burn snaking over my hand and up my arm from touching the ley lines. Had I really done that?

Can you change your eyes and hands back, Victor nudged mentally, his back to us as he watched the hall.

A few heartbeats passed as I tried to focus, and pull back the shift as I would with my cat, but the icy chill refused to subside. My vision swirled with colors—currents? Ley lines? Resonant energy? The entire world a dizzying mess of sparkles and brightness. And for the first time since I’d become Jude’s anchor, I realized he was mine, and I needed him desperately, just as much as he needed me. My control was shit in that moment.

No. I told Victor.

He gave a curt nod, and the team fanned around me like a shield, unafraid to put their backs to me, even as I was unsure that I wasn’t unraveling and about to become a raving beast.

5

JUDE

I was trying to focus on a passage about parasitic resonance in On Hollow Vessels when the air around me shuddered with an electric jolt that tasted of panic.

Angel.

Before I could reach for the bond, Zhenjun materialized beside the reading table, arms crossed, annoyance radiating off him like heat off pavement. Nat appeared in the doorway, eyes wide, gaze flicking between us.

“Everything okay?” Nat tried.

Zhenjun waved him off. “You’re not needed, Reaper. This is the Weaver’s mess to remedy.”

I closed the book and stood. “Sorry?”

“Your anchor just performed an unsupervised extraction. It left a snag in the weave. You will mend it before the tear expands.”

“Is he hurt?” The question was out before I could stop it. Angel’s panic through the bond instantly making me worried.