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“Jonah’s in the common room,” she said. “He doesn’t engage. The doctors say he’s present but non-responsive. Mostly he just stares or colors.”

“Stares at what?” Remi asked.

She shook her head. “Nothing. Everything. It’s hard to explain.”

We followed her down a hallway to a room with walls coated in sheets of paper. Most of it was bright, messy, and cheerful. Then we turned a corner, and the artwork changed. Darker. Scribbled shapes. Tangled lines. Knots.

“This is Jonah’s work,” she said, waving at the section of chaotic wall art.

He’s drawing the ley lines, I realized.

Jonah sat in a corner of the common room, curled into a beanbag chair, a crayon loose in his hand. He wasn’t drawing. He wasn’t doing anything. Just staring at the wall.

He didn’t look up when we entered.

I studied the wall where his gaze landed, flipping my sunglasses down to change my vision to my other perception, even though it made my head throb. Whatever he saw, was beyond me. There was nothing there but wall. No visible ley lines, or overt structure of magic resonance, tears, or even a flicker of Veil light.

Ezra approached first, keeping his voice low. “Jonah? Can we talk to you for a minute?”

Nothing. The kid didn’t even look our way.

Wade tried next. Squatted down to the kid’s level, offered a gentle smile. “Hey, buddy. We’re not here to hurt you. Just want to ask a few questions.”

Jonah’s gaze didn’t shift. He breathed, but that’s all. It was a strange almost coma-like presence. Living, but only just.

Remi kept his distance but shook his head. “There’s only the barest hint of a stain,” he said quietly.

I hung back by the door, watching. Something about this kid felt wrong. Not dangerous. Just heavy. Like he was carrying something too big for his small frame. I took a few steps forward into his eyesight… if he was seeing anything.

He blinked. Then his head turned. A careful tilt, as if assessing, yet painfully unsure.

“Hey, Jonah,” I said softly. “I’m Angel. One of the agents who helped rescue you.”

His gaze shifted from my face, to my hand, the one darkened by pulling out the stain. He shivered, clutching the crayon tighter.

I crouched beside him, picking up a pad of paper and setting it within reach. “We want to find the bad man who took you.” He didn’t need to know it wasn’t a man at all, but something worse. “Can you help us?”

Jonah let out a long sigh. Then he leaned over the pad and began to scribble.

I waited, letting my vision slide back to normal, trying to will away the growing headache. Would he draw a ley line map? Some elaborate spell?

It wasn’t a map. It was a giant shadow man standing over a smaller shadow man. Surrounding them were smaller shadow figures. People? Or changelings?

After another few minutes of creating dozens of smaller shadow people, he scribbled lines between them all. Messy, wavy lines that stretched across the page, all leading to the giant shadow figure.

Erlik?

Jonah only had one crayon—dark gray, nearly black.

I picked up the discarded box of colors and held it out to him.

He hesitated.

His gaze flicked to my hand again.

Then, slowly, he reached out and took a crayon.

Red.