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“Can we ward the apartment?” I asked. My mind raced to Ivan, who talked to his brother even though he couldn’t hear Jude’s replies. And his haunted printer, chaotic magic spells, and the familiar masquerading as a cat.

“I can check it later,” Remi offered. “Though from what I’m hearing, you’ve got some sort of god on your side now.”

The Marshal. How much he was on our side versus using us was the real question.

“Bobby adjusted some equipment,” Wade said carefully. “It can detect minute residual spells now. Like the one we missed at Bowman’s. Nothing as detailed as what Remi can do.” His gaze flicked to the half-fae practitioner in the front passenger seat, then back to me. “But it’s better than relying on one person alone.”

I sighed, the weight settling deeper into my shoulders.

Would the Bastion’s power let me see those traps before they snapped? Or just make me a bigger target?

Looked like I’d have to haul my ass back to the place between and ask the king of cosmic irritation himself.

“Explain the stain you mentioned. The one from the changeling.”

Ezra’s knuckles tightened on the wheel. “It’s the only solid connection we’ve found.”

“To Erlik?”

“To Jude.” He said it with a careful edge.

A spike of annoyance flared in my chest. Ezra’s vendetta against my mate never failed to rankle. But Wade’s hand closed around my arm.

“Explain,” I said, forcing my voice level.

“Everyone wants Jude’s power,” Remi said, twisting in his seat. “But what about the black tinge in his SED armband?”

“Demon variance,” I stated. Double variance was rare, but not unheard of. Though I’d never heard of anyone with a full black band. Demon variance was something of legend rather than reality, and only showed up in those with double variance.

“And what is a changeling?” Ezra pressed.

“I thought they were fae. Spirit-thieves.”

“Spirit-thieves, yes. But demon?” Remi shook his head slowly. “Demon is just a label for things we don’t understand. There are dozens of demons working at the SED, but they all have names for themselves. Species. Changelings appear across hundreds of pantheons. Shadow-borne. They consume a living host’s energy and imprint themselves over the empty shell. Not possession—replacement. They can take smaller amounts. A touch of stolen resonance can fuel them for a while. But eventually they need a body.” Remi fixed his gaze somewhere beyond the windshield. Likely the memory of his short time in Erlik’s larder coming back to him.

“So the black glow in Jude’s armband,” I pushed. “It doesn’t mean he’s demon-touched. It means a changeling got to him?”

“Tiana pulled every file on variants with a black mark. All listed as double variance,” Wade said, voice dropping. “Most are classified now. But a few had records from childhood. Every one of them saw something they shouldn’t have.”

“Adults always dismissed it,” Victor said, watching the passing city. “Parents. Doctors. The whole system.”

Wade turned to me. “Has Jude ever mentioned seeing something as a child?”

My breath caught. He had. In fact, one of our first nights together he’d acted terrified, leaving the lights on all night. He’d confessed not long after about a shadow that watched him from the corner of his grandparents’ guest room. I’d thought it had been a hint of his future variant power arising, and nothing more than a ghost. But perhaps it had been something else.

“But he wasn’t a changeling. He wasn’t switched,” I said, too quickly. Defensively.

“There’s a record,” Victor added. “A few months with a child psychologist. When he was three.”

“Touched but not switched,” Remi said softly. “Marked for later snacking. Probably wanted to keep him around longer since he’s powerful.” He shrugged, “Or maybe it couldn’t keep him for some reason?”

I flinched.

“It would explain how it tracks him,” Wade said. “To his old apartment, to the safehouse, everywhere Jude’s ever felt anchored. And the name scratched into the wall after the break-in. That wasn’t just a taunt. It was a reminder.”

“I thought that was Erlik’s signature.”

“They were working together, at least for a while,” Remi said. “The question is why. You said Erlik didn’t even know Jude existed until he stumbled across the Veil on your first case.”