Briar Court glittered like someone had spent a lifetime polishing it for a coronation that never came. Candlelight slid along the arches and collected in mortar seams, turning stone into something almost warm. Sofi let the crowd carry her. Chin lowered—obedient, not cowed. Not high enough to invite a challenge. The borrowed livery worried her skin at the collarbone, cuffs still gritty from yesterday’s crawl through corridors that tried to swallow her whole. She missed her own uniform so sharply it felt like a bruise. Polyester. Radio chatter. Bleach. A world where rules made sense and doors stayed doors. Rowan Thibodaux drifted past on the crowd’s edge, close enough for their sleeve to brush hers. A tap. A courier’s touch. Their mouth did not move, but one corner lifted anyway—bright, quick, dangerous. Sofi counted bodies the way she counted patients at a pileup. Two guards on the far balustrade. One at the stair landing. No visible metal, but their stance promised something hidden. A servant floated by with jeweled cups, too smooth, too precise. A noblewoman laughed with her fingers at her throat—not because anything was funny, but because she wanted eyes there. Attention. Currency. Rowan had mapped the route earlier without ever seeming to. *Behind the public artery,* they had murmured, all charm on the surface and warning underneath. *Servants move through it like blood.* “Keep your eyes soft,” they had told her. “If you look too hard, it looks back.” The bargain-mark under Sofi’s sleeve pulsed, hot and insistent. A stamp. A receipt. Proof her name sat in their ledger like a nail driven through paper. Behind a pillar carved in thorned vines waited a door that was not a door. No handle. Just a seam so perfect it looked painted on. Sofi had seen that kind of impossible join in the petition chamber, where the floor seam had tried to edit her out of existence. Rowan drifted in closer, shoulder angling to break the nearest guard’s sightline. Smoke and crushed leaves clung to them, like someone had tried to hide a campfire in their hair. “Now,” Rowan breathed, their voice swallowed by harp music. “On the third bell.” A bellnote trembled through stone—barely there, more inevitability than sound. Sofi slid her fingers into the seam. Cold met her skin. Metallic, like winter air pressed to a tongue ring. The join gave the way gel gives before it snaps back. Her teeth buzzed as a thin hum skated under her molars. Rowan’s hand settled on her elbow—light, guiding. Not restraining. Their nails were blunt and practical, and that small detail made them feel almost human. “Do not stare,” Rowan murmured, amusement tucked into their tone. Their grip tightened anyway. “Think… boring.” “Boring,” Sofi whispered, as if the word might protect her. She breathed through her nose. Slow. Measured. EMT calm. Scene safety, not romance. Her eyes unfocused on purpose. The seam widened like a mouth making room for a secret. Sofi slipped through. Everything changed the instant her shoulders cleared the threshold. Incense vanished. Sweetness vanished. The air tasted like pennies, like a subway platform after rain. Cold metal filled her lungs and tightened her throat. Underfoot, polished stone became narrow flagstones worn by fast feet. The ceiling dropped. Black pipes ran overhead, sweating faintly. The fae had service corridors. Of course they did. Power always needed somebody to carry it. Rowan followed, and the seam healed behind them with a small sound—like a breath cut short. “Welcome to the guts.” Rowan’s voice bounced off close walls, too loud for comfort. They lowered it. “Keep moving. No hesitation.” Sofi made the words a command in her own head. *No hesitation.* Rowan led without looking, turning as if the route lived in their bones. Sofi measured the hallway in counts. Eight steps. Corner. Six. Corner. The scent shifted—metal to old paper, ash underneath. Ahead, a shimmer stretched across the corridor at chest height. Not a wall. Not a curtain. A heat-haze in winter, bending the dim light into bruised angles. Rowan stopped and lifted a hand. Their smile had vanished. Their eyes flicked to Sofi. “That is the ward,” Rowan said. “Do not—” “I know.” Sofi’s voice scraped out rough. “It is not motion. It is attention.” Rowan’s brows rose in quick surprise. “You are learning.” The bargain-mark throbbed under Sofi’s sleeve. She raised her chin a fraction, studying the shimmer without letting her gaze lock. The hum under her teeth sharpened, like a string pulled tight. Copper flooded her mouth. Her stomach turned. The ward drank her awareness like it had been waiting for it. “Okay,” she whispered, more to herself than Rowan. “Checklist.” Rowan watched her the way you watched a hand near a live wire. Sofi kept her eyes on the stone just before the shimmer. Not the shimmer itself. “Heart rate: fast,” she muttered. “Respirations: shallow. Skin: cold. Pupils: irrelevant.” The hum eased a hair. Then her mind slipped—traced the shimmer’s edge like a fingertip. Pain spiked behind her eyes. Rowan leaned in. “Scatter it,” they murmured. “Like rain. Not a spear.” “Understood.” Sofi swallowed. Copper. “Rain.” She broke her attention into pieces. Count stones. Count breaths. Count turns. She recited boroughs in her head until the names became handholds—Grand Concourse, Fordham, Pelham Parkway. The shimmer dimmed, the way bright things dim when you stop looking straight at them. Rowan stepped through first. Nothing caught them. Training, privilege, or both. Sofi followed. The ward brushed her chest like cobweb. Cold slid through fabric, lifting gooseflesh along her arms. The hum pressed against her teeth, testing for purchase. She refused to lock on. She stared at nothing. She thought of blood pressure numbers and street grids and the familiar weight of trauma shears in her pocket. The ward held—tense—then let her pass. Behind her, the hum dropped away like a door shutting. Rowan exhaled, quick and relieved. “You leak light, darling. Bright as a bonfire.” “Do not call me that.” Sofi kept her voice low. Her jaw ached from clenching. Rowan’s grin flashed back, but it did not reach their eyes. “Very well. Sofia Reyes, then. Keep your bonfire banked. The archive is next.” They hurried. The corridor narrowed until Sofi’s shoulders nearly brushed stone. The sound changed too—less echo, more muffled thrum, like a city heard through a wall. Somewhere above them, harps continued. Soft applause. A world pretending nothing ugly lived underneath. A dark door waited at the end. Not iron. Something smooth as glass and black as cooled stone. A leaf-over-ledger symbol scratched across it so thin Sofi almost missed it. Rowan touched the symbol with two fingers. Their hand trembled—small, but real. “Once we are inside,” Rowan said, voice light with an edge underneath, “you must keep your mind messy. You must keep it human. Above all, you must not get curious.” Sofi’s lips pressed together. “Curiosity is my downfall. Yes.” Rowan held her gaze. In the tight corridor, their charm slipped for half a breath, and something plain showed through—hunger, not for food. For an exit. For an ending that did not cost them everything. “Promise me,” Rowan said. Sofi’s mouth moved before she could stop it. “I do not make promises I cannot define.” Rowan huffed a laugh. “We are doomed.” They pressed the symbol. The door opened without a sound. Warm air spilled out, heavy with lilacs gone old, and underneath—smoke. Paper smoke. Library dust. The scent curled around Sofi’s head, trying to steer her attention by the nose. The archive was not a room. It was a niche carved into the wall like an injury that never healed. Shelves recessed into stone held thin strips of vellum, bark, and something like hammered gold foil. Each record pulsed faintly, as if text could keep time with a living heart. No candles. The words made their own light. Rowan moved fast now, almost frantic. They reached into a shelf at shoulder height and hovered, fingers twitching with indecision. “Which one?” Sofi kept her voice small. Rowan’s jaw worked. “The treaty addendum. It is alive. It will try to—” “To go home,” Sofi finished. Rowan’s eyes snapped to hers. “Yes.” Sofi stepped closer. Heat rolled off the vellum strips—skin heat, fever heat. Her bargain-mark pulsed in answer, as if something in her recognized something in there. “In and out,” she said. “No heroics.” Rowan’s fingers closed on a strip tucked behind three others. They yanked. The vellum reacted like an animal. It unspooled toward the ceiling in a ribbon of pale light, snapping and twisting. The niche shuddered. Lilacs turned sharp, then burned into smoke inside Sofi’s lungs. A brutal tug hit behind her eyes, sudden as a migraine igniting. Rowan swore, low and vicious. “It is returning. Damn it—” The strip yanked toward Sofi. Not toward Rowan. Toward her palm. Toward the bargain-mark that made her a door. “No.” Sofi’s throat tightened. “No, no, no.” Her body moved anyway. Reflex. Training. The alternative was simple: it would sprint back to Aldric Ashworth like a courier racing to deliver a message to its king. Vellum slapped against her skin. Paper-warm heat crawled up her forearm, fast and hungry. It burned without blistering. Intelligence pressed into the sensation, as if the record knew exactly where she ended and where it could begin. The strip tightened around her wrist—not rope, not chain. A bond being tied. Images slammed into her head. Foreign. A banquet table under stars that were not hers. A child laughing in a language that tasted like honey and blood. A corridor full of kneeling courtiers facing a throne carved from briars and bone. Under it all, a steady pull. A line drawn straight through her. Back to him. Rowan grabbed her other arm. “Sofia Reyes, do not read it. Do not understand it.” “I am not trying to!” Sofi’s voice cracked. She swallowed it down, teeth grinding. The vellum brightened. It wanted comprehension. It demanded attention. It wanted her mind to become a road. Her bargain-mark flared—hot, sharp, not just pain but recognition. *There you are.* Sofi’s hands shook. Not fear. Anger made them unsteady. She was not a battery. Not a key to be used and discarded. She had hauled strangers out of wrecks, dragged them back from the edge with her own hands, refused to freeze when everything inside her begged for stillness. She would not become a tool because an ancient kingdom was hungry. “Not mine,” she rasped. Smoke coated the words. “Not me.” Rowan’s eyes widened. “What are you doing?” “Improvising.” Sofi dropped her gaze to the floor. Ash and grit lined the corner where the niche met stone, as if the records shed themselves. She scooped a fistful with her free hand. Bleeding? Apply pressure. Slow the flow. She smeared the grit along the vellum, grinding ash into glowing script. The light sputtered. The strip shuddered like it had been struck. Heat eased a fraction. The tug behind her eyes loosened enough for her to breathe without seeing stars. Rowan let out a breath. “Clever girl.” “Do not.” Sofi kept smearing, dulling the glow until it looked sickly instead of hungry. “Help me fold it.” Rowan moved in, fast and practiced. Together they folded the strip into a tight rectangle, like hiding a letter inside a seam. It fought, trying to unfold itself, trying to slide away. Sofi’s bargain-mark throbbed in protest. Rowan shoved the folded strip into Sofi’s palm and forced her fingers closed around it. “Hold it. Do not think about what it says. And do not—” The archive niche shivered. Down the corridor, the ward-hum rose again, sharper now. A response without an alarm. A net tightening in silence. Rowan’s head snapped toward the door. “They noticed.” “Because I am a bright leak,” Sofi spat. Rowan’s smile came too quick, too sharp. “Because you are human. Because you look at things like you mean it.” They bolted. The door sealed behind them with a soft click that made Sofi’s skin crawl. The corridor felt different—air thicker, ceiling lower, as if the place itself had decided to press down. The hum returned under her teeth, threadlike, pulling. The folded vellum burned against her palm even through the ash smear, resentful of being muffled. Rowan sprinted. Sofi followed, boots slapping stone, breath harsh in her ears. Pennies and panic coated her tongue. The ward shimmer ahead blazed brighter now—awake, hungry. Rowan skidded, grabbed Sofi’s wrist, and yanked her into a narrow side passage she would have missed. Damp stone smell. Old cloth. Cold and wet at once. “Down,” Rowan whispered. “Do not look back.” “Do you ever stop saying that?” Sofi hissed. Rowan’s eyes flashed. “Do you ever stop doing the opposite?” They shoved deeper. The passage narrowed until Sofi had to turn sideways; stone scraped her arms through fabric, slick with condensation. The hum sharpened behind them. Rowan pressed a shoulder into another seam. A hidden latch gave. A slab swung inward. Dark, damp, tight space. A holding alcove. Something inside shifted. A muffled breath. Rowan froze, fingers still hooked on the stone edge. Their face went blank in a way that shouted fear. “Ro.” Sofi kept her voice small. “What is this?” Rowan swallowed. “Not ours. Not planned.” “Someone is in there.” Sofi’s hands moved without permission, already reaching. EMT mode snapped in. Scene safety—yes. But there was a patient. A living person. Rowan’s gaze flicked back toward the corridor. The hum rose again, like a storm gathering without thunder. “We do not have time,” Rowan said. “We came for paper, not—” Another muffled exhale from the alcove. Panic shaped the sound. Sofi saw her cousin for a split second—sixteen, blood on his lip, the moment she had frozen and failed him. The memory hit hard enough to hollow her stomach. “Not again.” Her voice came out low. “We are not leaving them.” Rowan’s jaw tightened. “You do not even know who they are.” “I know what a trapped breath sounds like.” Burnt sugar hit Sofi’s tongue the moment she looked inside. Thick, sickly. Her mouth dried to sand, and her eyes watered. Someone lay curled against stone, bound in rope that shimmered faintly. Real fiber—rough, biting—made worse by the magic riding it. A cloth gag covered their mouth. Their eyes were wide and glassy. Sofi’s focus snapped to them. The rope shimmered brighter. Tightened. The captive’s chest hitched. Rowan’s hand shot out and grabbed Sofi’s chin, forcing her gaze down to the floor. The pressure hurt. “Do not give it that,” Rowan snapped, voice stripped clean of charm. “It wants your heart.” Sofi swallowed. “How do I help without—” “Without seeing them?” Rowan loosened their grip. Breath came fast. “You cannot. Not cleanly.” Footsteps, faint, somewhere beyond. The hum swelled. Sofi tasted pennies again. Wards followed attention, not intention. So did this charm. “It does not care what I mean,” Sofi whispered. “It cares what I feed it.” Rowan’s eyes cut to her. “Yes.” “Okay.” Sofi forced her gaze to the stone just beside the captive’s body, not their face. “Scatter.” She broke her attention into pieces again. Vitals. Steps. Streets. Queens Boulevard. Jerome Avenue. Hot pretzels outside Yankee Stadium. Anything but recognition. Her hands went in. Rope fiber bit into her fingers. Rough. Real. The shimmer tightened whenever her mind tried to reach for the captive’s eyes. “Listen,” Sofi murmured, voice steady in the tone she used on sidewalks and stairwells. “You are safe. Breathe. Move when I move.” The captive’s gaze flicked toward the sound of her voice. The shimmer eased a fraction—as if confusion blunted the charm. Rowan crouched beside her, hands hovering over the seam like they wanted to help but feared the cost. “The latch is keyed,” Rowan whispered. “Steadiness, not strength.” “Then hold the door,” Sofi said. “I will do steady.” Rowan held her gaze. Choice lived there. Cost. They nodded once and braced the slab. Sofi’s fingers found the knot’s core: a small carved wooden clasp pressed into the fiber. Courtwork. A lock that wanted calm hands. She kept her breathing even. In for four. Out for four. The clasp resisted. Sofi adjusted her grip, not yanking, not rushing—pressure, angle, patience. It gave. The rope loosened with a soft hiss, like air finally released from lungs. The captive sagged, shoulders dropping. Their breath deepened. Sofi slid the gag down without looking at their mouth. Burnt sugar clung to her tongue. She hated it. She hated how the magic punished compassion. “Can you stand?” Sofi asked. “On my count. One—two—” They moved with her, shaky but compliant. Bare feet scraped stone. Rowan’s hand closed around the captive’s elbow, firm and controlled. “No names,” Rowan murmured to Sofi. “No eyes.” “I understand.” Sofi’s words came tight. They guided the captive into the narrow passage. The air pressed close. The captive’s breathing rasped—terror more than injury. Footsteps in the corridor beyond, closer now. Not boots. Something lighter. Quick. A predator that did not need weight to be lethal. Rowan shoved the slab closed with a grunt. “Go,” they whispered. They half ran, half dragged through the passage. The captive stumbled; Sofi’s hand shot out and steadied a forearm. Cold skin. Bones sharp beneath it. The captive flinched as if touch hurt. “Easy,” Sofi murmured. “Breathe. Keep breathing.” Rowan led them into a wider corridor lined with shelves of folded linen and baskets of soap. The scent hit Sofi so hard her eyes stung—mint, clean and sharp, like the pharmacy aisle back home. Steam drifted from a basin at the far end. Laundry antechamber. A servant’s refuge. Rowan shoved them inside and pulled a thick curtain closed. Sound died instantly. The hum faded to a distant thread. Sofi’s ears rang in the sudden hush, not empty but waiting. Rowan crouched, eyes on the curtain’s edge. “We bought maybe a minute.” The captive sank onto a low bench, shoulders trembling. Their gaze stayed on the floor—smart, or trained. Sofi’s hands shook now that movement stopped. Adrenaline draining out. The folded vellum burned against her palm through the ash smear, tugging at the bargain-mark like it wanted to crawl back into her skin. “Rowan,” Sofi whispered, “we did it. Intel and—” Her eyes flicked toward the captive and stopped short of their face. “And them.” Rowan’s mouth twisted. “Do not celebrate.” “Just let me—” Sofi’s voice snagged. She swallowed. “Let me get clean.” Rowan’s gaze cut to her, then softened for half a second. They jerked their chin toward the steaming basin and stacked linens. “Quickly. You have ash on you. Archive ash clings.” “I know.” Sofi stood on legs that wanted to fold. The captive made a small sound—half cough, half sob. Rowan crouched beside them, palms up, offering nothing that could be taken. “Stay quiet,” Rowan murmured, voice gentler. “Breathe through your nose. We will move again soon.” The captive nodded, tiny. Steam rose off the water in slow curls. Heat kissed Sofi’s knuckles when she dipped her hands in. Not a shower. Not luxury. Still, warmth felt like mercy. Grime coated her wrists—corridor soot and archive ash. She rubbed soap between her palms. Mint snapped sharp, clean enough to cut through lilac-smoke that still clung to her hair. She peeled the outer livery off her shoulders. The fabric came away like shedding a skin, scratching as it dragged sweat and perfume with it. Her undershirt stuck to her back. Rowan turned slightly away without being asked, body angled to shield the curtain. Respect, yes. Strategy too. Privacy kept Sofi calmer. Calmer kept the magic quieter. Sofi scrubbed her forearms. Ash lifted in gray streaks and swirled in the basin. Her fingers loosened under the hot water, tension bleeding out by degrees. The vellum’s heat pulsed in her grip. Each tug at her ribs felt like a steady insistence: *home, home, home.* It wanted to smooth her thoughts into a readable path. A flash of her mother’s laugh sparked—and the edges blurred, like a page being rubbed toward blank. “No.” Sofi leaned into the basin rim, bracing both hands. Water sloshed. Steam dampened her face. “Not mine. Not me.” The words came out low, steady. Not an ending. A stake driven into the ground. Rowan glanced back, eyes narrowing, but did not interrupt. Sofi washed her neck, fingers sliding under her collar, wiping sweat and ash away. Mint soap slicked her skin; her chest loosened, as if a tight band had been cut. A basket of clean linen sat beside the basin. Folded. Soft. Pale in the steam. She hesitated, then reached with her clean hand. The fabric felt thick and cool. She pressed it to her cheek for one heartbeat, and relief climbed her throat so fast it almost turned into a sound. “Do not get sentimental,” she muttered, more bite than humor. She stripped the undershirt and wiped her torso with damp linen—quick, practical. No time for modesty. No time for shame. The clean shirt slid over her head, soft against scrubbed skin. A small restoration settled on her shoulders. Her breathing slowed without force. She tucked the folded vellum into the seam of the clean shirt at her ribs, pressing it flat to skin. Heat flared—scalding—then dulled under fabric. The pull remained, patient and constant. Sofi pressed her palm over her bargain-mark through the cloth, hard enough to ache. “Not mine,” she whispered. “Not me. I will not be turned into a door.” The vow steadied her hands. It also carried. She could feel it: a tether, taut as wire, running both ways. Rowan’s voice came soft and urgent. “We have to go.” “I am ready.” Sofi turned. The captive sat upright now, wrapped in a towel Rowan must have thrown them. Shoulders still shook, but their breathing had slowed. Their gaze stayed down. Rowan scanned Sofi—clean linen, squared posture. “Better,” Rowan murmured. “You look less like a thief.” “I am a thief.” Sofi’s voice stayed low. “I stole their paper.” Rowan’s grin flickered without landing. “You stole a kingdom’s secret. There is a difference.” A scrape beyond the curtain. Footsteps paused. The hum under Sofi’s teeth rose again, faint but sharpening. Rowan lifted a finger to their lips. The captive went still. Sofi held her breath. The vellum warmed against her ribs, answering her tension. The bargain-mark pulsed back. Another scrape. Then the sound drifted away, as if whoever it was had chosen a different thread to follow. Rowan exhaled slowly. “All right. We return to the public artery. Blend.” “And them?” Sofi tipped her chin toward the captive. Rowan’s jaw flexed. “They will follow. No eye contact. No names. If they fall, you do not catch them like a lover in a song.” “That is cold,” Sofi whispered. Rowan’s gaze cut to her, sharp and controlled. “It is law. The holding charm will drag them back if it gets clean recognition. If you want them free, you keep your heart quiet.” Sofi’s throat worked. Her hands curled at her sides. “Fine,” she said. “We do it your way.” Rowan cracked the curtain. Candlelight spilled in. Music, murmurs—life aboveground pretending it was harmless. Rowan listened, head tilted. Then they slipped out, smooth as confidence. Sofi followed one step behind. The captive trailed close enough that Sofi could feel their breath. Cloth strips wrapped the captive’s feet—Rowan’s work. Practical. Quick. They merged into servant flow. Linen baskets. A tray of polished goblets. Two attendants murmuring over a spill. The clean shirt helped. Sofi looked like she belonged. Almost. At the wide corridor, arches rose overhead, briars carved into every surface. Courtiers drifted and whispered. Here, a glance could hook. Here, every pretty thing had teeth. Rowan guided them toward the wall, into the shadow of a tapestry: a kingdom crowned in thorns under a star-filled sky. The captive hunched under the towel. A servant in disgrace. People ignored that. Briar Court excelled at ignoring pain when it did not entertain. Rowan leaned close to Sofi’s ear. “You must test it. You must know what you stole.” “I know.” Mint and fear coated Sofi’s tongue. “Fragments only,” Rowan said, precise. “Nothing more.” Sofi nodded. Nobles passed in a cluster, their laughter bright as clinking glass. Sofi waited until they were gone, then slid her hand to her ribs, pressing the seam where the vellum hid. Heat pulsed steady against her skin. She opened her mind a crack. Not a full read. Not understanding. A peek through a chained door. Words surfaced behind her eyes—writing that was not English and did not care. Meaning slid into place the moment she brushed it. A clause. A keystone. *Mortal attention harvested in measure of recognition.* Her stomach dropped. Her jaw clenched until it ached. Another fragment followed: Briar Court’s power fading, hunger rising. Memory as sustenance. Attention as fuel. A kingdom starving because humans stopped believing—so they planned to feed by force. And there—her name threaded through the text like a stitch pulled tight. *Sofia Reyes*, written as if she had signed. As if something had guided her hand. “No.” The word left her barely moving her lips. The vellum warmed fast, reacting to comprehension. Heat spread across her ribs, sharp enough to steal air. The bargain-mark flared in answer. The tether tightened like a rope snapped taut. A thin ringing started in her left ear, high and insistent—radio static between stations. Candle flames down the corridor leaned, subtle as curiosity. Rowan’s hand closed around Sofi’s wrist, nails pressing into skin. “Stop,” Rowan murmured. “You are lighting up.” Sofi slammed her mind shut. The words vanished. Heat dulled but did not die. The ringing stayed. Rowan looked up the corridor. Color drained from their face beneath the warm candlelight. “He knows.” Sofi’s mouth went dry. “How?” Rowan’s grip tightened. “Because it is returning.” Under Sofi’s shirt, the folded vellum shifted, pulling toward the bargain-mark as if it wanted to slide through skin and bone. The tether was not poetry. It was force. Sofi pressed her palm against the mark until it hurt. “Not mine,” she breathed. “Not me.” Music faltered for half a beat—no, her hearing did. The ringing swelled, thickening, drowning harps and murmurs. Something colder brushed the nape of her neck. Not a hand. Not a draft. A winter-cool breath slipping under her hair like a secret. Bells chimed somewhere far away, muffled, as if heard underwater. The sound threaded through bone. Her heartbeat stumbled once, then she forced it steady. The tether carried more than pull. Presence. Not an image—worse. A focus so controlled it hurt, like someone bracing against a fire and refusing to let the heat show. Hunger shaped into discipline. Pain pressed into elegance. Aldric Ashworth. For one heartbeat, the glitter peeled back. Something tired and relentless stood there instead, holding a kingdom together with willpower and fear of being forgotten. Sofi’s throat tightened. Her fingers flexed against her palm, wanting to reach toward something she refused to touch. Empathy here would feed him. The court ate attention. Her attention could become his meal, his victory, her cage. She spoke into the tether, low enough no one nearby could hear. “Not mine. Not me.” The winter-cool presence lingered a fraction longer—then withdrew. Rowan searched her face. “What did you just—” “Nothing,” Sofi cut in, too fast. “Keep moving.” They walked. Sofi kept her expression blank and her posture relaxed. EMT calm in a corridor full of predators. The captive stayed behind, quiet, towel pulled tight. Rowan guided them through a knot of courtiers with practiced ease. At Sofi’s ribs, the seam burned through clean linen. The folded vellum wanted home. The treaty wanted its king. And the king—he was not casting a wide net. He had found the line and was following it straight in. If intel could ride her bargain-mark back to him, what else could follow that path? Memories. Voice. Name. A slow theft until nothing remained but a door wearing her skin. The ringing sharpened. Rowan leaned close, voice barely there. “Run on my signal.” Sofi tried to answer. Her mouth opened. Nothing came out. Candlelight bent again, drawn toward the heat under her shirt. The corridor’s attention turned—subtle, collective. Ahead, a seam in the floor glistened wetly, one of those edits that waited like a trap. The folded vellum flared hot against her ribs. The tether snapped tight enough to steal her breath. Aldric Ashworth had found the line. He was pulling.