Rack lifted one hand, fingers spreading as air twisted invisibly through the tunnel ahead. His eyes unfocused for a second while he pulled the sound closer, then he nodded.
“Yeah.” His voice dropped lower. “About a hundred feet ahead.”
I activated the map on my watch, but the hologram flickered violently underground. Static tore across the screen while the magical signatures struggled to stabilize without proper signal.
“Come on…” I muttered, squinting at the broken image. The flashes were brief, but I could make out a few shapes.
A large chamber ahead. Several moving dots. Six signatures surrounding something in the center.
My eyes narrowed as I counted. Red. Brown. Green. Blue. Then I saw it. A blinking white dot.
I frowned and rubbed at my eyes before looking again. Still white. My stomach dropped.
“Rack.” He leaned closer toward the map and immediately straightened.
“There’s no way.” His voice sharpened as his brows furrowed. “Why would a human be here?”
“I don’t know. And yet…” I tapped the flickering display hard. “The signature isn’t changing.”
A low growl worked up my throat while my brain started connecting pieces I didn’t want connected. Nova’s scientist. The human she’d killed.
The one with magically enhanced eyes who still registered as biologically human despite everything they had done to him.
If distorted fae magic could alter humans without changing their signature... My blood ran cold. Rich humans would kill for something like that. Enhanced strength. Magic. Immortality. Power without fully becoming a supe.
Suddenly, this entire operation smelled a lot less like random chaos and a lot more like a thought-out plan, a strategy.
I shut the map off hard enough my wrist snapped downward.
“Doesn’t matter.”
Rack’s eyes flicked toward me.
“We get Olivia first.” My voice came out rougher now. “I don’t care who I have to tear apart to do it.”
Something vicious unfurled inside my chest. If they hurt her—No. I grabbed Rack’s arm tightly.
“I’m done sneaking.”
That was all the warning I gave him before I launched us forward at vampire speed. The tunnel blurred around us. Stone walls streaked past while rage narrowed my focus into a brutal singular point.
Olivia. That was it. Nothing else mattered.
The chanting stopped the second we burst into the chamber. Drums cut off abruptly. Every hooded figure turned toward us at once.
The man standing in the center slowly lifted both hands, pulling back his hood.
My entire body locked solid.No. No fucking way. My breath caught, the air turning solid in my throat as my eyes roamed the face in front of me.
I knew that face. I’d seen the reports. Seen the pictures. Seen the body. Nova killed him. I remembered standing over the evidence myself, yet there he stood, smiling at me like death itself had spat him back out.
My fingers curled so hard my nails bit into my palms. They trembled violently enough I had to clench my fists tighter to stop it.
“Who are you?”
The question tore out of me before I could stop it. I refused to believe this was him.
The man threw his head back and laughed loudly enough for the sound to bounce through the cavern walls. “Welcome, Calix Winstale!”
