“Victor Ash,” he says quietly. “Gideon’s father. The last keeper of the quarry. He died fifteen years ago.”
The library feels smaller suddenly. The shelves press in, the weight of a hundred years of secrets bearing down. Somewhere in this town, someone has been manipulating the Rift for at leasta decade, suppressing bonds, triggering heats, feeding chaos into the ley lines. And the trail leads to a dead man whose records no one can access.
“We need to talk to Gideon,” I say.
“We need to talk to Dahlia first.”
“Dahlia’s in bed with a heat-induced headache.”
“Then we need to figure out what Victor Ash knew and how it connects to her. Because if he was the one who started this, and she’s the only Omega shadow witch in recorded history, and she just happened to be adopted into a keeper family?—”
“That’s not a coincidence.”
“No. It’s a pattern.” Damon meets my eyes. “And I don’t think we’ve seen the whole thing yet.”
Potion of Grounding:
Steep oak bark and sage. Drink during storms.
My phone buzzes on the coffee table. I reach for it over the arm of the couch, careful not to jostle Amara, who’s curled against my side with Thistle wedged between us. The cat is purring so loudly I can feel the vibration through the cushion.
Damon: Heading back in an hour or two. Don’t wait up.
I set the phone down and check on Amara. Fast asleep. Her mouth is slightly open, one hand resting on Thistle’s back. She ate two slices of pizza and passed out mid-sentence during the movie—some kind of romantic comedy that neither of us was really watching.
Griffin emerges from the kitchen with a paper towel in one hand and the pizza box in the other. He’s put on a shirt—mine, actually, one of my oversized sleep shirts. He looks ridiculous. He looks good.
“Amara out?”
“Completely.”
“I’ll put the other pizza in the oven. Keep it warm for when Damon and Silas get back.”
“Good idea.”
He disappears into the kitchen again. I carefully extract myself from the couch, sliding out from under Amara’s dead weight and stepping over Thistle without waking either of them. The cat opens one eye, assesses the situation, and closes it again.
In the kitchen, Griffin is transferring the remaining pizza to a baking sheet. The counter is a mess—napkins, empty cups, a garlic butter container. I grab a dish towel and start wiping down the surfaces.
“You don’t have to do that,” he says.
“I want to.”
We work in silence for a few minutes. Him at the oven, me at the counter. The domesticity of it strikes me in a weird way. Griffin Clarke in my kitchen, wearing my shirt, putting pizza in my oven while I wipe crumbs off my counter. Six months ago, I would have bet money this would never happen again.
“Griffin.”
“Yeah?”
“How are you?”
He glances over his shoulder. “I’m good.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
He closes the oven and sets the timer. Then he leans against the counter, arms crossed, and looks at me. Not in the hungry, heat-fueled way he’s been looking at me for the past four days. Something steadier.
“I know what you mean,” he says.
