Page 28 of Mating Her Dragon

Then she went quieter still.

"There's something else in there," she said. "Older. More sophisticated. Not black– this one's different. Structured, almost elegant, in a way the other thread wasn't."

"That construction," Kara said slowly, "I recognize the style. It’s ancient Elven."

Sydney's head snapped up. "Keevandrie." She said it aloud and mentally.

"Possibly," Kara said, carefully, deliberately. "Do not assume, my girl. Style is not proof. But I would be lying if I said the resemblance meant nothing."

Black thread. Ancient Elven architecture. Possibly connected. Possibly not. Garrett filed both facts away with the grim efficiency of a man who intended to sort out the truth of it later, and focused, for now, on the more immediate problem.

"Can you close it?" he asked.

Sydney studied the seam a long moment. "I think so."

He hated that answer nearly as much as he'd hated probably. "And if you're wrong?"

"Then we'll learn something."

"That is not reassuring, Sydney."

"I didn't say it would be."

He asked the question that actually mattered. "Do you need to?"

Sydney looked at the damaged seam, at whatever was slowly working its way through it, and said, without hesitation: "Yes."

This one was hers to touch. Not because she owned the boundary between Realms– nobody owned that– but because something was using a torn edge to reach through where it had no right to be. That, unlike the Ward, unlike the chapel Charm, was exactly the kind of line Sydney Kavanaugh existed to hold.

She tried.

"Close," Sydney said, quiet and certain, the same tone that had stopped a Magical thread dead in midair back in New Mexico.

The seam pulled together– a fraction, no more– and then was yanked back open with enough force that Sydney staggered half a step backward.

Something on the other side was resisting her.

Garrett felt her shock through their Mating Bond before her expression even changed. A jolt of raw surprise hit him like a physical blow.

"Abyss," Han said. One word. That was all he needed.

Garrett's blood went ice cold. Not confirmation of Leviathan– not yet, not necessarily– but confirmation that whatever was pushing back from the other side of that seam belonged to Hell itself. It was also proof that it had enough strength behind it to shove aside a boundary between entire Realms.

"Sydney…"

"I'm fine." She wasn't, not entirely, but he watched her square herself and face the seam again.

This time the pressure caught her differently. Not possession, nothing crawling into her skin, nothing with teeth. It was more like standing too close to an airplane door the instant before it opened. The Realm itself pulled at her, trying to draw her forward into the gap.

She staggered. Garrett caught her hand before he'd consciously decided to move.

Her power didn't surge. He felt that clearly through their Mating Bond. There was no sudden flood of Magic passing between them. He wasn't a battery, wasn't a source she could draw from, but the instant her fingers closed around his, Sydney steadied. Her focus snapped back into place like a lens sliding into clear resolution.

He wasn't giving her Magic. He was giving her somewhere to stand. Sydney looked at him, something in her eyes settling.

"I've got you," Garrett said.

She turned back to the seam.