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The Ward reader pulsed a third time.

The projection flared. Bronze-gold threaded through black and red. Then came fragments of Maisie’s gold, sky-blue, and pink sparkles stitched into a composite that made my stomach drop.

The Wards hesitated.

Not opened. Not failed. Hesitated. A seam appeared for less than a heartbeat, cold air and sulfur snapping through before Guy’s Wards roared back and slammed it shut.

Somewhere outside, Halloween lights flickered.

“It’s improving,” I said.

“Iterative comparison,” Carrick said. “Test. Observe. Adjust. Test again.”

“Reconnaissance,” I said.

Maisie’s Magic gathered, careful and small.

“Tactical sparkle,” I said.

Maisie’s head whipped toward me. “Did you just…?”

“Focus.”

“You remembered.”

“Unfortunately.”

Maisie faced the projection again and lifted one hand, her Magic unfolding in the smallest controlled shimmer I had ever seen from her. Not a blast. Not a shield. Not a glitter explosion designed to annoy Hell on principle.

A thin layer of Earth-and-Sky Magic slid over the composite probe and bent it sideways. Gold fractured into false gold. Sky-blue split into something too bright, too high, too wrong to catalog cleanly. The pink sparkle collapsed into a muddy smear the tether couldn't read cleanly. The test blurred.

Guy’s Wards roared back and shoved the distorted signal hard against the boundary. The projection flashed white and purple, then steadied.

“Ha!” Maisie snapped. “Eat glitter, asshole.”

“Tactical,” I said.

The corner of her mouth kicked up despite the fear in her eyes. Mine did the same before I could stop it.

Bernie leaned closer to the projection, lavender and silver Magic gathering around her fingers. “Wait.”

Every head turned toward her.

“Every time it tests the Wards, the boundary responds,” Bernie said slowly. “A query comes in. An answer goes back.”

I understood before she finished. “Trace the response,” I added.

Bernie nodded. “The outgoing tether is too obscured while dormant. But if the system actively returns information, I may be able to follow the answer back.”

“What do you need?” Guy asked.

“Another active test,” Bernie said. “Maisie is distorting enough of the signal that the enemy receives dirty information instead of clean data. Knox is present because the Hellmark is still the primary tether. You maintain the Wards, so Arrhythmia does not become Swiss cheese while we experiment.”

Hank lifted one finger. “For the record, I dislike being in cheese-based metaphors involving Hellmouths.”

Old me would have said no before Bernie finished speaking. Maisie wasn’t doing it. Maisie wasn’t standing anywhere near the mark. Maisie wasn’t giving Hell another second of access to the brightness it had already started copying.

Every instinct in me still wanted to say all of that and more.