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“You don’t recognise it?” Her eyes narrowed. “It’s a severance sigil.”
“But the Lodamante,” he said, “already severs you from Current without that reaction.”
“No.” She exhaled, slow and controlled. “Because the sigil isn’t meant to sever someone from the Current.” A beat of silence. “It’s meant to sever the soul.”
The words hung heavily in the air. Lysander’s left hand flexed once.
She carved shallow grooves around the sigil, circles, and lines to hold a wall of salt. The physical act stabilised her. She packed salt into the grooves, her movements methodical.
“When the door closed,” she said, voice tight, “it disrupted the sigil. Stripped it of power. Whoever placed it here, counted on it having time to work. They didn’t expect someone else to enter with me, to interrupt it.”
Lysander pushed off the wall. His boots paced a short, uneven line behind her.
She didn’t look back.
“I had no ill effects,” he said.
Her hands stilled. “Because it wasn’t for you.”
He crouched beside her, closer than she expected, but she shook her head sharply before he reached for her.
She struck a flint and set the salt alight, burning the sigil’s power away.
Idonea cleaned the knife and tucked it away. “Done.”
“You should probably sleep.”
She shook her head. “Soon.”
“Then, to the basement,” he said.
Down in the basement, Idonea couldn’t help but stare towards the hidden room. Goosebumps travelled down her arms as she recalled the fingernails.
Lysander moved to a table, sweeping aside gears and copper fragments with the flat of his arm. “Instead of tracking the daemon,” he said, “we create a warning device. Something that reacts when it gets too close.”
She stepped closer, watching him sift through an assortment of brass plates, wire coils, and odd Lodamante fragments.
“Like an alarm?” she asked.
He nodded. “But I first must craft one. You’re welcome to watch.”
There were no chairs, only scattered tables and crates. He hunched over his work; a frown etched deep into his brow. Idonea crossed to another table and sat atop it, pushing aside a handful of metal pieces. They clattered to the floor. Lysander’s gaze flicked towards her, sharp and assessing, before returning to his tinkering.
With the Lodamante sheets extended, the Current was accessible. She reached out for it, the world around her buckling.
Suddenly, she no longer sat across from Lysander.
Cold air, stale and metallic, filled her lungs. The hidden room stood around her, the door sealed shut. But the space was warped, wrong, bathed in the strange half-light of Current-sight.
A figure was strapped down onto the bed, creating shivers that ran down her spine.
She moved closer. Dark hair spilled around the pillow. The girl’s body twitched against the restraints.
Her head turned, and Idonea flinched back.
Corruption flowed through the girl’s face. Her eyes were pitch black and her smooth, warm beige skin had black cracks spiderwebbing over it, disappearing beyond the neckline.
A nauseating familiarity stirred in Idonea’s chest.
