Page 6 of Grave Consequences

I stared at him. “You’re saying I can trace myself through the spell I wove to protect everyone else?”

“I’m saying you already have the thread. You just have to learn to focus.”

Looked down at my fading hands, wondering if somewhere, tangled among them, was the thread that led back to my body.

Of course nothing was that easy. If there was one thread among the millions that flickered around me in a dancing array of universal energy, I had no idea where to begin. So I started where Nat suggested, and opened the book.

ANGEL

That Ezra insisted on driving us, in his armored SUV, no less, to meet Bobby at the hospital told me this wasn’t a routine inquiry. Something was wrong, and no one was talking.

I crammed into the middle seat, Victor and Wade bracketing me like reluctant bookends. Remi rode shotgun beside Ezra, who drove like the road had personally offended him. Silence stretched, thick enough to choke on. My patience evaporated before we hit the on-ramp.

“What the hell is going on?” I demanded.

That’s when I noticed the glowing mark on Remi’s arm, the one from the forced variant chip, was gone.

Wade followed my gaze. “The mark won’t take.”

“They’ve tried twice,” Ezra said, voice tight. “It fades.”

“Guess I’m other enough to piss everyone off,” Remi added, bitter.

Ezra’s eyes cut to the rearview. “My SUV is clean. Technically and”—he glanced at Remi—”magically. No listeners. No trackers.”

Oh.

So much for my probationary short leash. “Who’s watching? Fae or military?”

“Both,” Wade said.

“And likely a whole lot more,” Ezra grumbled.

“But this vehicle is clean,” Wade added. “We can’t be certain of anything else.”

Victor sighed. “We’re scanning your apartments regularly. But we don’t know how the devices are being planted. Xavier found one last week. He’s been flustered ever since.”