Chapter 7
1213 Words
Cassian didn’t look thrilled to see me on his doorstep before breakfast.
He opened the door in a dark T‑shirt and sweatpants, hair damp like he’d just washed his face in cold water. The Alpha polish was missing; what was left looked tired and sharp around the edges.
“Rhea.” His gaze flicked past my shoulder. “Kael.”
Kael lifted a hand in a little wave. “We brought news. And no pastries. Sorry.”
Cassian stepped back to let us in. “This better not be about training rosters.”
“If it were, I’d send a strongly worded note, not show up at dawn,” I muttered.
His kitchen was bigger than ours, but it felt just as cramped with the three of us inside. Helena sat at the table, fingers wrapped around a mug, silver hair braided over one shoulder. Her eyes sharpened when she saw me.
“I was wondering how long it would take before you both landed here at once,” she said. “Sit.”
Cassian crossed his arms, leaning back against the counter instead. “Talk.”
I glanced at Kael. He nodded, but his expression said very clearly: your show, Hollow girl.
“Something’s wrong with the wards,” I said. “Worse than before.”
Cassian’s jaw tightened. “You already told Jace about one weak point. We reinforced it.”
“I know.” My fingers curled around the back of the chair. “This isn’t about that same breach. Or…not only.”
I took a breath. “I went out last night.”
“Alone?” His tone clipped the word.
“Yes. Can we skip the lecture and get to the part where I’m useful?”
Helena’s mouth twitched like she wanted to smile and thought better of it.
“I found the stone I warned Jace about,” I continued. “From the outside, it looked normal. But when I touched it, the magic—” I groped for words. “It’s twisted. Not empty. Knotted. And something was tugging on it from outside the territory.”
Silence thickened.
Cassian straightened a fraction. “Tugging how?”
“Like someone had hold of one of the ward-lines and was testing it. Gently. They weren’t trying to smash through. They were…looking.”
Helena set her mug down carefully. “Are you certain it wasn’t residual from the last rogue attack?”
“I know what that felt like,” I said. “That was a battering ram. This was fingers.”
Kael shuddered. “Thanks for that image.”
Cassian’s gaze stayed on me. “You touched the stone.”
“Yeah.”
“What happened?”
“I got pulled into the flow.” My pulse picked up just remembering it. “I could see the lines—magic running from stone to stone, through the land. One of them was frayed. That’s the one they were playing with.”
“They,” he repeated.
“I don’t know who. But they noticed me.” A prickle ran along the back of my neck. “I felt…someone. On the other end. Cold. Curious.”
Cassian swore under his breath.
Helena frowned. “Did this presence feel like Luna? The way the Call does?”
“No.” The answer came out quicker than I expected. “The Call is…big. Blunt. This was small. Sharp. It used Luna’s current, but it wasn’t Her.”
Cassian pushed away from the counter and began to pace, bare feet silent on the floor. “You’re telling me someone outside Nightwind is using Luna’s magic to probe our wards, and the only reason we know is because the Hollow girl can hear the cracks.”
“Pretty much,” Kael said. “On the bright side, at least our Hollow girl comes with warranty coverage.”
“Kael,” Helena said mildly.
He shut his mouth. Mostly.
Cassian stopped, palms braced on the back of the chair across from me. “How often has this happened?”
“Last night was the loudest,” I said. “But I felt a smaller…buzz the night before the rogue broke through. I didn’t know what it was then.”
“So this isn’t new,” he muttered. “Just newly noticed.”
I nodded.
He was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke again, his voice had that clipped, command edge. “All right. You don’t go near the ward-stones alone again.”
Anger flared. “So the person who can actually feel what’s wrong stays home?”
“The person who might be visible to whoever is on the other side stays with backup,” he shot back. “You’re not a canary we send down the mine shaft and hope doesn’t die.”
Helena’s eyes softened. “He’s right, Rhea. If someone can sense you when you touch the wards, they may be able to follow that connection back.”
I clenched my jaw. “I didn’t say I wanted to go dancing with them.”
“You already brushed against them once,” Cassian said. “That’s enough.”
I hated that he was making sense.
Kael cleared his throat. “Look, ‘no more solo ward dates’ can be rule one. Rule two: we test this properly. Controlled. With Rowan and Jace nearby. See if Rhea can map every weak point before whoever’s out there does.”
Cassian shot him a look, then glanced back at me. “Can you?”
“I think so.” The idea made my stomach twist, but the certainty was there. “If I get close, I can feel where the lines are thin. It’s…loud now.”
“Loud how?” Helena asked.
“Like…a toothache,” I said. “In the bones.”
Cassian nodded once, decision made. “We set a patrol at that stone. Double up on wards around the village. And we take Rhea to each marker with a full escort.”
I raised a brow. “Oh. So now I’m invited to a field trip.”
A corner of his mouth ticked up, then flattened again. “This isn’t a joke.”
“I know.” My hand still tingled faintly where I’d touched the stone. “Whoever’s playing with our walls—Fen, Council, some bored god—I don’t like that they can see in when we can’t see out.”
“That’s about to change,” Cassian said.
He straightened, shoulders rolling back, Alpha fully snapping into place. “I’ll brief Jace and Rowan. We start at dusk.”
Kael stretched, smothering a yawn. “I knew dragging myself out of bed would be worth it.”
As we stood to leave, Cassian’s gaze caught mine again. “Rhea.”
“Yeah?”
“You did the right thing coming here,” he said. “Even if you shouldn’t have gone out there alone in the first place.”
I snorted. “So noted, Alpha.”
But as I stepped back into the morning light, one thing was very clear.
Whatever was tugging at our borders had found a loose thread.
And like it or not, that thread was tied straight through me.
- Writer
