ALEXANDER
The tension doesn’t leave the room after Luca’s words.
It settles deeper.
Luca’s wife is the first to move through the silence.
“There’s someone who can help,” she says, her voice careful, measured, the tone of a woman choosing her words like she’s walking across ice. “A witch. Her name is Mara. She tracks people — spirit tracing. If anyone can find Emmaline, it’s her.”
I look at her. “Get her. Now.”
Luca nods at the nearest guard without argument. The man disappears down the corridor at speed.
What follows is the longest wait of my life. I pace the marble floor and I don’t speak and nobody tries to make me. My blood is still running too hot, my pulse refusing to settle, the image of Emmaline — pregnant, alone, somewhere between here and the palace gates — cycling through
