Chapter 33:
ALESSIA
The black mark on my wrist didn’t stay still once the lights came back on, and instead it moved like ink dropped into water, slow and deliberate, spreading up my forearm in thin, branching lines that looked almost like veins and every few minutes it pulsed, a dull ache that didn’t just hurt me but echoed through the bond so that I felt the triplets flinch in sync with me, as though the pact had found a way to tie all four of us to the same thread and was pulling it tight.
Blackwell watched it for a long time without speaking, and when he finally did, his voice was quieter than I’d ever heard it. “The mark is binding,” he said, “and the pact is claiming you now that you refused to break the bond, so if it reaches your heart it won’t just use you as a vessel but will
