Chapter Forty-Five — Through the Door
Emerald's Point of View
Rafe's mark smelled like old iron and extinguished candles.
I know this because I had been sitting beside him for the better part of an hour before we attempted anything, my hands in my lap, not touching, just present in the way my mother had taught me to be present before a difficult reading — fully attentive, fully quiet, letting the gift do its preliminary work without forcing it. The way you let your eyes adjust to a dark room before you try to move through it.
The mark pulsed at his throat with that faint blue-black light, steady as a second heartbeat. Each pulse pushed something into the air around him — not quite scent, not quite sound, but the specific sensory bleed that strong magic produces when it has been working
