Elena led them to a small study off the council chamber, closed the door, and threw a warding sigil across the threshold before either of them could ask what she was doing.
"Nobody outside this room hears what I'm about to tell you," she said. "Not the council. Not Yara. Nobody."
"Start talking," Diego said, arms crossed, clearly done being patient with his own mother.
Elena didn't sit. She rolled up her own sleeve instead, and for a second Mika forgot how to breathe.
Faint silver markings, dimmer than Mika's, older-looking somehow, traced up Elena's forearm in almost the exact same pattern.
"That's not possible," Mika said, echoing Elena's own words back at her from the chamber.
"I thought the same thing thirty years ago," Elena said quietly. "I carried a piece of this too. Not the
