Page 7 of Blood Currents
“That was calculated,” she said finally.“Alstone’s speech.The way the others backed it.”
“Too perfect,” I agreed.“Like it was rehearsed.Maybe it was.”
“They’re rewriting the narrative before we can ask questions.”
I stepped away from the bag, heat still pulsing under my skin.“So what do we actually know?”
“That magic’s supposed to flow naturally, not be forced through artificial bindings.That Project Cornerstone has been tampering with ley lines and wellsprings.And that Keane…” She stopped.
“Is compromised,” I finished.“Whether he wanted to be or not.”
She flinched like I’d struck her.
“I’m not saying he’s the villain,” I added quickly.“But we can’t afford blind spots.Not with something this big.If he’s being used, we need to know how and why.And if he’s not… if he’s working with them—”
I cut myself off.
“You really think that’s possible?”
“I don’t know what to think,” I admitted.About Keane.About the council.About everything I’d been raised to believe was true.
“He was our friend,” I continued.Though I knew Keane and Marigold had been more than that—and now, apparently, she and Elio too.The thought made my jaw clench.
Marigold pressed her lips together.“He trusted me.”
“And maybe that trust got him taken.Or maybe it’s the only thing that can bring him back.We won’t know until we find him.”
A beat passed.She stepped closer.I should’ve backed away.
“We have to try,” she said.“Even if it gets us branded as traitors too.”
“You’d risk that?For him?”
“For the truth,” she said, taking aim at my bag.Her strike was solid.“For all of us.”
There it was, the fire in her voice, reckless and bright.That kind of courage could get her killed—the kind I couldn’t stop admiring.
“Poor survival instinct,” I muttered.
Her next strike against the bag was too hard.She winced.
I stepped closer without thinking, taking her wrist and turning it over to examine.My magic hummed under my skin, and Ember shifted above us, his feathers glowing a deep, warning red.
“You’re burning hot again,” she said softly.“That color… it’s different.”
Blue flames curled along my skin, steady, waiting.“It’s unstable,” I said.
“It’s evolving.Like you.Like all of us.”
She was close—too close.Her wrist still in my hand, heat coiled between us like it meant something.
I didn’t pull away.Neither did she.
3
Marigold
A few days after theassembly, the illumination diagrams glowed faintly across my textbook, casting shifting shadows that moved just enough to make me second-guess whether they were real—or just my magic reacting to the pressure in the room.
