Chapter 93 93

Chapter 93 Part 2-Chapter 10
~Sponsor~

Quiet…not the good kind either. Not the kind that settles after a storm or slips in with sleep; this was solid, like someone had shut a door in my face.

I stood at the small kitchenette sink with my hands braced against the porcelain, watching the tap drip because stopping it felt like admitting something had changed. The sound landed wrong in my head. Too sharp. Too alone.

I opened the doorway between Cyne and myself, but only silence rushed in.

My breath caught, shallow and uncooperative, and I bowed my head until my forehead hovered just above my knuckles. The tether was gone. Not severed cleanly. Not cut. It felt…withdrawn.

I pressed my tongue to the roof of my mouth, grounding myself the way he had taught me. Name five things you can feel. I focused on the chill of the tile under my bare feet, the faint ache in my shoulders, the lingering smell of burnt coffee, the rough weave of my sweater sleeve, the slow drag of air in my lungs. It helped…a little.

The office looked the same. Cluttered with files on the desks, couch draped in yesterday’s jackets. Raines’s boots by the door, still dusted with river grit. Life, apparently, hadn’t received the memo that something essential had gone missing.

I straightened and reached for the mug beside the sink, only to realize my hands were shaking. I wrapped both palms around the ceramic and waited until the tremor eased, then took a cautious sip.

I exhaled through my nose, the sound thin. “Cold. Of course,” I muttered, my voice scraping the quiet.

Footsteps sounded down the hall. Raines moved like a woman who had learned to exist without drawing fire, careful but unafraid. She appeared in the doorway.

“You’ve been up awhile,” she observed.

I lifted the mug slightly, a gesture that meant everything and nothing. “Sleep felt optional.”

Raines leaned a shoulder against the frame, eyes tracking my posture instead of my face. “You feel it too,” she said, not asking.

My grip tightened on the mug until heat bit my skin. “I feel the absence,” I replied, choosing the words like I was handling glass.

She nodded once, slow.

I turned to face her, leaning back against the counter. “You’re calm about this,” I noted, studying the way she held herself together.

Raines huffed quietly. “I’ve learned not to panic when Cyne goes quiet,” he said. “It usually means something intentional and unpleasant is in motion.”

That earned a humorless curve of my mouth. “Comforting.”

She met my gaze, expression sober. “He didn’t vanish. He narrowed the field.”

The phrasing landed in my chest, heavy and sharp. “You’re sure,” I pressed, searching her face for doubt.

Raines pushed off the doorframe and crossed the room, stopping at my desk to thumb through the files we had left spread out overnight. “As sure as I get,” she replied. “And you’re still standing, which tells me he didn’t break anything he couldn’t live with.”

I swallowed. “You assume I’m the metric.”

She glanced up, eyes steady. “You are.”

The words warmed and wounded all at once. I looked away, setting the mug down with care. “He should have told me,” I said, anger creeping in around the edges of fear.

Raines’s mouth twitched. “He probably tried to,” she offered. “Just not with words.”

I folded my arms, hugging myself without meaning to. “That’s not fair.”

“No,” Raines agreed, pulling out a chair and sitting. “It’s very him.”

I pushed off the counter and moved to the office area, dropping into my chair. The files sat between, symbols, maps and notes about docks and corridors and a pendant that kept circling back into our lives like a bad memory.

“I can’t feel him,” I admitted quietly, my fingers tracing the edge of a photograph. “Not even the echo.”

Raines leaned forward, forearms braced on the table. “That tells me he’s deep,” she said. “And that he wants you clear.”

My jaw clenched. “Clear of what.”

“Of him,” Raines replied. “Of the blast radius.”

I laughed once, sharp. “Too late.”

Her gaze softened, sympathy cutting through her usual edge. “Yeah,” she said. “I figured.”

Silence settled again, different now. Thicker. Weighted with things neither of us wanted to name.

I pushed a folder toward her, tapping the page that marked the old shipping routes along the river. “Walk me through the corridor again,” I requested, needing motion, momentum.

Raines straightened, slipping into work mode with visible relief. “It isn’t just physical,” she began, tracing the line with her finger. “It’s ritual. Transitional. Every faction uses it differently, but they all pass through the same choke points.”

“And the docks,” I prompted, flipping another page.

She nodded. “Supply. Transfer. Offerings, sometimes. The pendant ties into that. It isn’t a key so much as a marker.”

I leaned in, heart thudding. “A marker for what.”

Raines’s expression darkened. “For bloodlines.”

The word slid under my skin and stayed there.

I sat back, folding my hands in my lap until my pulse slowed. “So I’m tagged,” I said carefully.

“Connected,” she corrected, lifting her gaze to mine. “Not claimed.”

That distinction mattered more than I wanted it to. “Cyne knew,” I said, the realization bitter and bright.

Raines didn’t deny it. sHe gathered the papers, stacking them neatly. “He always knows first,” She said. “That’s why he moves alone.”

I stood, pacing to the window. Outside, the city went about its business, unaware of ancient things shifting beneath its feet. “He doesn’t get to decide alone,” I argued, pressing my palm to the glass.

Raines rose, stopping a few feet behind me. “No,” She agreed. “But he will anyway.”

I closed my eyes, letting the truth of that settle. The tether might be silent, but the pull remained. Constant. Familiar.

“He thinks he’s protecting me,” I said, my voice low.

Raines rested a hand on the back of a chair, grounding herself. “He is,” she replied. “Just not the way you want.”

I turned, meeting her gaze. “Then we adapt,” I said. “We don’t wait.”

A slow smile spread across her face, fierce and approving. “There it is,” she murmured. “I was wondering how long you’d sit still.”

I grabbed my coat from the back of the couch, shrugging into it with purpose. “If Cyne narrowed the field,” I said, “then we widen our approach.”

Raines reached for her own jacket, eyes bright. “Where do we start?”

I thought of the docks. The corridor. The pendant. The absence that burned like a brand. “We start where they think I won’t go,” I answered.

Raines nodded, opening the door and stepping aside. “Lead on.”

I paused on the threshold, a familiar pressure brushing the edge of my awareness. Not contact, not comfort…but intent, sharp and watching.

Hold on, I'm coming, I thought, not sure if Cyne was even listening anymore.