Page 29

Marigold

After leaving Elio’s sanctuary, I returned to my chambers, but sleep refused to come. I lay on my bed, staring at the ceiling, but my thoughts wouldn’t settle. They kept circling back to him.

The infuriating, calculating bastard who kept making my life miserable. The one who had humiliated me, tricked me, made me question every step I took at Wickem. The one I was supposed to hate.

But tonight… something shifted.

It wasn’t just the music. It was him.

I had seen him without his mask—not the golden prince, not the illusionist who played tricks with words and light, but the real Elio. And the truth of him had unraveled something inside me.

Scout clicked against my shoulder, the small bones of his body vibrating with something unreadable.

“I know,” I murmured, rolling onto my side. “It’s not supposed to feel like this.”

But it did.

And that was the most dangerous part.

Scout suddenly stiffened, then his tiny skeletal feet tapping a frantic rhythm against my shoulder before he sprang down, darting toward my office with unmistakable intent.

“What is it?” I whispered, rising to follow.

A strange energy hummed in the air, something familiar.

Scout clicked excitedly. On the shelf was a leather-bound volume. It hadn’t been here before. I was certain of it. But now nestled between books I’d already sorted through, it sat waiting like it had been left for me. Only I was the only person who could enter these rooms…so who had sent it?

The skull sigil of the Fourth Council Seat was embossed on the cover—my father’s seat. My inheritance. The leather felt warm beneath my fingers, pulsing, alive.

I flipped open the cover, and my breath caught.

The first page held precise but urgent handwriting:

My dearest daughter,

If you are reading this, then the wellspring has called you home despite efforts to keep you away. There is much I wish I could tell you directly, but some truths are too dangerous to commit plainly to paper.

Know that appearances deceive, and what seems like betrayal may hide loyalty, while trusted authorities may conceal deeper threats.

The answers you seek are hidden in these pages, but they must be earned carefully. Trust your instincts about magic’s true nature. Watch for signs in the wellspring’s song.

And remember—even the cleanest water can be forced down poisoned channels.

With love and hope,

Father

The words blurred as I reread them, my heart hammering. Poisoned channels.

I thought of Keane’s magic, of the way the shadows in his portals had spread. The way my own magic had pushed back against the wrongness in him.

This wasn’t just about my father.

This was about the Council’s fear of our magic. The fear of what happened when our power worked together.

I flipped through the pages and the writing looked like mundane records at first—dates, meeting notes, adjustments to warding spells—but the patterns were wrong. Too structured. As if they weren’t notes at all, but something hidden within them.

Scout leaned against my wrist as I turned the pages, while the dead things whispered hints I couldn’t quite catch.

Between the lines of dry political proceedings, I caught glimpses of another story—one about questioned loyalties, dangerous discoveries, and a man desperately trying to protect something precious.

Dawn found me still reading, my mind spinning with half-formed theories. This book held answers. The truth about Keane’s magic and what was wrong with him—or maybe what was being done to him.

The sound of movement in the hall made me close the journal, tucking it safely away. But its weight remained, pressing against my ribs like a question I wasn’t yet ready to answer.

The dead things stirred uneasily, shifting at the edges of my awareness. Scout let out a sharp, urgent chitter, his tiny bones clicking in agitation.

The key to understanding all of it lay in my father’s careful notes.

But first, I had to learn how to read them. Because whatever had started eighteen years ago was still in motion. And I was already part of it.