<b>Chapter </b><b>117 </b>
<b>Envy </b>
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I woke to Underworld morning, no sun, but a clean, pearly light unfurling down the
corridors and that steady, low hum of the kingdom’s heartbeat. Noah was already propped on an elbow beside me, listening the way he does, like the stone itself can brief him if
he’s quiet enough.
“Hawk says the wards purred all night,” he murmured, mouth curving. “No prying. One curious sniff on the around two, Elliot tucked it back to sleep before it finished the
thought.”
I blinked fully awake at that. “He didn’t wake us?”
“He shouldn’t have had to.” Noah kissed my forehead. “Proud?”
Always. We dressed and padded the short hall to Elliot’s room. His door felt warm under my palm; theyered wards, Levi’sttice, Noah’s banked heat, Elliot’s vines recognized me and smoothed open. The room wore its sky like a favorite sweater, constetionszing, aet drag–tail slow. Layah lifted her head from the foot of the bed, eyes bright, chin still on the frame: “your pups are safe.”
On the bed, two lumps under one nket: a blonde haired boy and a wolf pup of a girl, their fingers tangled, Fergus the bear wedged in the middle. Elliot stirred first, went very still the second his eyes found me and then smiled, that soft, relieved smile that
unthreads every knot in my
chest.
“Morning,” <b>I </b>said quietly.
“Morning,<i>” </i>he whispered back, like we might spook theet if we were too loud. Macey made a soft clicking sound and burrowed closer to him, which made Fergus slip, which made Elliot catch Fergus, which made Layah huff approvingly. It was the tiniest chain reaction, and I wanted to bottle it.
“I brought pancakes,” Noah announced.
Macey’s eyes popped open. “I smelled them,” she said, then blinked around. “Where…”
<b>“</b>Underworld,” Elliot said, as gently as breath. “My room. It’s okay.”
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She considered that. “Okay,” she decided, and immediately tried to feed Fergus a corner <b>of </b>pancake when Noah lifted the lid.
They ate tucked under the nket and by “ate,” I mean honey ended up everywhere, including Elliot’s cheek and Fergus’s ear and somehow, improbably, Layah’s eyebrow. It felt right.
“Tell me about the ‘sniff‘ at two,” I said atst.
Elliot’sshes flickered. “Something brushed the ward. Not a pry. Listening. I fed the a little warmth, and it went away.”
“Good,” I said, because his instincts had been perfect. “Right call.” I nced at the door. “We’ll have Levi look anyway.”
“I’m already here,” Levi said from the threshold. He stepped in, sleeves rolled, fingers already faintly bright with sigils. “May I?”
Elliot nodded and slipped his hand into Levi’s without hesitation. Levi closed his eyes and tasted the room the way we do, topyer to bottom, ward to ward. The sigils blooming at
his fingertips were neat and spare, nothing wasted.
“There,<b>” </b>he said after a beat, and swept two fingers through the air. A thread the width of
a hair lifted, silver and soft, quivered like a plucked string, and settled back. Levi didn’t touch it. “Not hollow,” he said to me quietly. “Not the brittle hunger we felt on the rogues.” Levi’s eyes stayed on the shimmer hanging over the lintel. “Not hollow,” he said again, voice clipped. “And not wolf–work.”
Noah shifted closer, Hawk’s attention pressing forward through him like a weight behind his ribs. “Then what?”
“A seeker–weave,” Levi answered, tilting his head as if listening to rain. “Somebody spun
magic to follow a specific resonance. It doesn’t force doors or bite wards. It sniffs. When it catches the right signature, it trails it.”
My stomach went cold. “A specific resonance… Elliot’s.<b>” </b>
The thread quivered, an almost–sigh drawn toward the bed, toward the boy with honey on his cheek and a wolf pup of a girl tucked into his side. Layah’s hackles lifted in one slow ripple. I set my palm to the frame; the ward’s hum steadied under my skin. Elliot didn’t
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flinch<b>. </b>His fingers tightened around Macey’s, but his eyes stayed on the shimmer, clear. “It wasn’t trying to get in,” he said softly. “Just… find me.”
Macey blinked up at us, sleep–drunk and very serious. “We came here with you,” she said, like she needed the record corrected. “Envy and Noah brought us.<b>” </b>
“We did,” I agreed, brushing her hair back. “You’re exactly where we put you.” I nodded at the tiny thread. “This isn’t about you, little wolf. It’s trying to follow him.”
Macey screwed up her nose. “That’s rude.”
“Extremely,” Noah said gravely.
Levi’s mouth ttened. “It’s keyed to your soulprint,” he told Elliot. “Whoever cast it, they want something badly enough to seek it.”
Elliot swallowed. “Me.”
I cupped the back of his neck, thumb under the edge of his jaw. “They don’t get to have
you.”
His jaw unclenched. “Okay.”
The thread nosed the ward again, drawn like a moth to glow. Levi lifted his hand and
traced a small arc. Sigils flowered, neat and spare, and settled like a glove over the
shimmer. “I’m muting it. It’ll still sniff, but it’ll smell what we choose.”
“Mask him,” Noah said. “Blunt the resonance.”
“And thicken the room’s listening,” I added, feeling the ward answer my palm.
Levi nodded and got to work: a gauze–thin veil over the ward that flexed without opening;
a softening weave that wrapped Elliot’s signature the way a nket wraps heat, warming without letting it escape. The room purred, content. Layah’s hackles sank.
“Can I help?” Elliot asked.
Levi’s eyes warmed. “Yes. Lesson one: mirror–snare.” He conjured a shallow dish of ck ss that drank theet’s light. <b>“</b>If a seeker touches your ward, ask the ward to keep a reflection of it. Not the whole thread, just a hair. Enough to study.”
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Elliot slid carefully from under the nket and sat cross–legged at the edge of the bed. He took the dish in both hands.
“When it sniffs again,” Levi murmured, “feed the ward one breath of warmth likest
night. Then ask it to show you what touched it.”
The shimmer nosed at the veil, eager–curious. Elliot exhaled, slow and warm. The veil listened, not opened. In the ss, a thread drew itself, a hairline ribbon of ash–silver,
vibrating at a pitch you felt more than heard.
Levi bent close. “Say hello,<i>” </i>he whispered to the reflection.
The thread in the dish made the faintest brittle sound. The shape of a word traveled along
it: “Kin“. Not amand. An invitation. Somehow worse.
Macey leaned over the bowl, hair falling like a curtain. “No, thank you,” she informed it, scandalized. “You can’t sniff my best friend. That’s a rule.”
Hawk approved. I felt it in Noah’s chest like a satisfied thump. Levi tapped the rim; sigils
sank and locked the image. “Origin’s smeared with ash and river water,” he said, frowning.
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Cheap ways to blur direction. But there’s a vor under it I recognize.”
“From the rogues,” Noah said.
“The hands that rode them,” Levi corrected. He tilted the bowl so I could taste the magic. It was wrong in my mouth, dry bone, cold soot and under that, a thin salt–hunger
stretched too long.
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