“Then you should recover what you can,” she murmured. “You mightn’t have your notes, but you have your mind. You figured it out once before. You can do it again.”

  “But it was a lifetime of research…”

  “You’re hardly alone in losing everything, Theo. Suck it up.”

  He glared and turned back to the mess, picking at the mess of scorched paper.

  Blair remained near the wall, careful not to disturb anything that might still hold traces of shadow magic. She watched Theo work, studying his movements with the practiced eye of a detective who’d spent years reading people’s body language. Something felt off.

  He’s omitting things again, she thought. Telling me just enough to keep me on the hook and keep the truth about his containment theories secret. He doesn’t trust me. She couldn’t blame him for trying to protect his work, but they’d made a deal.

  “What exactly were you working on before everything went sideways?” Blair asked, keeping her tone casual despite her growing suspicion.

  Theo barely glanced up. “I told you. Human channelling protocols.”

  “Right.” Blair tapped her watch absently. “But that’s not all, is it?”

  His shoulders stiffened almost imperceptibly. If she hadn’t been watching for it, she might have missed it entirely.

  “The Echo,” she said. “D’Arco was trying to merge with it, control it. I’m wondering if someone else might have been looking for a different approach.”

  Theo’s hands stilled over the papers. “What are you suggesting?”

  “Just connecting dots.” Blair stepped carefully around a charred patch of floorboard. “Your research on human channelling. The Echo being a repository of magical memory. D’Arco’s obsession with controlling it.” She paused, watching his reaction. “Someone funded your work through the College. Someone who might have seen potential applications beyond what you were advertising.”

  “You think I was unknowingly researching ways to control the Echo?” Theo’s laugh sounded hollow. “That’s quite a theory.”

  “Is it?” Blair’s gaze swept over the workshop again. “Human channellers. Memory manipulation. Reality alteration. The pieces fit rather neatly together, don’t they? Resonants are rare, and the one we have isn’t exactly…controllable.”

  She stepped closer to Theo, her boots crunching over broken glass as she navigated around the debris. Her trained eye caught the subtle way he shifted his body, attempting to block her view of what he was doing. Not subtle enough for someone who’d spent years reading suspects.

  “What have you got there?” she asked, though she already knew.

  Theo’s shoulders tensed as he lifted a crystal apparatus from beneath the shattered workbench. The device, surprisingly intact, consisted of quartz points arranged in a geometric pattern around a central copper coil. Blair recognised it immediately. A resonance mapper, used for tracking magical surges across the city.

  “This survived,” he murmured, his relief palpable as he turned it over in his hands, checking for damage.

  Blair watched as he placed it carefully aside, adding it to a growing collection of salvaged items: calibration tools, copper wire wrapped in silk, small vials of what appeared to be stabilising agents, and several notebooks with only minimal damage. The pile wasn’t random—each item complemented the others, forming a coherent set of equipment.

  “You’re planning to rebuild,” she said. It wasn’t a question.

  Theo glanced up, his expression carefully neutral. “Of course I am. My life’s work was here.”

  “Your life’s work,” Blair echoed, studying the pile of recovered items. The resonance mapper could track energy signatures across Nightreach—including, potentially, the unique signatures of Echo fragments. The stabilising agents could be used to contain volatile magic. The calibration tools would allow precise attunement to specific magical frequencies.

  Everything needed to locate and interact with fragments of the Echo…or make her magical.

  Blair felt a chill that had nothing to do with the workshop’s temperature. The Echo had nearly destroyed reality as they knew it. Its pieces, scattered throughout the ley lines, still contained unimaginable power. Power that Theo, or whoever had funded his research, clearly wanted access to.

  “I’m not sure rebuilding is the best idea right now,” she said carefully, watching his reaction. “Not until we understand what’s happening with the city’s magic.”

  Theo’s fingers tightened around a copper coil. “I need to continue my research. Especially now. That’s why we’re here. Even you said it moments ago!”

  “That’s before I realised just how much you’re keeping from me,” she drawled. “We made a deal.”

  Theo scoffed. “Did you ever stop to think that I might be protecting you?”

  “And what about your mysterious benefactor?” she asked, ignoring him. “What are their intentions? What are yours?”

  “Do you want magic of your own, Detective?” he snapped. “Because I’m your best shot.”

  Blair’s stomach twisted. This wasn’t just about human channelling. It was about creating something more dangerous.

  “You weren’t just trying to make humans channellers,” she said, her voice steady despite the cold realisation settling in her blood. “You were trying to create artificial Resonants.”

  Theo didn’t deny it. His silence was confirmation enough.

  “That’s why D’Arco wanted your research,” she continued, piecing it together. “He needed a way to control the Echo without Vesper, and now you’re offering me the same thing.” To become his test subject.

  “I’m offering you a chance,” Theo said, his voice hardening. “The only chance you’ve got.”

  Blair’s fingers brushed against her watch, feeling its familiar weight. London seemed impossibly distant now. A world away in the most literal sense. Her flat with its view of the Thames, her colleagues at the MET, the life she’d built there. All of it suspended in a reality she couldn’t reach.

  “Your mysterious benefactor,” she pressed. “They wanted control of the Echo through your artificial Resonants, didn’t they?”

  Theo looked away. “They wanted options.”

  “And what happens to the human test subjects?” Blair asked. “To me, if I agree to this?”

  “I don’t know,” he admitted, finally meeting her eyes. “The protocols were theoretical. The human channelling aspect works. I’m certain of that, but the rest…”

  “You never tested it.”

  He shook his head. That’s why they’d come for his research, then.

  Blair weighed her options. This research was potentially her only way home. Her only chance at opening a stable gateway back to London.

  The Echo fragments would be found sooner or later, and what then? Another fight to control them would erupt and more people would suffer. If she could become a Channeller, maybe she could stop it. But if she survived, she wouldn’t just be a mage. She would likely come out of it a Resonant…with the power to find and control the fragments, too.

  The risks were enormous. Not just to her, but potentially to both worlds if Theo’s technology fell into the wrong hands. Still, she didn’t back away. She’d come too far, sacrificed too much to hesitate now.

  “I need complete transparency from you, Theo,” she said. “No more half-truths or convenient omissions. If this is what it takes for me to get home, I’ll see it through, but only if you’re honest with me. About everything.”

  Blair studied Theo’s expression, searching for any flicker of deception. The irony wasn’t lost on her. After years of investigating magical crimes, she was contemplating becoming part of one.

  “Complete transparency,” she repeated. “Starting now.”

  Theo nodded, gathering the salvaged equipment. “We’ll need a secure location. This place isn’t safe anymore.”

  “Let’s move,” she said. “We’ve already been here too long.”

  Theo gathered his remaining research papers, carefully sliding them into his leather satchel alongside the salvaged equipment. The copper resonance mapper went in first, nestled between layers of notes to protect it from further damage.

  She didn’t trust him. Not completely. But she needed him, if only to find who was funding his research and why.

  “Is that everything?” she asked, scanning the workshop one final time. Her trained eye caught details others might miss. The way certain areas had been more thoroughly searched than others, how the dust patterns suggested someone had indeed been here after the attack.

  “Everything worth saving,” Theo replied, his voice tight as he secured the satchel’s buckles.

  They left without ceremony, stepping carefully over the threshold and back into the narrow alleyway.

  The street was quiet, but the city beyond hummed with rising energy. Nightreach was stirring, reshaping, healing. Blair could feel it in the air, a subtle vibration that hadn’t been there before the Echo shattered. New magic, wild and unpredictable, flowing through the ancient streets.

  Blair and Theo walked in silence, both burdened by what they’d seen and what they hadn’t said. Neither of them knew who was here before them, but she suspected that whatever came next would be worse.

  Chapter 10

  Rafe climbed the last rise of the winding path, stopping as Millbrook revealed itself below. Stone and timber structures nestled against the hillside, settling into the damp earth at gentle angles. Morning fog lingered between buildings, softening edges and glowing gold in the growing sunlight.

  Magic thrummed beneath the surface, wild and untamed, so different from the power he’d become used to in Nightreach. It whispered through the gaps between stones, rustled in the ivy that crept up walls, and pulsed in the ancient ley lines that crossed beneath the village like buried rivers.

  He passed the old blacksmith’s forge, its windows dark now but still bearing the same protective runes he’d helped carve into the doorframe as an unsure teenager. The marks had weathered, their edges softened by time and rain, but their power remained steady.

  The village green opened up before him, the old oak still standing at the centre. How many hours had he spent beneath those branches, learning to trace the flow of magic through its roots? It felt different now, a reminder of everything he’d left behind.

  He’d changed, and he wasn’t sure it was for the better.

  Smoke curled from chimneys, carrying the scent of applewood and herbs. Someone was brewing protection charms, the distinctive tang of rowan berries and iron filling the air. Once, he’d known exactly which witch was working which spell, what mage was tinkering with a talisman, and could map the village’s magical rhythms as easily as breathing. Now the familiar scents blurred together, foreign and familiar all at once.

  He turned down a narrow alley, letting his feet carry him without thought. Every corner held a memory, but they felt distant, like they’d happened to someone else…because they had.

  Noise ahead made him hesitate. He’d forgotten it was market day. The square would be full of people, traders hawking their wares and neighbours gossiping over fresh produce, but he couldn’t turn back now, even if every familiar face might twist the knife of memory a little deeper.

  Rafe paused at the edge of the square, watching Mrs. Thatcher hang bundles of dried herbs from her cottage eaves. She placed each bundle with care, protection magic crackling between her weathered fingers. The same ritual he’d witnessed hundreds of times before.

  Near the well, old Horace scratched fresh wards into the stone rim with a copper knife. The ancient symbols sparked with each cut, magic seeping into the grooves to guard the village’s water. A young boy, perhaps eight or nine, sat at his feet, watching with wide eyes, just as Rafe had done years ago.

  These people had known him before everything changed. Now their sincere welcomes just made him feel worse. Every smile, every nod of recognition only highlighted how easily he’d walked away from this place years ago.

  A group of children chased each other through the square, darting between market stalls where traders laid out their magical wares—crystals, cloth, herbs, and more mundane produce.

  Rafe leaned against the wall, hiding in a pool of shadow as he watched everything unfold before him. There were new faces he didn’t recognise, but a lot he did. People who’d only ask questions he couldn’t answer if they saw him. He was a stranger now, looking in from the outside as life continued without him, the village’s magic flowing around him like a river around a stone.

  These people had given him a home when he’d had nothing, not even memories. They’d welcomed a lost teenager who appeared from nowhere, accepted him without question. And he’d repaid that kindness by walking away.

  But Nightreach wasn’t home either. The city had promised answers, yet delivered only more questions. He’d spent years there searching for fragments of his past, building a life from scratch, telling himself that was enough. That he didn’t need to look back.

  The lie tasted bitter now.

  A group of traders passed, their carts full of herbs and crystals. One nodded in recognition, but Rafe turned away, unable to face the inevitable questions. Where had he been? What brought him back? Questions that would only highlight how rootless he’d become.

  He’d told himself his life began that morning in Millbrook. That everything before was lost, irrelevant. Then he’d convinced himself starting fresh in Nightreach would give him purpose. Two beginnings, two lives, and neither felt real anymore.

  Rafe exhaled heavily, shoving his hands deep into his pockets as he turned away from the market square. The path to Aldrick’s cottage wound between moss-covered stone walls and overgrown gardens, each step echoing with memories he’d tried to bury.

  The search for the Echo had consumed him, given him purpose when everything else felt hollow. The battle in the Fold, helping Vesper pass the Concordat’s trials at Thornhallow. Even Vesper, with her wild magic and fierce determination, had become another distraction from the void where his memories should be.

  It did matter. He’d tried to make his peace with it…and had failed.

  Aldrick’s cottage appeared ahead, its gardens a riot of magical herbs and flowers. Rafe paused, studying the weathered stones and twisting vines. He’d once thought of this place as home. Now it felt like a reminder of everything he’d failed to become, every question he’d failed to answer. Aldrick’s greatest failure.

  His chest tightened as morning mist curled around his feet. The pain of his missing past hadn’t faded with time or distance. If anything, it cut deeper now, sharpened by years of searching without results. All his power, all his knowledge, and still he remained a stranger to himself.

  Aldrick was right to be angry. His protégé had gone off to the big city and become little more than a criminal for hire.

  Rafe pushed open the iron gate, its hinges groaning in protest. As he stepped through, he felt a pulse of agitated magic, the crackle drawing his attention to Vesper, who paced near the tree line like a caged animal. Her dark hair whipped around her face despite the still morning air, and her opalescent magic sparked visibly around her fingers. Not a good sign.

  The moment she spotted him, her shoulders dropped and a harsh breath escaped her lips. The expression on her face spoke volumes. Her lesson with Aldrick had gone just as he’d expected. Awfully.

  “That bad?” Rafe kept his voice neutral, though his chest tightened at her obvious distress. He’d seen that same frustrated look in the mirror countless times during his own training.

  “He’s impossible.” Vesper’s hands clenched into fists. “Everything I do is wrong. Every single thing! I try to reach for magic like he says, and he tells me I’m forcing it. That I’m not listening, but I am. I hear everything! That’s the point!”

  A patch of moss near her feet withered as her magic lashed out unconsciously.

  “Aldrick has that effect on people.” He moved closer. “He’s pushed me to breaking point more times than I can count.”

  “How did you stand it?”

  “Honestly?” Rafe gestured to the scorched remains of several garden plants. “I destroyed half his herb garden in my first month. The mint never quite recovered, and mint will grow anywhere and through anything.”

  That earned him a small smile, though the tension didn’t fully leave her shoulders.

  Vesper crossed her arms, her boots digging furrows in the damp earth. “He pushed me into the mud. Actually pushed me.” Her magic crackled around her like static. “I felt something wrong in the ley lines. I was only trying to figure out what it was.”

  Rafe raised a brow, unimpressed but unsurprised. The scene was painfully familiar. He’d been in her position more times than he cared to count. The frustration, the indignation, the certainty that Aldrick was being unreasonable. He’d felt it all.

  Moving closer, he leaned against the worn wooden fence. The old timber creaked beneath his weight, weathered by years of Cornwall’s rain and wind. “You reached for magic that wasn’t yours to take. It’s the oldest trick in the book.”

  “But there was something wrong in the ley lines. I felt it.”

  “He pushed me in far worse when he taught me the same lesson.” The memory was crystal clear. Landing face-first in mud that smelled of decay and old magic, pride stinging worse than his scraped palms.

  Vesper’s cheeks turned red. “He…”

  “Magic is neither good nor bad. There are knots of magic that feel malevolent to us, but are completely natural. Just as there are predators and prey in the animal world. Poisonous plants and medicinal. It’s all a balance.”

  “So there’s nothing wrong with the ley lines?”

  He shook his head. “You reach out because you want to understand, but there’s a difference between knowing and dismantling. You can’t rip the wings off a butterfly and expect to know how it flies.”