Chapter 27
Three hours had somehow felt like both an eternity and no time at all.
Everyone had scattered after our kitchen showdown, some to prepare and others just to escape the suffocating tension that had wrapped around the house like a sopping wet blanket.
I’d spent most of it trying not to pace holes in the floor, my mind spinning through worst-case scenarios faster than I could catalogue them.
What if the barrier couldn’t be broken? What if the Order showed up before we could find out? What if it worked but getting Tessa and Ares out of Hollow Hills only made them more vulnerable?
The questions looped endlessly in my mind, each one bleeding into the next until I couldn’t tell which fears were rational and which were just the exhaustion talking.
By the time the sun finally began its descent behind the treeline, painting the sky in streaks of burnt orange and deep purple, my nerves were stretched taut enough to snap.
I’d drifted from the kitchen to the living room to the foyer and back again, unable to sit still, unable to focus on anything except the crushing knot of not knowing if any of this would work.
And, of course, what would come next if it did.
Gabriel found me standing by the living room window, watching the last rays of sunlight disappear beneath the horizon. “It’s time,” he said, his voice somehow gentle despite the worry lining his eyes.
I nodded and followed him out of the living room in silence.
Trace and Dominic were already waiting by the front door when I joined them.
Trace’s eyes found mine immediately, and I felt the familiar warmth of our bond reach out to anchor me.
Dominic, on the other hand, looked as unruffled as ever, though I was certain I caught a hint of tension in his shoulders that belied his casual stance.
“Ready, angel?”
I started to shake my head before catching myself. “I’m ready.”
I wasn’t sure why I was so nervous. This was nothing more than recon work.
Just a quick trip to the edge of town to see the barrier up close and personal and figure out what we were working with.
At least that’s what I kept telling myself.
But deep down inside, I knew what was at stake here.
I knew that if we couldn’t get the barrier down, Ares and my sister would be trapped here with us.
That they’d be chum in the water for the Order.
I couldn’t risk that. I had to get the barrier down.
Trace moved to my side, wrapping one arm around my waist while his other hand reached out to grip Dominic’s shoulder. “Hold on,” he murmured, and then the world dropped away.
The cold hit me first. That same bone-deep chill that always came with porting, as though we were being dragged through a place where warmth didn’t exist anymore. The world blurred and reformed around us in a dizzying rush, shadows and light bleeding together before snapping back into focus.
We materialized at the edge of town, near the old stone bridge that marked the northern boundary of Hollow Hills.
The structure had been there for over a century, its weathered gray stones covered in moss and ivy that crept up from the creek below.
I’d driven past it dozens of times before without giving it a second thought.
It felt so much more significant now, as though I were standing at the threshold between trapped and free.
I supposed in a way I was.
The cold began to recede slowly at first, like ice melting from my skin, before disappearing completely.
Trace’s arm was still wrapped around my waist from the port, his other hand just slipping from Dominic’s shoulder.
I could feel the thrum of our bond beneath my ribs, grounding me as the last of the porting chill faded away.
“Well,” said Dominic, brushing an imaginary piece of lint from his long overcoat. “That never gets more pleasant, does it?”
“Not really, but you get used to it,” answered Trace, his hand lingering on my hip a beat longer than necessary before finally letting go.
Movement caught my eye near the bridge’s stone railing.
Caleb stepped out from the shadows. His hands were shoved deep into his jacket pockets, his shoulders hunched against the biting evening wind.
His desert eyes locked on mine, and something in my chest pulled tight as we slowly closed the distance.
I couldn’t tell if he was sad or just nervous, but he didn’t have his usual upbeat demeanor.
The Caleb I knew would have cracked a joke by now, said something to cut through the tension, or at the very least, flashed one of his cocky grins.
This version looked dejected and uncomfortable, his hands tucked into his pockets and his head lowered, almost like he wasn’t sure if he was welcome.
“Hey,” he said gently, then nodded to Trace and Dominic.
“Hey.”
There was an awkward stretch of silence that followed. As though a wall had gone up between us that hadn’t been there before. I hated that it felt this way with him after everything we’d been through together.
I settled for the simplest truth instead.
“Thank you for coming,” I said, my voice gentler than I’d intended. “For helping us with this. You didn’t have to.”
His expression softened, some of the tension bleeding out of his shoulders.
“You don’t need to thank me, Blackburn. I’ll always come when you need me.
” He glanced at Trace and Dominic, then back at me, his voice dropping lower.
“What happened with Carly…I wasn’t involved in any of it.
I swear I wasn’t. I’d never do that to you. ”
My throat tightened. “I know.”
His shoulders sagged slightly, relief washing over his features before he added, “She feels horrible too. I don’t expect you to believe it right now, but she really didn’t know what they were planning. They lied to her and used her.”
The mention of his sister made my chest squeeze with a mixture of emotions.
I’d had time to process it since everything went down.
Time enough to understand that the Order was good at one thing above all else: distorting the truth to meet their goals.
I had no doubt that they’d manipulated Carly the same way they’d manipulated me.
The same way they’d manipulated all of us.
What she had done was stupid, obviously, there was no doubt of that.
But I didn’t believe she intended to hurt me.
“I know that too,” I finally said, not wanting to drag out his pain any longer than it already had.
“Really?” The word came out hopeful, almost desperate, as though he needed to hear me say it out loud. Needed confirmation that I’d forgiven them both.
“Really,” I said with a nod.
There was so much more I wanted to say. A million things I wanted to ask and apologize for. But everything felt too tangled to unravel in a single conversation.
I needed to be strong right now. Focused. There’d be time for feelings later when this was all over.
Well, you know, providing we all survived it.
“So what are we working with?” asked Trace as he turned his attention to the field across from us.
There was nothing visible to mark the barrier’s presence. Not even a starting point. Just empty air and the darkening sky beyond, but I knew we were close to it. I could feel it.
“The barrier’s about two feet that way,” said Caleb, gesturing to his left with a quick jerk of his chin. “You won’t be able to see it until you touch it.”
“Have you attempted to cross it?” asked Dominic without meeting his eyes.
“Obviously,” said Caleb. He shrank back when Dominic shot him a warning look. “Right. Sorry.” He quickly looked at me and then back at the barrier.
Basically anywhere but at Dominic.
“As far as I can tell, it’s a typical containment barrier,” he explained, his hands disappearing back into the pockets of his letterman jacket.
“It’s multi-layered and anchored at several nexus points throughout town.
Each anchor point creates its own self-contained section of the barrier.
They’re designed to work independently so if one fails, the others remain intact. ”
I met his eyes, confusion clouding my own. “Meaning what?”
“Meaning each section operates on its own power loop. Think of them as load-bearing walls in a building. Take out one, and the others try to compensate. The whole network has to fail simultaneously for the barrier to collapse.”
“Great. So what are our chances here?” I asked, already knowing I wouldn’t like the answer.
“Without the original Caster, it’s basically impossible to bring them down through conventional means.
The magic is self-sustaining at this point, feeding off the nexus points in a closed loop.
We’re standing in front of one right now,” he added, gesturing with another flick of his chin.
“I spent the last few hours mapping out the perimeter, trying to identify anchor locations. This is the closest one to the northern edge.”
“How do you know?” asked Trace, his blue eyes mapping the barrier as though he could see the nexus point if he just concentrated hard enough.
“The barrier’s magic is actually denser at each nexus point,” explained Caleb. “You can feel it if you know what you’re looking for.”
“Impossible to bring down through conventional means,” repeated Dominic, his tone catching with interest as he caught the qualifier. “Are you suggesting there may be an unconventional method to bring it down?”
“There’s a chance that if we can disrupt one of the anchor points hard enough, we might be able to collapse that section of the barrier,” said Caleb carefully. “It wouldn’t bring down the whole thing, but it might create an opening.”
“And how might one go about disrupting an anchor point?” asked Dominic.
Caleb’s mouth pressed into a thin line for a moment. “At this point, it’s still just a theory, but I read about something like this once in one of my family’s grimoires. It’s a technique called harmonic disruption.”