AMAND
Lev’s new method works quickly enough that none of us are prepared for it.
We reach the old stone-cutting shop just after noon, following the gargoyle’s native signature through the back streets of the quarry district until Lev brings us to another limestone building wedged between an abandoned equipment yard and a row of storage sheds.
The scent runs cleanly through the alley, clinging to stone and old dust, then disappears against the side of the building so abruptly that Rowan tenses beside me.
Lev stops the instant the trail disappears against the limestone. Gray is already spreading over his hands as Rowan and I give him the room he needs, and this time he settles into the stillness without fighting it.
Less than a minute later, he shifts sideways toward a narrow service door and crouches. “Here. He went inside.”
Rowan and I move closer when he waves us in. Dust along the base of the building has been pushed outward in a shallow line toward the threshold, and higher up, the reflected light breaks briefly across the limestone before settling back into its normal pattern.
“Fresh?” I ask.
Lev nods. “Fresher than the quarry. He hasn’t had enough time to erase it.”
“He was against the wall,” Rowan says.
Lev nods. “And then he moved toward the door.” Satisfaction finally slips into his expression as he straightens. “Which means, for once, we’re not staring at something he abandoned days ago.”
That changes the weight of the moment.
We are still behind him, but not by much.
Lev reaches for the service-door handle and pauses long enough to listen. When nothing moves inside, he pulls it open and steps back instead of crossing the threshold immediately.
The door swings inward, revealing the darkened interior of the old shop. Lev watches the opening for a few seconds while the stone texture begins fading from his fingers.
“That feels substantially better than sniffing a wall for twenty minutes and then losing him,” he says.
Rowan steps past him and looks into the darkened building. “How recent?”
“Recent enough that I can still smell him inside.” Lev’s expression changes as soon as he takes another breath. “And something else.”
I smell it a second later.
Medusa.
Not her exactly. The signature is thinner and more unstable, threaded through the mineral weight of the gargoyle’s magic. We have smelled that combination at every petrification scene since the case began.
Rowan goes rigid beside me.
Lev turns his head toward him. “Yeah. I know.”
The last time we followed that particular magic, Rowan ended up on the floor with stone climbing across his chest. I feel the memory tighten something low in my stomach even though he is standing beside me now, breathing easily enough that the healer would probably stop glaring at all three of us.
We enter carefully, Lev first because he can still track the freshest edges of the gargoyle’s signature, Rowan close behind him, and me bringing up the rear.
The shop has been abandoned long enough that most of the original equipment is more rust than machinery.
Old cutting tables fill the center of the room, broken stone slabs lean against one wall, and a narrow staircase rises toward what was probably once an office.
Someone has been living here recently, though.
Food sits open on one counter beside two water bottles, and a blanket has been folded near an old portable heater instead of shoved into a bag.
A row of tools rests along one cutting table, cleaned and arranged with enough care that they look completely out of place against everything else covered in dust.
“He wasn’t planning to leave yet,” I say as I move closer to the counter. There is still half a sandwich wrapped beside one of the bottles, and the heater is warm enough that someone used it recently.
Lev glances over the room again, his nose wrinkling as he pulls in another breath. “No. We pushed him out before he was ready.” There is satisfaction in that for about half a second before his attention shifts back toward the mixed magic deeper inside the room.
Rowan moves toward the cutting tables but keeps his hands firmly to himself. I notice because the last piece of evidence he picked up nearly petrified his lungs, and apparently almost dying has finally taught him the investigative value of looking before touching.
Lev circles the nearest table, following the stronger thread of Medusa’s stolen magic, then stops so abruptly that I nearly walk into his back. His entire body goes rigid before he takes one quick step away from whatever he has found.
“Oh, fuck no.” He points toward the floor beneath the table without getting any closer. “I would like it officially noted that I'm not touching that.”
I look past his shoulder.
A metal storage container sits half-hidden beneath the cutting table, its lid shoved far enough aside to expose something green coiled inside. For several seconds it doesn't move, and then the body twitches hard enough to scrape scales against metal.
Rowan catches the back of Lev’s jacket the second Lev leans forward.
Lev looks over his shoulder at him. “I wasn’t going to touch it. I was trying to see what it is.”
“You can see it from here.” Rowan keeps his fist in Lev’s jacket and draws him back enough that there is no chance of an accidental repeat of his own mistake. His attention stays fixed on the container as the thing inside moves again. “Nobody goes near it until we know what it does.”
I crouch several feet away and rest my hands on my knees rather than the floor.
The snake inside is much larger than the fragment Rowan grabbed.
Several feet of its body are coiled inside the box, severed cleanly at one end but still moving with an awful kind of purpose.
Its scales flex as it twists against itself, and the head lifts slightly when I change my angle.
Lev notices the movement too. He steps closer to Rowan rather than the container this time, his expression tightening as the snake turns its head toward me. “It’s watching you.”
“I think it is responding to movement.” I shift slightly to the right, and the head follows again. There is no hesitation in the reaction, which makes it difficult to dismiss as residual muscle movement. “Whatever kept the smaller piece active is stronger in this one.”
“That is not comforting.” Lev keeps his gaze on the snake while Rowan’s hand stays caught in the back of his jacket. “Nothing that has been removed from a body should still be this interested in what we’re doing.”
The snake opens its mouth, revealing a flash of small teeth, and Rowan’s expression changes immediately. He pulls Lev another step back before either of them comments on it.
“Call Medusa,” Rowan says, his voice flatter than it was a moment ago. The sight of the snake has stripped away whatever humor he might have found in Lev’s reaction, and I understand why. He knows exactly how dangerous even a small piece can be.
I'm already reaching for my phone. “I’m calling her.”
Medusa gets there twenty minutes later, which is twenty minutes longer than Lev wants to remain in the same room as the container.
We use the time to search everything we can without disturbing the snake, but Lev keeps drifting his attention back toward it whenever the metal scrapes.
Rowan stays between him and the box without pretending the positioning is accidental, and for once Lev doesn't make a serious attempt to get around him.
Medusa walks in with her coat still open from the rush over and stops the second she sees the container.
Every snake on her head reacts before she does.
Their bodies stiffen at once, several mouths opening in sharp hisses while one pulls backward against her hairline and another stretches toward the box.
The severed snake answers as its body twists hard enough to strike the side of the container, and the sound echoes through the shop. Medusa’s face tightens as she crosses the room and crouches several feet away from it.
“That’s most of it,” she says after a moment. She doesn't reach for the box yet, and the snakes around her continue shifting restlessly as though none of them can decide whether they want to attack the severed piece or get away from it.
Lev looks from her to the thing inside the container. “Most of it?”
“The fragment Rowan touched was probably cut from this section later.” Medusa leans slightly closer, and the severed snake turns toward her immediately. “Once he learned how to draw the petrification through it, he may have started taking smaller pieces so he didn’t have to carry the whole thing.”
Rowan’s jaw tightens. “So this is where the magic is really anchored.”
“This is the main piece he took from me.” Medusa keeps staring at it, and for the first time since I met her, there is something uneasy beneath her usual control. “As long as this remains separate from me and alive, the connection remains available to him.”
Rowan doesn't hesitate. “Can we burn it?” His hand finally releases Lev’s jacket, but he stays close enough that their shoulders nearly touch.
Medusa shakes her head. “Burning the body doesn’t sever what it is magically.”
“What about cutting it apart?” Rowan asks. He looks at the tools on the nearby table as if he would happily reduce the thing to pieces himself if she gave him permission.
“That only creates more pieces.” Medusa exhales slowly and glances toward the container again. “The smaller fragment already proved that.”
Lev’s suspicion grows with every answer. He looks from the snake to Medusa, then toward the old chemical drums stacked near the back wall. “Acid?”
Medusa finally looks up at him. “You’ve been thinking about this.”
Lev folds his arms and keeps a careful amount of Rowan between himself and the container. “I’ve had twenty minutes.”