"She?" the King asked, his voice smooth and almost curious. "Who is it that needs you so desperately?"

Theron’s jaw tightened until it ached. He forced himself to breathe, forced his mind to sharpen despite the panic clawing at his chest. His gaze dropped to the magic circle beneath his feet, scanning every line, every intersection, every pulse of light. If he could identify its structure, he could break it.

But the longer he looked, the more his frustration deepened.

It was wrong.

Not unfamiliar—worse than that. It was familiar in pieces. Two formations he knew, two systems he had mastered, woven together into something seamless, something stronger. Something he had never imagined could exist.

And yet his father had done it.

"Do try not to overexert yourself," the King said mildly, as though commenting on the weather. "You may end up tearing off a limb or two."

A faint, mocking smile touched his lips, unhurried and utterly certain. "And do not forget... everything you know, you learned from me."

There was no strain in his tone, no urgency, no doubt. Only quiet authority... and absolute confidence.

"Let me go!" Theron snarled.

The glow in his pocket pulsed again.

Weaker.

His chest tightened violently. He could feel it... feel her fear, her danger, like a thread pulling at his very soul, and he was standing here, trapped, wasting time.

"Say her name," the King said, his voice dropping just enough to carry weight. "I might consider letting you go."

Theron’s eyes lifted slowly, burning into his father’s.

He had already struck the Caelvaris where it hurt. He had severed what they tried to bind him with. The last thing he would do was hand them her.

"A risk you’re asking me to take," he thought bitterly.

"Helena Burrowwyn," he said instead, the lie leaving his lips without hesitation. "Now let me go."

Even as he spoke, he moved. Every rune he knew flared through his mind, every counter-formation, every fracture point. Power surged through him as he forced it against the circle, testing, pressing, breaking...

And yet... Nothing. Not a single line yielded.

The circle absorbed it, adjusted, held.

"What is this haste?" the King asked, his tone cool, though something sharper edged beneath it now. "You wear urgency like a poorly kept secret."

His gaze settled fully on Theron, heavy with something far more dangerous than anger.

"Or have you forgotten," he continued quietly, "that I am perfectly capable of discerning truth from lies?"

Then his eyes changed.

Light bloomed at the center of his irises and split outward, vertical and sharp, until his gaze resembled something ancient and predatory, something not entirely human.

A fox’s gaze.

Cold.

Knowing.

"If you lie," the King said softly, "who will protect her from Noctyrr?"

The name struck like thunder.

Theron froze for the briefest instant... and that was enough.

Aveline... his Aveline was in such a danger? His father put her through this danger?

His own eyes shifted, the same unnatural split cutting through gold, though now a violent red bled beneath it, fueled by strain and fury. The veins along his temples stood out sharply, his skin glistening with the light building beneath it as his control began to fray.

His fists clenched so tightly his arms trembled, cords of muscle and power pulling taut as though they might tear themselves apart.

The circle held.

But it was no longer effortless.

Theron felt his father probing at the edges of his mind, trying to slip past his defenses and drag the truth out by force.

He shoved him back.

No one would know who he was protecting. Not yet.

He had made certain of that.

Aveline was not the only woman under his sponsorship. He had enrolled twenty others, each with a different face, a different presence, a different trace of talent, enough to blur the trail, enough to make any search for her costly and uncertain.

If his father wanted to pursue it, he would have to investigate them all. And if he chose violence, then he would have to spill the blood of twenty women in the middle of the Arcanum, where such a thing would not be dismissed so easily. The Archduke would not allow it, not even for the King.

So the King knew.

That was why he was forcing the truth out of him.

Theron’s jaw tightened with fresh fury. Damn, Kael, for speaking too freely. Otherwise, his father wouldn’t have known about Aveline and Noctyrr.

Damn this entire trap.

And Aveline...

Aveline had already faced Noctyrr once. Noctyrr would remember her scent, would hunt it like a hound if given the chance.

But if it truly came to that... she would fight.

She always fought.

That was precisely what made the thought unbearable.

Because fighting was not the same as escaping. She’d be fighting Noctyrr and end up right in the hands of his father.

And Theron would not let her be caught.

"You sent a monster into a place where helpless children are meant to learn?" he said, drawing strength from somewhere deeper than pain. The words came harsher than he intended, sharpened by the sight of the King’s forehead beginning to bead with sweat.

"And you still call yourself a king?"

And something inside him surged seeing his father’s composure cracking.

Power lashed outward, lightning bursting from him in violent arcs, crawling across the floor, licking the edges of the circle in blinding flashes. The air trembled, pressure rising, the chamber itself groaning under the strain.

There had to be a way out. The only way out was to slip through it, to force a fracture, to find a weakness in the formation and exploit it.

Then he remembered Aveline.

How she had broken the ground beneath her own spell.

Could he do the same?

A movement at the edge of the room caught his eye. Guards, who had kept their distance until now, were beginning to step forward, drawn in by the flare of lightning.

The King’s voice snapped through the chamber.

"That is an illusion. No one is to come closer."

He knew his son too well. And he knew the ones who bend light cannot crete lightning; they can only create the illusion of lightning.

He knew Theron would not break free through force alone, and he was already anticipating the shape of his next move. The lightning was meant to distract. To mislead. To draw every eye upward while he searched for another path.

Theron’s gaze sharpened.

The lights were decoys.

And if his father believed he would stand helpless much longer, then he was already mistaken.

He slammed his foot hard against the floor hoping it would work.