"Meeting with someone," I repeated slowly. "Who?"
"I don't know. By the time I got close enough to see, they were gone. But Zorya tracked their scent, and..." he paused, jaw tightening. "There was residual mana. Dark. Malicious. Nothing like Arabella's healing magic."
My mind raced, trying to process. "So you think.….what? Someone else is pulling the strings? Using Arabella?"
"Or working with her," Lucien added quietly. "We can't rule out that she's complicit."
"But if she wanted me dead, why give me the Noxvara necklace that would only drain my mana instead of killing me outright?" I shook my head. "None of this makes sense. Why want to drain my mana just to try to extract it later? Why not just—"
"Maybe they didn't want to kill you initially," Cassian said. "Maybe the plan changed. Maybe—"
"Maybe we're missing something," I finished.
Silence fell over the garden.
