The room was quiet.
Too quiet. The kind of quiet that presses on your ears.
Kaelen sat on the edge of the bed. Spike had claimed his pillow. Dead asleep. The fire had burned down to embers, throwing the walls into orange and shadow. The bond hummed somewhere in the background of his mind. Soft. Distant. Lysander was asleep. Or trying to be. His presence felt like a warm pulse at the edge of everything.
Kaelen touched the ring.
The void inside opened up. He reached in with his mind, feeling for the object he'd buried weeks ago in the Tower of Teeth. The crystals shifted aside. The dagger slid past. And there, at the bottom of that dark pocket, lay the flat rectangle.
He pulled it out.
Cool against his palm. The weight felt familiar and wrong at the same time. Black glass face. Unbroken. Unlit. Edges smooth like river stones. One button on the side, slightly recessed. A small hole that might have been for sound. The back was metal.
