Aerin's hands stilled on the documents, and for a moment her scholarly mask slipped enough to reveal something vulnerable beneath the academic armor. "Because I've seen what happens when ancient bindings fail. Because my grandmother was killed trying to reinforce a compromised seal in the Arctic territories. Because I know what's coming if we can't figure out how to stop it."
The raw pain in her voice hit Leo with unexpected force, and his lion responded with the instinctive desire to comfort someone who was clearly carrying old wounds. He found himself leaning forward, drawn by her vulnerability despite every logical reason to maintain professional distance.
"I'm sorry," he said, meaning it. "I didn't know you'd lost family to this."
"Most people don't. The fae courts prefer to handle their failures quietly." Aerin returned to her documents, but the rigid set of her shoulders suggested the conversation had cost her more than she wanted to admit. "But the failures are accelerating, Captain Maddox. Whatever's destabilizing the network has been planning this for decades, possibly centuries. We're running out of time to stop it."
Leo found himself studying the evidence she'd assembled, seeing patterns in the historical records that he'd never noticed before. The careful preservation of documents that contained hidden magical information. The systematic erasure of one founder's existence. The references to betrayal and binding integrity that suggested the original seal had been compromised from within.
"This betrayal sigil you mentioned," he said, picking up one of the council meeting transcripts. "What exactly would something like that do?"
"Theoretical magical safety measure designed to detect and cleanse corruption within a binding network." Aerin's scholarly enthusiasm returned as she explained the concept. "If one of the founders or their descendants became compromised by external influence, the betrayal sigil would activate to isolate the corruption and prevent it from spreading to the entire seal."
"Sounds like exactly what we need now."
"If it exists. If it wasn't destroyed when Mordaine was erased from the records. We need to figure out how to activateit without knowing the original triggering conditions." Aerin's expression grew grim. "A lot of ifs for something that might be our only hope of stopping a cascade failure."
Leo was about to respond when his radio crackled to life with Sheriff Torres's voice, tense with urgency.
"Leo, we need you at Moondrip Market immediately. We've got reports of structural instability and some kind of underground disturbance."
"What kind of disturbance?" Leo asked, already standing and reaching for his equipment.
"The kind that's making the building foundation hum and causing root vegetables to glow in the dark," Torres replied grimly. "Diana called it in twenty minutes ago, but it's getting worse."
Leo looked at Aerin, who was already packing her research materials with efficient speed. "Dr. Thorne, you need to stay here and continue your?—"
"Absolutely not." Aerin slung her satchel over her shoulder and pulled out the magical detection device she'd used the day before. "If there's an underground magical disturbance, it's almost certainly connected to my research. I'm coming with you."
"The council said supervised access only."
"Then supervise me at the actual site instead of wasting time arguing." Aerin was already heading for the archive exit, her device beginning to emit the soft humming that indicated magical activity. "Besides, Captain, if this is related to the founder network, you're going to need someone who understands ancient binding magic to tell you whether it's dangerous or just dramatic."
Leo followed her up the stairs, his lion torn between irritation at her presumption and grudging respect for her determination. As they emerged into the afternoon sunlight,Aerin's detection device began humming louder, its needle spinning wildly before settling on a bearing that pointed directly toward the market district.
"Interesting," Aerin murmured, making notes as they walked quickly toward Leo's patrol vehicle. "The resonance pattern is different from what I detected yesterday. This isn't residual energy from the original binding. This is something new activating."
"New how?"
"New as in there's a second magical system underneath Moondrip Market that just woke up." Aerin climbed into the SUV, her device now emitting a steady pulse that matched the rhythm of a heartbeat. "New as in we might have just found Mordaine's betrayal sigil."
Leo started the engine and pulled away from the curb with enough speed to make the tires squeal, his lion's protective instincts screaming warnings about the implications of Aerin's research. If she was right about the fourth founder and the betrayal sigil, then whatever was happening at the market could be either their salvation or the trigger for exactly the kind of catastrophe she'd come to prevent.
Either way, it looked like their careful academic research was about to become very practical very quickly.
FOUR
AERIN
Moondrip Market looked like a crime scene from a supernatural disaster movie. The quaint farmer's market that usually bustled with local vendors and enchanted produce had been evacuated, yellow caution tape fluttering around a building that was visibly vibrating. Not the subtle tremor of settling foundations, but the rhythmic pulse of something large and magical stirring beneath the earth.
Sheriff Torres met them at the perimeter, her expression grim as she handed Leo a tablet displaying readings from the town's magical monitoring systems. "Started about forty minutes ago as a low-frequency hum. Diana thought it was just the refrigeration units acting up until the root vegetables in the back storage room began glowing bright enough to read by."
Leo scanned the data, noting energy signatures that registered far beyond normal magical background levels. "Any pattern to the disturbance?"
"That's the weird part. It's not random or chaotic like you'd expect from a malfunction. The pulses are consistent, almost like a heartbeat." Torres gestured toward the market building, where the vibrations were strong enough to make the windows rattle in their frames. "And whatever's causing it is getting stronger."
Aerin pulled out her detection device, which immediately began screaming with alerts as multiple needles spun wildly across its face. The instrument's harmonic resonance shifted into frequencies that made nearby glass sing in sympathy, and she had to adjust several dials to prevent feedback overload.
