Page 54 of Saving Her Dragon

Sydney maintained a brutal, white-knuckled control over the Dragon Queen with whom she shared her soul, forcing the white fire back beneath her skin. Her jaw was set, her blue eyes flashing. They didn't need to destroy the bridge yet. They needed the blueprints. They needed information.

Watching from the opposite side of the room, Ginnie rapidly analyzed the mechanics of the collision and the Magic. Stepping toward the desk, the tips of her fingers traced the columns of Garrett's notebook.

Ginnie stared at Garrett's notebook for a long moment, her fingers tracing the pattern of the anchors. “I think we've been looking at them backward.”

Carrick frowned. “Meaning?”

“What if the anchors aren't destinations?”

Garrett's tactical brain snapped onto the distinction. “Then they're access points.”

Ginnie looked up at him. “Or permissions.” The word settled heavily over the room.

Carrick's expression hardened. “Permissions to what?”

Ginnie turned the notebook so everyone could see it. “I don't know yet. But look at what was taken. None of these objects are random, and none of them carry the same kind of connection.”

Garrett moved closer.

“Sydney's ribbon,” Ginnie continued, tapping the first point with the tip of her finger. “If I'm right, years of contact with Sydney– and through her, Kara– could have taught the road to recognize their Dragon Queen frequency.”

Sydney's face tightened.

Ginnie's finger moved to the next point. “Alastair's scale carries an unmistakable Dragon King resonance. The road may be using that connection to recognize the kind of Magic tied to Carrick and Alastair.”

“Council wards?” Carrick murmured.

“Maybe,” Ginnie cautioned. “Or Dragon King protections. Or both. I don't want to pretend we know more than we do.”

Her finger shifted again. “My fountain pen is saturated with Heatherton Necromancy. If the pattern holds, it may have given the road a way to identify threshold and Death Magic.”

Grey stared down at the final mark. “And my knife?”

Garrett answered before Ginnie could. “Family.”

Grey's gaze snapped to his.

Garrett swallowed. “Your resonance. Our bloodline. And something I gave you myself.”

Silence stretched through the room.

Ginnie nodded slowly. “Four different connections. Four different kinds of Magical recognition.”

Garrett looked toward the invisible door inside his mind. “And all of them lead through me.”

Carrick's jaw tightened. “Because the wards trust you.”

Garrett went still.

Ginnie turned toward him. “That's what I'm afraid of. If this road is using your Magical signature as its center, then whatever it's touching may not recognize it as hostile.”

“Because it looks like me,” Garrett said.

“Maybe,” Ginnie replied softly. “Or close enough to you to get farther inside than Leviathan ever could on his own.”

Garrett looked at the four points in the notebook again, dread settling deeper into his gut. They still didn't know exactly what Leviathan had built.

But for the first time, they were beginning to understand what the anchors might be doing.