Page 22 of Roaring Spell

“I know. I’ve been mapping it.”

“Have you considered that she might be causing the weakness?”

The question hits wrong. My bear rises, hackles lifting.

“She’s not causing anything.” My voice comes out harder than intended. “Her magic must be reacting to external interference. Maybe she’s detecting the problem, not creating it.”

Chairs shift. Rhodes sets down his pen.

Silence.

Then Elio, mildly: “That’s a very confident assessment for someone claiming professional detachment.”

“It’s an accurate assessment based on observation.”

“Observation.” Rhodes’s tone drips skepticism.

I take a second and recall the incidents over the weeks. Then I lean forward, holding his gaze. “Same sector, every time. All of them facing the Registry. That’s not instability. That’s sensitivity.”

“Or coincidence.”

“Or evidence.” Aslan intervenes before I can respond. “Torin’s right. Her magic might be the detection system we’ve been lacking. If she can sense disturbances others can’t...”

“Then she’s useful.” Elio nods slowly. “And worth protecting. Even from ourselves.”

Rhodes looks like he wants to argue. But eventually he nods, and moves on to the next agenda item.

I’m walking back toward the studio—earlier than planned, my excuse of Network business abandoned—and my conclusion won’t leave me alone.

Her episodes cluster around specific locations. All within the same sector, all facing the Registry.

Not instability. Sensitivity. The distinction had felt obvious the moment Rhodes raised it as a concern, but the implications are still settling. If she’s reacting to disturbances in the Warding Line, that means the disturbances were there first. It means someone is doing this deliberately. And it means she’s been walking into compromised zones every time her magic flared without knowing why.

She’s been detecting them. Not causing them.

Something cold moves through me that isn’t the evening air.

And she’s alone in the studio right now.

Wrongness hits like a punch to the chest.

My bear surges. Hackles rising. Instincts screaming⁠—

threat, danger, mate⁠—

Then Sakura screams.

I run. Faster than I should be able to, faster than my human form should allow. The studio door crashes open under my shoulder—wood splintering, bell shrieking discordant warning.

Inside, chaos.

Wind tears at the crystals, sending them flying. Rain pours from nowhere—not outside rain, inside rain, falling from a ceiling that shouldn’t be producing weather. Lightning crackles along the walls in branching patterns that scorch where they touch.

And at the center of it all⁠—

Sakura.

On her knees behind the reception desk. Power crackling off her in visible arcs. Her eyes are closed, face twisted with pain, and the elements rage around her without direction, without control.