Page 33 of Autumn L.A.W

“What? It’s a valid question.”

Lioness’s lips curled into a smile that didn’t belong to her. There was no warmth in it. No spark.

“I was his right hand,” the voice said. “His shadow in daylight. His knife in the dark. When he died, I should have lain at his feet in the tomb and walked with him into the next world.”

The borrowed smile vanished.

“Instead, they took my name,” it said. “They took my honors. They tore my stone from the sand and carried it across the sea like plunder. They planted me in foreign soil beneath foreign stars. They cut me from his side and left me to rot in silence.”

Ezra’s hand trembled on Sahara’s notebook. “There are more obelisks,” he whispered. “They’re all displaced, stolen from their original sites. That’s what this is. That’s who this is.”

Magda swallowed. “You were bound to the obelisk.”

“And buried,” the entity said, Lioness’s eyes flaring green-black. “Entombed upright beneath soft dirt and shallow roots, humming with roads and voices. Instead of the sun’s blessing. I watched centuries in fragments. Heard footsteps. Laughter. Screams at night or when your city burned. But I could not move.”

Lioness’s fingers flexed at her sides, as if testing the fit of her own hands.

“Until now.”

Rayna took a cautious step closer, palms out. “You need to leave her. You can talk to us without wearing one of my witches like a rental tux.”

Those too-dark eyes flicked to her, then down and up again, reading Rayna like carved text.

“No,” the entity said. “I will not spend another age trapped in stone while my pharaoh lies alone. Now that I have a body, I will return to him. Across oceans. Across deserts. Across whatever pathetic wards your kind have layered over the world.”

Brianna winced. “Yeah, I’m gonna vote no on the ‘steal my friend’s body for your tragic love story’ plan.”

“I’m with Brianna,” Magda said. “Consent. It's a thing.”

Victoria lifted her hands, murmuring as she traced a secondary sigil in the air. The lines glowed faintly, then snapped like twigs when the entity merely glanced at them.

“Told you, we’re not doing this,” Rayna said. “You want out of the obelisk? Fine. We can negotiate that. But you picked the wrong rental.”

Lioness’s body turned in a slow arc, pivoting until her gaze landed on the tape line. On Cal.

The impact of that look was physical. His heart stuttered.

“Ah,” the entity said, and something about the sound made the hair on Cal’s arms stand up. “A witness.”

Cal swallowed. “Yeah. Hi. Fire Department, Lieutenant here. We, uh, don’t allow possession on public property without permits.”

Rayna made a strangled noise—half horrified, half impressed.

Lioness’s face shifted minutely, testing the new body's expressions. “You are interested in this body,” the entity observed. “Your heart stirs when she is in danger.”

Cal tried to lie, but he couldn’t. “Yeah,” he said. “You could say that.”

The entity inclined Lioness’s head.

“Then you will be useful,” it said. “A guardian needs allies.”

Rayna snapped, “He is not your ally.”

“No,” the entity agreed. “He is hers. Which makes him leverage.”

The ground pulsed under Cal’s boots.

Lioness’s hands trembled. Her own voice flickered through. “Don’t…touch…him!”