Chapter 16: Scent of a Ghost

The shattered phone was not just a piece of broken technology; it was the final, fragile thread of our patience, snapping. The ghost was no longer in the machine. It was in our blood, in our memories, and it was reaching for the one person I had fought so hard to protect.

Kaelen’s cold fury was a physical force that reshaped the very air in the penthouse. The low-level static he’d been feeding the bond sharpened into a blade’s edge of focused intent. He was no longer just creating noise. He was building a fortress, brick by psychic brick, and I could feel the immense strain it put on him.

“We cannot defend against what we do not understand,” he stated, his voice gravelly with fatigue and rage. He stood before a large smart screen he’d had installed in his study, now covered in a chaotic web of lines, photos, and text. It was a map of our war, but the battlefield was intangible. “He is using the bond as a backdoor into your consciousness. We must find the vulnerability he’s exploiting and patch it.”

“How do we patch a hole in my soul?” I asked, the dread a cold stone in my stomach.

“By understanding its architecture,” he said, turning to me. His eyes were haunted. “I need to go deeper into your memories than I ever have. Deeper than you may be comfortable with. I need to find the anchor points of your power, the moments that defined you as a Weaver. It is the only way to know what he is looking for.”

The thought of him sifting through the most intimate, painful corners of my mind was a violation of a different kind. But the image of Lillian, oblivious and smiling, surrounded by those poisonous lilies, steeled my resolve.

“Do it,” I whispered.

We sat facing each other on the floor, our knees touching. His hands cradled my face, his thumbs resting gently on my temples. “I will be a scalpel, not a sledgehammer. Guide me. Show me the doors, and I will only look where you permit.”

I closed my eyes and let down my mental shields. His presence entered my mind, not as the raging storm of his power, but as a quiet, respectful guest. It was an intimacy far beyond the physical, a terrifying and profound surrender.

Show me your mother, his thought echoed gently in the vault of my memories.

I guided him. The scent of jasmine and old paper. The sound of a soft, humming lullaby. The feeling of safe, small hands braiding my hair. The memories were warm, golden, but fleeting. They ended abruptly with a cold hospital room, a still form, and a crushing sense of loss. There was no grand revelation of hidden power, no secret lineage whispered on a deathbed. Just a human woman, loving and lost.

Kaelen’s presence remained, a steady, comforting weight. There is nothing for him here. He will be disappointed.

Then where is he looking? I thought, frustration mingling with my grief.

Show me your first memory of the shadow, he prompted, his focus shifting.

This was harder. These memories were older, primal. I guided him to the feeling of being four years old, hiding in a closet during a thunderstorm. Not from the thunder, but from the shifting, friendly darkness that gathered around me to muffle the sound, a secret blanket no one else could see. I showed him the time in second grade when a bully had shoved me, and the shadow had tripped him an instant later, a coincidence everyone dismissed.

Kaelen’s interest sharpened. It was always there. A protector. A friend. Not a power you wielded, but a part of your essence. His thought was filled with a dawning realization. He isn’t looking for a moment you learned you were a Weaver. He is looking for the moment you became one. The moment the potential was born.

His presence suddenly stilled, focusing on a memory I had buried deep, one I hadn’t consciously guided him to. It was a fragment, a sensory shard: the scent of rich earth and copper, the sound of a woman’s desperate, guttural scream, and an overwhelming, blinding flash of silver light.

What is this? Kaelen’s thought was urgent. This is… old. Primal. This is not your memory.

I don’t know, I thought back, recoiling from the visceral horror of it. A dream?

No. This is a memory that is not yours. His presence withdrew from my mind, and I opened my eyes to see his face pale with shock. “It’s an ancestral memory. A psychic imprint passed down your bloodline.”

Before he could explain further, his new phone buzzed—a dedicated, encrypted line. He put it on speaker, his body tense.

“Alpha,” Marcus’s voice was tight, laced with a fear I’d never heard from the stoic Beta. “We have a situation at the old city archives. A fire. The security system was bypassed, not triggered. The fire department says it was targeted. It started in one specific section.”

Kaelen’s eyes met mine, a silent storm brewing in their depths. “Which section?”

“Historical city planning. Property records and blueprints from the mid-1800s.” Marcus paused. “Specifically, the records for the land where St. Augustine’s Orphanage once stood.”

The world tilted. St. Augustine’s. The place where I had spent the five years after my mother’s death, before I aged out. The place where my “gifts” with shadows first truly manifested. A place I had never spoken of to anyone, not even Kaelen. A place whose original land records should have been irrelevant dust.

Vorian wasn't just in my mind.

He was literally following my trail, burning the evidence behind him. He was piecing together the puzzle of my life with a terrifying, systematic precision. He had a head start, and he knew exactly what he was looking for.

Kaelen ended the call, his expression grim. “He is not just digging up your past. He is excavating it. The orphanage… that is the source of the memory fragment. That is the ‘mother lode’.”

He stood, pulling me to my feet. The time for defense was over.

“He has the scent of our ghost,” Kaelen said, his voice dropping to a deadly whisper. “It’s time we hunt the hunter. We go to the source. We go to the ruins of that orphanage, and we find what he’s looking for before he does.”