Page 48 of Petrified

Lev keeps his gaze on Gerald instead of the screen. “We already knew I do better when they're close. You putting numbers beside it doesn't make it yours.”

“You knew the sensation,” Gerald says. “I know how consistently the effect occurs and what conditions strengthen it.”

Lev’s mouth tightens. “That sentence right there is why we're in this mess.”

Gerald doesn't answer. He changes something on the console instead, and a second field wakes beneath the floor before I can determine what he has activated.

My Basilisk reacts immediately, heat surging hard up my spine before slamming into the suppression ward. A second pressure catches the magic beneath it and pulls in the opposite direction, making it feel as if something has hooked into the center of me and is trying to drag out a part of my designation my body is fighting to keep.

My breath catches despite my attempt to hide it, and Lev turns toward me so fast the sensor bands flare. “Amand, what the fuck did he do?”

“I’m all right,” I tell him, but the next pulse tears through my magic hard enough that the lie doesn't survive the sentence. Rowan sees it too and pulls against his restraint until the ward around his station flashes in warning.

“What are you doing to him?” Rowan demands, his attention fixed on Gerald. “Turn it off.”

Gerald doesn't even look at me when he answers. His attention stays on Lev and the reading climbing across the center monitor. “The field is suppressing one portion of Amand’s Basilisk output while drawing against another. The effect is limited, reversible, and being held below the threshold for permanent damage.”

That is when the design of the room becomes completely clear. Gerald isn't interested in what the field does to me except as a means of producing whatever happens next in Lev.

I force my attention away from the pain and onto Lev before his magic can keep chasing the disruption through the bond. His camouflage is already flickering along his forearms, and his scent is shifting hard enough that I can feel his designation reaching instinctively toward mine.

“Look at me,” I tell him, waiting until his eyes lock onto mine before I continue. “He picked me because he already knows what happened when Rowan was threatened. He wants to see whether hurting the other half of the bond gives him something different.”

The realization moves across Lev’s face quickly, anger cutting through the panic. “You are hurting him because you want to see if I develop another response.”

Gerald finally looks away from the monitor. “The exposure is controlled. I know the limits of the field, and I can terminate it before lasting damage occurs.”

I laugh despite the pressure dragging through my magic. “Knowing when you plan to stop doesn't make this controlled for the people you strapped into the room.”

The field tightens again, and Rowan’s restraint flashes when he pulls hard enough to trigger the suppression built into it. Lev’s camouflage spreads farther over his arms before he catches himself, and I watch the panic in his expression sharpen into something more deliberate.

“He thinks you're automatic,” I tell him, keeping my voice as steady as I can. “He thinks all he has to do is threaten one of us, wait for your designation to panic, and record whatever comes out.”

Gerald turns back toward the monitor. “The bond has already demonstrated that pattern repeatedly. Extreme threat produces your strongest adaptive responses.”

“No,” I say, refusing to let Lev look away from me. “You have demonstrated that you only pay attention to what happens after you create the threat. That doesn't mean you understand why he responds or what he chooses to do with it.”

Lev stops fighting the reaction in the way Gerald expects him to. His breathing slows, the wild fluctuation in his scent eases, and Rowan stops pulling against his restraint long enough to watch him closely.

Something passes between the three of us through the bond, subtle enough that Gerald misses it because he is still staring at the screen. Lev’s scent changes again, but this time there is too much precision in it for panic.

The monitor reacts immediately.

His Chameleon signature climbs, and another magical pattern starts threading through it until the sensors begin registering something close enough to my Basilisk magic that Gerald leans toward the display. “That is different from the previous responses. Hold it there.”

Lev looks at me instead of him, and the corner of his mouth twitches just enough for me to understand. He isn't developing anything new. He is taking an ability Gerald already knows he possesses and feeding the system exactly the result Gerald came here hoping to see.

I let my head rest back against the station for a second and finally understand the advantage Gerald handed us. He built the entire room around the assumption that Lev’s magic would tell him the truth, and Lev is a Chameleon.

Rowan catches on next. He stops wrenching uselessly against the restraint and lowers his attention to the clasp instead, testing the small amount of movement it gives him without putting enough force behind it to trigger the ward. I follow his lead and look down at my own, realizing the system reacts hardest when it senses either a burst of magic or direct resistance.

So we stop fighting it the way Gerald expects.

Lev feeds another false surge through the sensors, threading enough of my Basilisk signature through his own to make the monitors react. Gerald leans closer to the data, completely focused on whatever new development he thinks he is witnessing, while Rowan works his wrist toward the narrow seam where the magical conductor meets the physical clasp.

The ward shifts more power toward Lev’s station as his false reading climbs, and Rowan feels the change at the same moment I do. He twists hard while the system is compensating elsewhere, ripping one restraint loose from its mounting instead of trying to overpower the magic holding it closed.

The alarm starts immediately. I drive my heel into the base of my station and wrench sideways at the same moment, tearing my right hand free with a sharp burst of pain while Rowan reaches across the gap toward Lev.