The water recoiled, with the mouths screaming.
I understood at once.
Abi was not here. Not fully. He had not abandoned the estate. He had simply tugged on the connection between us, lending me a trace of his presence through the vow.
A trace. It was just a trace.
Yet the chamber trembled as if a mountain had looked down through its ceiling.
Jinns were truly unreasonable.
It was unfair.
I approved.
"Your timing is decent," I muttered.
Abi's laughter brushed my mind. "Praise me later. Preferrably with better desserts. For now, cut the anchor."
Anchor, huh? The basin? No. Not the basin itself.
My gaze dropped to the bottom of the stone bowl, where the black water had lowered enough to reveal a small object embedded into the stone.
A tooth.
No, it was a shard of bone shaped like a tooth.
It was covered in inscriptions too fine to read without magnification, but one symbol stood out.
The mouth, the place that remembered names.
I smiled.
"Found you."
