Goddess Of The Underworld (Sheridan Hartin) novel Chapter 124

Chapter 124

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Levi glanced at me, a small ask in his eyes. I nodded. He turned his palm up on the table. “Want to hear what I told them?”

Elliot nodded. Levi didn’t speak words. He let a pattern rise from his skin, warmth without heat, shape without teeth. In my chest the meaning translated as a picture: a hearth, a

hand held up at chest height. “Come with one. Come empty–handed. Come under truth.

Any other way is no“.

Elliot watched it until it sank again. “That’s good,” he said. “It sounds like… home that isn’t stupid.”

“High praise,” Haiden muttered, grinning.

We let quiet sit a moment then. The good kind. I felt the kingdom listening and choosing

to hum instead of press.

“Questions?” I asked at last.

Elliot worried his lip, then let it go. “Two. One: do I have to be a Soul Eater all the time?”

“No,” I said. “You get to be a boy who throws glitter bombs and builds towers and learns hard things when he’s ready. Your magic is part of you. It is not all of you.”

He nodded. “Okay. Two: what if I hear them in my head? What if they know how to talk that way?”

“Then you use the rules we teach you,” Levi said. “You do not answer. You tell us. And if you get scared, you use the word.”

“Pause,” Elliot said immediately.

“Good,” Noah said. “And if it happens when we’re not in the room, Hawk and Layah will feel it through the wards. We’ll come.”

I squeezed his hand. “Always.”

He breathed out, shoulders finally loosening all the way. “Can I write my rule now? Before I forget the words?”

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13:34 Wed, Sep

Chapter 124

“Of course,” Xavier said, already conjuring a pad and a pen that smelled faintly of cedar.

He slid them across.

Elliot bent over the page, tongue between his teeth the way he does when he’s building something that matters. He wrote slowly, careful block letters, then pushed the paper to

Levi.

The rule was simple: My name is Elliot. My home is here. You cannot call me out of it. If you talk, you talk to my family first.

Levi read it like a contract and then like a blessing. “I’ll stitch it into the decoy and tie it to our knot,” he said. “Anyone who speaks through that door will know this before they make a single sound.”

Elliot slid off the couch and came around the table without warning, launching himself at Xavier first, then Haiden, then Noah and Levi in a quick, fierce circuit. He ended back with me, climbing into my lap like he hadn’t done in months. “Okay,” he said into my shoulder. “Now I’m sleepy.”

“Good timing,” I said, kissing his hair. “We’re very good at bed.”

At the doorway, Elliot looked back. “Hey,” he said. “Kin is a nice word. But it doesn’t mean the same thing when you say family. Okay?”

“Okay,” I said, and had to swallow around it.

13:34 Wed, Sep

Elliot

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