"If any of you move, Matteo dies."
The words froze the room better than any ward.
Matteo hung against his own wall, one hand pinned to the ward plate by dark Marrowglass filaments, his body half-twisted as reversed mana dragged through him in cruel pulses. His cane had fallen near his feet, close enough to mock him. Blood had soaked the front of his coat where one strand had carved across him, and the veins along his trapped arm stood raised beneath the skin, as if the house he had built had finally turned on its maker.
