I woke up to my wards screaming.

Not literally—magic doesn't make sound, not the kind normal people hear. But when you've spent two years pouring blood and will into protection sigils, you know when they're under attack. Feels like nails on a chalkboard inside your skull. Like someone's trying to claw through your skin from the inside out.

I jerked upright on my bunk. 3:47 AM, according to the dim clock Books kept on our shelf. The cell was dark except for the orange glow from the tier lights filtering through our door slot. Everything looked normal. Smelled normal—bleach and bodies and the faint chemical stink from the Pit three floors down.

But the wards were burning.

"Books." I kept my voice low. "You awake?"

"I am now." His voice came from the upper bunk, rough with sleep but alert. Two years inside teaches you to wake fast. "What's wrong?"

"Someone's testing the wards."

The air felt wrong. Heavy. Like the pressure change before a thunderstorm, except we were inside a concrete box. I slid off my bunk, bare feet on cold floor, and moved to the cell door. Put my palm flat against the metal.

The protection sigils I'd carved into the underside of my bunk were glowing. Not with light—I couldn't see it with my eyes. But I could feel them, hot points of energy flaring and fading as something pushed against them from outside. Testing. Probing. Looking for weakness.

"Thor." Books's tone had shifted. The philosopher voice was gone, replaced by the lifer who'd survived twenty-five years in places like this. "Talk to me."

"Someone's trying to break through." I pressed harder against the door, feeling the wards. Three layers—outer deflection, middle confusion, inner shield. All three were active. All three were holding. Barely. "Professional job. Not some fish with a library book and good intentions."

The assault intensified. I felt it like physical pressure—a spike of concentrated will hammering against my outermost ward. The deflection sigil flickered. Held. Flickered again.

My nose started bleeding.

"Shit." I wiped it with the back of my hand, dark blood in the orange light. The cost of maintaining wards under active attack. Every second, something battered against them I paid. "Books, this is—"

The ward broke.

Not shattered—peeled away. Surgical. Whoever was doing this knew exactly what they were doing, exactly how much pressure to apply, exactly where the weak point was. My first layer vanished like smoke and the assault moved to the second.

The confusion ward lasted thirty seconds.

Then the final shield was all I had left. The blood ward. The one I'd drawn with a deep cut on my palm six months ago, the permanent protection tied directly to my life force. Breaking that one would require either killing me or being significantly more powerful than I was.

I really hoped it was option two, because option one seemed increasingly likely.

The pressure mounted. My head felt like it was splitting. Nose bleeding freely now, hot copper taste as it ran over my lip. I poured everything into the shield—fear, rage, desperate fucking need to not die in my sleep. The ward held.

The pressure stopped.

Just like that. Gone. The heavy feeling in the air dissipated. The ward-scream in my head faded to a dull throb. I stood there breathing hard, one hand braced against the cell door, blood dripping onto the concrete floor.

"Thor?" Books was down from his bunk now, hand on my shoulder. Steady. Grounding. "What just happened?"

"Someone tried to break in." My voice sounded raw. "Didn't make it through the blood ward, but they got through the first two layers like they were nothing."

"Who?"

Good question. I had a long list of people who wanted me dead or worse. Latin Kings, definitely—Rey Santana still hadn't forgiven me for refusing to curse his rivals. Some Brotherhood members who thought I should be more committed to their cause. Maybe Danny Keyes, except he was eighty miles away in a violent offenders facility and I'd never seen him use magic. Just witness it.

But this felt different. Organized. Skilled. Someone who knew what they were doing.

I turned away from the door and looked at the opposite wall. The blood on my face was cooling, starting to itch. Books handed me a t-shirt from his bunk—one of his, already worn, didn't matter. I wiped my face clean.

That's when I saw it.

On the wall opposite my bunk, written in something dark that definitely wasn't there when we'd gone to sleep: Words. Neat, precise, the letters formed with what looked like ash or coal dust, except we didn't have either of those things in Cell 47.

The message read: The Old Man sends his regards.

"Fuck." The word came out flat. Exhausted. Because now I knew.

Danny Keyes had a practitioner. And whoever they were, they were good enough to project magical attacks from eighty miles away. Good enough to break through two of my three wards without even being physically present. Good enough to leave a message in my cell without tripping the facility's regular wards—the ones the prison had, whatever magic or mundane bullshit they used to keep inmates from killing each other too efficiently.

"The Old Man?" Books was reading over my shoulder, and I heard him take a breath.

"Danny."

"Yeah." I sat down on my bunk, suddenly tired. The adrenaline was fading, leaving me shaky and cold. "Guess he wasn't bluffing about the revenge thing."

Books had been there for all of it—the astral projection to Rochelle's apartment, the moral crisis about snitching, the anonymous call to Crimestoppers. He'd argued philosophy with me for three days straight about whether turning Danny in was the right choice.

We'd landed on: Yeah. It was. Some lines you don't cross, and stabbing a pregnant woman seven times is way over that line. Didn't mean Danny saw it that way.

"He found a practitioner." Books's voice was flat. Analytical. Already working the problem. "Someone good enough to attack from eighty miles away."

Books sat down on his own bunk, facing me. His wire-rimmed glasses caught the orange light from the tier. Behind them, his eyes were sharp. Calculating. Already three moves ahead like he always was.

"A practitioner working for Danny," he said. "From eighty miles away. That's not amateur hour, Thor."

"No shit."

"Can you counter it?"

Could I? I'd spent two years learning chaos magic from a dead Nazi's grimoire and whatever I could scrape together from the library. I could protect myself—obviously, since I was still breathing. I could do love spells and curses and astral projection. I'd even managed to heal Chains’ pain for a while, though the cancer still killed him eventually.

But combat magic? Fighting another practitioner directly? That was different. That was warfare, not defense. That was a level I'd avoided because avoiding it meant staying alive.

"I don't know," I admitted. "Maybe. If I knew who they were. What tradition they use. How strong they are."

"Then find out." Books leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "Because whoever just tested your wards? They're not done. This was reconnaissance. They wanted to see what you could do. How strong your defenses are. Whether you're worth the effort to kill quickly or if they can take their time."

"You sound like you've thought about this before."

"I've had twenty-five years to think about a lot of things." His voice was gentle. Tired. "Including how men kill each other when they have time to plan. This was planned, Thor. Precise. Professional. Whoever Danny hired, they're not some asshole with a spellbook."

I looked back at the message on the wall. The letters were already starting to fade—whatever conjured them hadn't been designed to last. Just long enough for me to see. Long enough for me to understand.

The Old Man sends his regards.

"I need to know who this is," I said. "Name. Face. What kind of magic they use. Can't fight what I can't see."

"Vinnie might know." Books stood up, stretched. Morning count was in two hours. Neither of us was sleeping anymore. "He's still got connections on the outside. Organized crime types know about other organized crime types. If Danny hired someone, Vinnie can find out who."

Vincent "Vinnie Pipes" Calabrese. Old-school mob associate, doing twenty for racketeering and obstruction. Respectful client who paid well and never asked me to cross lines. I'd done protection work for his daughter on the outside—basic wards, nothing that would stop a professional, but enough to keep regular assholes away.

He owed me. More importantly, he had resources.

"Wednesday," I said. "Library cart. I'll talk to him then."

"That's three days."

"Yeah." I wiped my nose again. Still bleeding a little, but slower now. The cost was paid. Wards rebuilt—I'd have to do that tomorrow, reinforce what broke, maybe add something new. But for tonight, the blood ward held. That was enough. "Three days to prepare. Study. Figure out how to fight someone I've never met."

Books nodded. Moved to his bunk and pulled out a book—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, something he'd read fifty times at least. Comfort reading. The kind of thing you do when your cellie just got death-threated by invisible assassins and you need to think.

I lay back down on my own bunk. Stared at the ceiling. The message on the wall was almost gone now, just ghost traces of ash-letters in the dark.

Somewhere, eighty miles away, a practitioner I'd never met was planning how to kill me. Or worse—bind me, break me, make me suffer for snitching on their client. Because that's what this was about. Not random violence. Not gang politics. Revenge. Pure and simple.

Danny Keyes wanted me dead because I'd cost him his freedom. And he'd found someone with the power to make it happen.

"Books?"

"Yeah?"

"What if I can't beat them?"

Silence for a moment. Then: "Then you get creative. You've never won by being stronger, Thor. You win by being smarter. Faster. More adaptable. That's chaos magic, isn't it? Use whatever works."

"What if what works isn't enough?"

"Then you find allies. Resources. You stack the deck." He turned a page. Calm. Like we were discussing philosophy, not my imminent murder. "You've got two years of favors built up. People who owe you. People who respect you. Use them."

I thought about that. The Brotherhood—Axel and Werner would help if it benefited them. Maybe even if it didn't, at this point. We had an understanding. Protection for magical services. But asking them to help fight another practitioner? That was different. That was committing to their side more fully than I'd wanted.

The Latin Kings were out. Rey would probably help whoever was trying to kill me.

Black Kingsmen... maybe. Books was affiliated, and they respected him. But they weren't warriors. Not like this.

Independents like Vinnie? They'd provide information, resources, maybe. But fighting? That wasn't their game.

Which left me with exactly one option: Learn to fight. Fast. Hard. Whatever it took.

"I need to figure out how to fight them." I didn't have an answer yet. Didn't know what combat magic even looked like beyond the theory I'd read in Kraus's grimoire. I'd spent two years building walls, not weapons.

Books nodded slowly. "The Brotherhood will notice this. Magical attack on their protected asset? Axel won't like someone operating in his territory without permission."

He was right. The wards breaking would've been felt by anyone sensitive enough. And if Werner had been paying attention—studying like I suspected he might—he'd know exactly what happened.

"Let them notice," I said. "Maybe that's useful."

"Werner will want something in exchange."

"Yeah." I knew what. More commitment. More work for the Brotherhood. Deeper involvement in their operations. Maybe not full membership—I'd never get the ideology right, never believe their supremacist bullshit—but closer than I'd been. Useful enough that they'd invest in keeping me alive.

Axel's voice in my head: You're useful. Stay useful.

"First thing tomorrow," I said. "I talk to Werner. See what he wants. What he can teach me."

"And if the price is too high?"

Then I'd pay it anyway. Because the alternative was dying, or worse. And I'd spent two years building something here—a reputation, a practice, a moral framework that let me sleep at night. I wasn't giving that up. Not to Danny Keyes. Not to whoever he'd hired.

Not to anyone.

"I'll figure it out," I told Books. "One choice at a time, right? That's what you always say."

He smiled. Small. Tired. But genuine. "That's what I always say."

Morning count came at six. Neither of us slept. I lay there rebuilding my wards mentally—designing reinforcements, considering new approaches, running through everything Kraus's grimoire had taught me about defense. Books read his philosophy, occasionally making notes in the margins with a pencil stub, thinking whatever thoughts a lifer thinks when his cellie's life gets threatened.

When the count announcement crackled over the PA system, I was already dressed. Orange jumpsuit, prison-issue boots, ready to face another day in Central North Correctional Centre.

Except now I was also ready to face war.

The practitioner who'd attacked me last night—whoever they were—had made a mistake. They'd shown me they existed. Shown me they were coming. Given me time to prepare.

Maybe they thought that would scare me. Make me panic. Run to the Warden or check into protective custody or do something stupid that would make me vulnerable.

They were wrong.

I'd survived two years in medium security by being smarter than the people who wanted to hurt me. By learning fast. Adapting. Using whatever worked.

This would be the same. Just higher stakes.

The Old Man sends his regards.

Yeah. Well.

Send him mine back.