Chapter 14 · Loopbound - Chapter 14: The Coordinates She Left

The voice coming from Evan's circle wasn't a recording.

It was live. Present-tense. A woman's voice Callum hadn't heard in twenty years, saying coordinates like she was calling them out in real time. "Sub-basement three. East wing foundation. Grid mark seven-seven-four."

Callum's knees hit the dorm floor.

"Who is that?" Evan was staring at him, summoning rod still glowing in his hand. "You know her."

"My mother." The words came out flat. Callum's chest was too tight to give them anything else. "She disappeared when I was nine."

The circle flared once more, then went dark. The voice cut off mid-syllable.

Evan looked at the chalk lines like they'd just tried to bite him. "That was—she was talking to you. Right now. Through a twenty-year-old summoning anchor."

"She knew." Callum pushed himself up, hands shaking. "She knew I'd end up here. In this."

"That's not possible."

"Yeah, well." Callum pulled out his phone, typed the coordinates into his notes before they could slip out of his head. "Neither is dying eight hundred times and waking up in the same bed."

Evan opened his mouth. Closed it. Sat down hard on his bunk.

Callum's phone buzzed.