Theo didn’t flinch. “That’s why I’m here. You were never meant to figure this out alone.”
I opened the book with trembling hands. And I didn’t say a word when the pages glowed faintly under my fingertips.
They pulsed like a heartbeat—soft and rhythmic—then flared, a sudden shimmer of light washing over my skin. My breath hitched. The room faded around me. The voices—Kylan’s, Theo’s—fell away like whispers behind glass.
And then everything disappeared.
I wasn’t in the room anymore.
I was standing in the middle of chaos.
Fire.
Screaming.
Blood smeared across the shore, staining the sand like rust. Bodies everywhere—sirens, wolves, men with shields marked in the Guardian’s crest. Their blades glowed blue. Their eyes shone silver. Magic rolled off of them in crashing waves.
The sirens were losing.
I turned toward the sea. Dozens of sirens thrashed in the surf, their songs twisting through the wind, frantic and furious. Some had lost their tails, bleeding out where fins used to be. Others
