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The guard outside Everly's door finally cracked it open at her third round of screaming, alarm plain on his young face."What's wrong," he demanded, glancing past her into the empty storage room as though expecting to find some visible threat."Where's Grayson," Everly demanded, pushing past him before he could stop her, silver light flaring back to life around her hands despite the exhaustion dragging at every part of her. "Where is he right now.""I don't know," the guard stammered, stumbling after her as she strode down the narrow hallway. "He went to check the perimeter with Marcus, maybe twenty minutes ago—""Alone.""They split up to cover more ground faster."Everly's stomach dropped through the floor. "Find my father. Find Callum. Tell them the entity isn't in Rosalind anymore, it's hunting Grayson, and if we don't reach him in the next few minutes, none of the rest of this will matter."She didn't wait for the guard's response, breaking into a run toward the lodge's rear entr
The storage room was small, cold, and windowless, and Everly sat against its far wall with her knees pulled to her chest, silver light extinguished entirely, watching the thin line of lamplight beneath the door for any sign of movement.Marcus had stayed with her as long as he could before Callum insisted on posting a rotation of guards instead, and even then, he'd lingered in the doorway, guilt written plainly across his face."I don't believe them," he'd said quietly, before the door closed. "For what it's worth. I believe you.""Then untie whatever knot of loyalty is keeping you standing on their side of this door," Everly had said, more sharply than she intended, exhaustion and fear stripping the patience from her voice."I can't," Marcus had admitted, shame plain in every word. "Not yet. Not without proof strong enough to move Callum and your father both. I'm sorry. I wish that were enough to change anything."It hadn't been enough to undo the ache of everyone else's doubt, but i
The lodge door burst open before the entity could finish its sentence, Marcus and Selene spilling out into the cold with blades already drawn, drawn by the raised voices and the silver light still flaring bright and uncontrolled around Everly's hands."What's happening," Selene demanded, eyes sweeping the scene, landing on her sister's face with immediate, instinctive alarm.The entity's expression shifted in the space of a single heartbeat, cold composure vanishing beneath something that arrived so convincingly soft and frightened that Everly nearly doubted, for one disorienting second, everything she'd just witnessed."I don't know what happened," Rosalind's borrowed voice said, trembling with perfectly rendered fear, stumbling backward a step as though genuinely shaken. "Everly's light, it just, it surged toward me, and I couldn't, I don't understand what I did to provoke it."Everly's stomach dropped. "That's not true.""Everly." Selene's voice had gone sharp with alarm, her eyes
Everly waited until her mother had moved to the far side of the lodge before she finally let herself breathe again, and even then, the breath came shallow and unsteady.She found Grayson's eyes across the room and gave the smallest possible tilt of her head toward the door, praying he understood the urgency behind the gesture without needing words to explain it. He rose a moment later, unhurried, stretching as though simply working the stiffness out of his shoulders, and followed her outside into the cold evening air."Tell me," he said the moment the lodge door clicked shut behind them."It's my mother," Everly whispered, her voice cracking despite every effort to keep it steady. "The entity. It's wearing my mother."Grayson went utterly still. "You're certain.""Her shadow moved wrong. She flinched from my silver light like it burned her. And for one second, just one, her eyes looked exactly like the thing that spoke to me at the Gate." Everly pressed a shaking hand against her mout
Exhaustion finally caught up with the group somewhere past midday, forcing them to shelter in an old hunting lodge on the edge of Duskfall territory, close enough to the pack house to summon help if needed, far enough removed to breathe without an entire courtyard watching their every move.Everly hadn't slept in nearly three days, and her body had begun to feel less like her own and more like something borrowed and running on fumes, every muscle aching with an exhaustion sleep alone could no longer touch, but rest felt impossible with Elias's warning still echoing in her ears.It's already found what it needed. I only know it happened fast, and it happened close to you.She sat near the lodge's small hearth, silver light dimmed to a faint, steady glow along her fingertips, watching everyone around her with an attention that made her feel simultaneously exhausted and sick with guilt.Grayson moved with the same steady care he always had, checking the lodge's perimeter twice before fin
Everly reached the platform first, kneeling beside the motionless body that had, only minutes before, carried something ancient and monstrous inside it."He's still breathing," she said, disbelief threading through her voice as she pressed trembling fingers against Elias's throat and found a pulse there, faint but undeniable. "I thought the entity leaving would mean he was already gone.""Perhaps it did leave something behind on purpose," Selene said, crouching beside her, her expression tight with old, hard-won suspicion. "A trap wrapped in mercy. That would be exactly its style.""Or perhaps," Rosalind said quietly from behind them, "even a creature that old couldn't fully erase whatever fragment of a man remained underneath. Not every cruelty is calculated. Some are simply careless."Odessa pushed through the gathered crowd, healer's instincts overriding whatever awkwardness still lingered between them, and knelt on Elias's other side, hands already moving with practiced urgency."







