She checked the chalk line for the twentieth time, then pretended she hadn’t.
Keegan’s mother lingered just outside the circle, in her silver wolf form. She’d refused to shift into her human shape for this, saying something about “honoring the old ways” and “fangs being more practical than fingers.” Her fur was the color of moonlight on steel, eyes pale and piercing that missed nothing.
Nova stood with her staff planted in the center of the circle, eyes half-lidded, listening to threads I couldn’t see. Her raven hair whipped a little in a breeze that hadn’t reached the rest of us.
Ardetia hovered nearby, not quite inside the circle, not quite out, as if her fae nature refused to fully belong to either. Her braid glittered with ice-pale threads today, and the air around her felt like the moment before a frost.
Bella paced, which for Bella meant she walked in fidgety human loops while her fox tail flickered ghostlike behind her, as if desperate to be fully present. Every snapping twig made her ears twitch.
Twobble and Skonk had claimed a flat rock near the southeastern quadrant. Twobble kicked his heels against it and pretended not to be jittery, while Skonk scribbled notes at a ferocious speed that could probably power a small city.
Lady Limora and her crew, Opal, Vivienne, and Marla, clustered together like a coven of particularly glamorous crows. Lady Limora’s deep green cloak caught the light when she moved, her hair pinned up with something that might have been a dagger disguised as a hairpin. Opal’s rings flashed as she fidgeted with her necklace. Vivienne looked deceptively mild, her floral dress at war with the steel in her gaze. Marla just watched everything with the resigned air of someone who’d seen too many strange things to be surprised by one more.
And Stella, naturally, had claimed the nearest large rock like it was a throne.
She sat with ankles crossed, velvet coat flaring, lipstick perfect, a parasol resting over one shoulder even though the sun hadn’t fully broken through yet. If dramatic vampire witch were a category in the magical Olympics, she’d be undefeated.
I stepped up beside Keegan, who stood at the south point of the circle, hands loose at his sides, face calm in that way he used when he was anything but.
“Everyone’s here,” I said quietly.
“Everyone but him,” he said.
Gideon’s quarter, west, sat empty.
The wind shifted. The Wilds rustled. The Wards hummed. Time… stretched.
Small talk tried to happen.
“This is good weather,” Lady Limora remarked, studying the sky like it had personally agreed to cooperate. “Not too hot, not too cold. No biting rain. Good omens.”
“Could be less damp,” Opal said, lifting her boot to examine a smear of mud. “But I suppose ancient rites rarely come with ideal ground conditions.”
Vivienne smoothed her skirt. “You should have seen the mud the last time we did a town-wide protection ritual,” she murmured. “And we didn’t even get a proper prophecy out of it. Just windburn.”
Marla snorted. “Think of it as an exfoliating experience.”
My dad made a low noise that might’ve been amusement.
“This is nice,” he said. “Talking about the weather before magical surgery on reality. Very normal.”
“Normal is overrated,” Stella said, inspecting her nails. “Besides, darling, if we stared grimly at the empty spot in the circle, Maeve might start chewing her own arm.”
“I’m not that bad,” I said.
Bella gave me a look. “You tried to eat a pencil this morning.”
“It looked like a breadstick,” I protested.
“It was behind your ear,” Keegan pointed out.
“Traitors,” I muttered.
The minutes crawled.
Nova’s staff gave a tiny, impatient tick against the earth.
Overhead, a flock of birds changed direction mid-flight, like they’d brushed against the edge of whatever was gathering here and decided to try another route.
