I took a breath that didn’t feel big enough and walked toward the door.
The room seemed to hold its own breath.
The brass handle was cold under my fingers. The bell above the frame quivered like it knew what was coming and objected on principle.
I felt Keegan move behind me, but Twobble was faster.
He launched himself at Keegan’s waist and latched on like a particularly determined burr.
“Goblin ballast!” he yelled. “You have to stay for structural integrity!”
Keegan swore, half-staggering, grabbing for a chair to steady them both.
It gave me the second I needed.
I opened the door.
The bell chimed, far too cheerful for the occasion.
Cold hit me like a wall. Not the crisp chill of winter, or the damp cool of Stonewick mornings.
This was… absence.
Heat, sound, color—all blunted.
The square lay spread out before me, familiar and wrong. Shadows pooled at the edges of buildings, too thick, too dark. The fountain in the center had frozen mid-splash, water arched in impossible, perfect curves of ice.
And in the middle of it all, the high priestess stood, her shadows trailing behind her like an overexcited cloak.
Stepping out onto the cobbles felt like walking into a story I hadn’t agreed to be in.
I let the door fall shut behind me.
Immediately, I sank my awareness downward.
Hedge magic was about edges. Boundaries. The spaces between.
I imagined roots dropping from the soles of my feet, digging into the stone, seeking the stubborn little weeds that always grew between the cracks. I let my senses touch the cool, rough texture of the cobbles, the faint thrum of the land’s own magic under the priestess’s overlay. I let my mind drum an energy that only I felt, imagining realms only for me.
Thorns, I reminded myself.
In my mind’s eye, I pictured a hedge around my thoughts—dense, spiky, woven from blackberry vines and rose canes and the prickly branches growing along the Butterfly Ward.
Every time my anxiety tried to rush out toward her, I nudged it back inside, letting the thorns snag and slow it.
The priestess watched me approach like I was a mildly interesting animal.
Up close, she did not look as old as I’d expected.
Her hair was braided back from her face, threaded with pale, glinting charms. Her skin was pale, but not fragile, more like porcelain that had never once been allowed to crack. Only the fine lines around her eyes and mouth gave her away, and even those looked… curated.
Her eyes, though.
Those were ancient.
“A good girl,” she said, when I stopped a sensible distance away. Her voice was clear, carrying, the accent of Shadowick threading it with colder vowels. “You have sense. I was afraid Elira’s…whimsmight have made you stubborn to the point of stupidity.”
My jaw tightened. “I’ve been known to have my moments.”
