She rolled her eyes. “Hesaidhe would. Words are cheap. The boy was always too fond of them. When he hesitated, when he turned his back on what we built, I reminded him where his leash ends.”
Ice crawled up my spine.
“Did you hurt him?” I asked, the words scraping.
She sighed, as if bored. “Pain is such a small incentive. Fear is more effective. He’s quite acquainted with both. Don’t worry, child. I haven’t broken him. He might still be useful.”
“Let him go,” I said, voice low. “If you ever want anything from me, start there.”
Her smile vanished.
For the first time since I’d stepped outside, her pleasant veneer cracked.
“Do not attempt to bargain with me,” she said, voice dropping. The shadows at her feet flared, spilling outward, licking at the edges of the square. “You are new to power. I am not.”
The air thickened.
Pressure slammed into my skull, sudden and sharp, like someone pressing their hands against my temples from the inside. Her presencepushed, hunting for cracks in the hedge around my thoughts.
Thorns, I thought wildly.
I pictured them thickening, interweaving, sap oozing. I shoved my awareness into small, stubborn things: the rough edge of the cobble under my heel; the smell of Stella’s tea drifting from the door behind me; the memory of Skye’s laugh; Celeste’s hand in mine when she was small.
You don’t get those, I thought. You don’t getme.
The pressure slid sideways, looking for another route.
The fountain’s ice groaned. Cracks spiderwebbed through the frozen arcs, refreezing immediately in new, jagged patterns. The lampposts around the square flickered, light dimming under a pall of shadow.
Behind me, I heard muffled reactions from inside the shop, Stella’s hiss, Twobble’s yelp, the low rumble of a wolf’s snarl, but they felt distant, muted by the focus it was taking just to stay upright.
“You impress me,” the priestess said, which did not feel like a compliment. “Elira was ever the clever one, but she never learned toshut.Always trying to connect, connect, connect. She reached for everything. It made her… easy to break.”
The mention of my grandma sent a hot stab through my chest.
“Careful,” I said, through gritted teeth. “We are very fond of haunting, these days. You may end up with more ghosts than you’d planned.”
Her eyes flashed.
And then she decided to stop playing.
She lifted her hand.
Shadows reared up around her like a living thing, then lashed outward toward the nearest building. A tendril of darkness struck the sign above the bakery, and the woodsplinteredwith a sound like bones breaking. Frost bloomed across the door, sealing it shut.
She flicked her fingers, and the fountain’s ice exploded, shards hanging suspended in midair before coalescing into a jagged ring around her, glinting.
Magic rolled off her in waves, old and hungry and used to being obeyed.
My mark burned like fire and ice together.
“Stop it,” I snapped. “You don’t get to demonstrate in my town. This ismyground.”
She arched a brow. “Your ground? Child, this entire land once bent to my will. Stonewick, Shadowick, the Wards between. You think because you coaxed one broken Academy awake, you own this place?”
“I think because I live here,” I said, voice shaking, “because these people chose me, because the Luminary let me hold it and the dragons didn’t eat me, that counts for something.”
Something flared behind her eyes at the mention of dragons, gone too fast for me to name.
