A dome.
She was caging the town.
The edges of the lattice crackled faintly, lines joining with tiny, sharp flashes of pale light. Where they crossed, I could see symbols forming that were sigils, complex and layered, built from Shadowick’s syntax. This wasn’t loose, messy magic. This wasdesigned.
Nova swore under her breath.
“She’s trying to set a permanent overlay,” she said. “A shadow pattern over Stonewick’s own Wards. If she finishes, this place will never be truly ours again.”
“Oh,absolutely not,” Stella said.
She stepped forward, velvet coat flaring, vampire fully in the driver’s seat now. Her eyes glowed faintly, an unnatural, rich red. When she smiled, it showed too many teeth.
“Darling,” she called to the priestess, “I appreciate good stagecraft, but this set design is tacky.”
The priestess’s gaze flicked lazily toward her.
“Ah,” she said. “Elira’s little pet. Still playing at tea and morality, I see.”
Stella’s nostrils flared.
“Still playing at goddess?” she replied. “I see the delusion never wore off.”
The priestess flicked her fingers.
Shadows reared like snakes and struck.
They didn’t hit us directly. They hit theground.
Black spears drove down into the cobbles, and where they pierced, light bled up—an inverted, wrong light, pale and cold. The spears rearranged themselves into a circle at the center of the square, etching runes into the stone.
“She’s rewriting the ground,” Ardetia said sharply. “Anchors. She’s planting her own.”
My mind raced.
If she set a full anchor point here, she could access Stonewick any time, like a second Shadowick gate. No Wilds. Justher,stepping through whenever she wanted.
“Nope,” I said, more forcefully this time.
“Maeve,” Keegan started.
But I was already moving.
I sprinted toward the half-formed circle at the center of the square. The air felt like cold syrup, dragging at my limbs, but my hedge magic knew this ground better than hers.
Thorns, I thought. Roots. Boundaries.
I dropped to my knees at the edge of the glowing lines and slammed my hands down.
The sting of shadow bit into my palms. I gritted my teeth and pushed my awareness down, down, into the stones.
They were scared.
I didn’t mean in a literal sense. Stones didn’t have hearts, but they held memory, and that memory was recoiling from the shadow sigils being burned into them. I felt the imprint of hundred-year-old footsteps, of laughter, of kids skipping, of markets and festivals and Stella’s first tea delivery.
“Hi,” I muttered to the cobbles. “Sorry about the chaos. It’s me again. We’re not letting her stay, okay?”
I called up the feel of the Wards. The butterflies shimmered, the maple’s steadiness, the stone’s deep hum, the lingering warmth from the flame. I let them blend in my mind, then shoved that feeling into the lines being carved by shadow.
