He huffed, as if to saylater.
The priestess smiled.
“You’re quick,” she said. “Good. I’d hate for this to be dull.”
“Excuse me,” Twobble yelled from somewhere behind a barricade of overturned chairs, “but if you want non-dull, try fighting literallyanyone else.Maeve is very busy. She’s got circles to close, book sprites to babysit, existential crises—”
“Twobble,” I snapped.
“What? I’m building your mystique,” he said.
The priestess’s gaze slid to him, cold and assessing.
Shadows slithered closer to his position.
He froze, ears flattening.
Skonk stepped in front of him, surprisingly fierce, clutching a jar of salt in both hands like it was a grenade.
“Back off,” he squeaked. “He’s… under contract.”
Shadows snapped at them, only to be intercepted by Stella, who blurred forward faster than my eyes could track. One moment she was by the door, the next she was in front of the goblins, hand outstretched.
Her nails lengthened, black and sharp.
She slashed downward.
The shadows she hit sliced apart with a scream like wind through broken glass.
“Don’t touch my goblins,” she said.
For one surreal second, I wanted to cry.
All of this, vampires defending goblins, wolves defending witches, fae icing over shadow, my mother standing in the open square with her hands raised, and it still might not be enough.
Because even shaken, even briefly staggered, the priestess’s power was… monstrous.
Every time we pushed her back, she reformed. Every time we blocked a tendril, three more slipped around, probing for weakness. The shadow chord, though cracked, still thrummed faintly overhead like a half-severed vein.
We needed Gideon, not as a person, and not as whatever complicated knot of feelings he was, but as apiece. A part in the pattern. Without him, the circle wouldn’t close properly. Without the circle, the Hunger Path would just keep reshaping itself, feeding on every battle, every fear.
If the priestess finished anchoring it here, she could keep rewriting the rules until she got exactly what she wanted.
“Maeve,” Nova called, her voice strained. “The path is unstable. Gideon’s fighting her in the threads. If we don’t reach him, she’ll either snap his piece off entirely or fold it completely into hers.”
“Both sound bad,” I shouted back. “Which one is less bad?”
“Snapping,” she said grimly. “At least then he won’t be a conduit. But he’ll…” She didn’t finish.
I knew.
He’d burn out.
We were running out of time.
Another bolt of shadow slammed down not far from where I knelt, sending up a spray of ice-shards and black mist.
The priestess’s attention shifted, narrowed.
