The mixture—bone dust, blood, and one evil-as-hell locket—hits the floor with a soft, gritty hiss. It looks like cursed seasoning. Smells like iron but if someone ramped up the intensity.
Nothing happens.
Then—
The lights overhead flicker. The air goes still. Dense. Like time is starting to feel a bit different.
And then the temperature drops. Not just a chill. Not the “someone left a window open” kind of cold.
This is funeral-home cold. Tombstone cold. The kind that seeps into your bones and tries to settle there.
The room groans.
Something in the ceiling cracks.
I brace myself, expecting the nightmare again. The deformed, screaming wraith. The smoke. The snapping bones.
But what appears… isn’t that. Not even close.
A teenager stands before us.
Aboy.
Ruffled black hair, like he’s been running his hands through it for hours. Hollow cheeks. Pale skin. Dark circles under unblinking eyes. He’s thin. Wiry. And so still that for a second I think he’s a life-sized cursed doll that just appeared in the wrong summoning circle.
Then I see the Grim Reaper robes.
What the fuck.
“Finally,” he says, narrowing his eyes. “Took you long enough.”
A flicker of emotion cuts through the blankness, something sharper. Meaner.
Pretty damn mean.
“Uh… what in the…” I manage. “Are you guys seeing this too?”
I glance back. The guys look just as confused as I am.
I turn to the boy again.
He blinks. Once. Twice. Utterly unimpressed. Then his gaze drops to the floor.
“A binding circle?” he says, tilting his head like a smug crow. “That’s cute.”
I blink. “Uh…”
Cassian steps in. “What the fuck are you?”
He doesn’t saywho.
Justwhat.
Same as he used to with me, back when I didn’t have a body.
Maybe that’s just his thing, treating anything supernatural like an object. And honestly? From where I’m standing, it doesn’t feel entirely out of line this time around. I’m wondering the same thing.
You don’t just appear in a summoning circle, one meant for a wraith, and turn out to be human.
