“Yet,” Stella added.
I slowed, lifting my hand to signal the group to hold. The vampires drew in subtly, their movements smooth and coordinated, while the shifters along the edges adjusted their spacing, creating a loose but unmistakable perimeter.
But doubt curled tight in my chest.
Had I made a mistake bringing everyone together like this? Vampires, shifters, witches, goblins, all moving in one bright, impossible line.
We weren’t subtle. We were a beacon.
“They’re marking us,” Nova murmured.
One of the shadow-creatures lifted what might have been a head, its form rippling like smoke disturbed by breath. For a heartbeat, I thought it might speak.
Instead, it sank back into the ground and vanished.
“Great,” Twobble said, adjusting his seat on the bramblemule. “We’re memorable.”
The warmth at my hip pulsed once, sharper this time, and I knew without question that the Priestess was watching through those shadows, tasting our movement, counting our numbers. She wasn’t afraid of this gathering.
She was intrigued.
I resumed walking, my steps measured, my thoughts racing. Every instinct I had told me to scatter, to make ourselves smaller, harder to track. But I’d already chosen another path, one built on visibility and unity, and now I had to live with the consequences.
“She wants us nervous,” I said quietly, more to myself than anyone else. “Second-guessing. She could have hidden those shadows.”
Keegan fell into step beside me, his presence steady and solid. “Are you?”
“Am I what?”
“Nervous.”
I hesitated, then nodded. “A little. Bringing everyone together made us stronger, but it also made us obvious.”
He considered that for a moment, then said, “Visibility can be power.”
I glanced at him. “Or a target.”
“Both,” he replied easily. “But hiding never stopped her before. It just made her pick people off one by one.”
I exhaled slowly. He certainly wasn’t wrong. Stonewick had survived as long as it had because it learned when to stand in shadow and when to step into the light. Maybe this was one of those moments.
Ahead, the trees thinned slightly, opening into a shallow glade where the light felt wrong, filtered through something unseen.
The familiar fence that we followed along to the Northern Luminary appeared, but I stopped suddenly the moment I saw it.
A symbol etched briefly into the bark of a maple tree, black against gold, lines too precise to be natural. It pulsed once, twice, then began to fade.
I stopped dead.
Nova inhaled sharply. “That’s her.”
The sigil vanished as if it had never been there, the bark smoothing over, the tree’s magic rushing to erase the intrusion.
“What does it mean?” Bella asked.
Nova’s expression was grim.
“It means she’s no longer content to watch from afar. She’s laying claim. Letting us know she’s aware.”
