Nova nodded once. “Divert the orcs from us because they wouldn’t be looking for duplicity.”
The vampires shifted subtly, as if gravity itself had tilted by half a degree. Several lifted their chins, gazes turning northward.
I felt it then, too.
There was a strange pull tugging at the marrow in my bones, my soul, my mind...
Shadowick’s direction wasn’t visible, but it announced itself all the same, the way a steep drop makes your stomach tighten even before you reach the edge.
“That,” Lady Limora said softly, her voice smooth as velvet and twice as sharp, “is her favorite trick.”
We were north where we needed to be, but I felt an intense desire to head east.
To Shadowick.
I turned toward Lady Limora. “You’ve seen this before.”
Her smile didn’t reach her eyes.
“Yes. Centuries ago,” she said. “During the last border war. Everyone blamed everyone else while she stood in her quiet towers and let panic do the marching. She didn’t fight with blades. She fought with paths.”
“Wait. How could the Priestess have been alive centuries ago if my mom and I are so…”
The vampires traded glances, and Stella cleared her throat as if they were trying to figure out who was best to deliver the news.
Stella touched my cheek as if that would make the news less startling. “It’s probably not best to hammer out all the details on a battlefield, darling. But your grandmother has figured out a way to trick time.”
“What she’s saying is you two are not her first rodeo,” Twobble explained.
I frowned. “What?”
“You’re not her first granddaughter. Your mom is not her first daughter. But Celeste…is her first great-granddaughter.”
“And no one thought this was relevant?” My brows lifted.
“It’s more of ayou have to see it to believe ittype of thing, I’d imagine.” Skonk frowned.
The pull toward Shadowick strengthened briefly, then eased, like a hand brushing the back of my neck. The vampires noticed it too, their shoulders tightening almost imperceptibly.
“It feels like gravity,” one of them murmured. “Like the world wants to lean that way.”
“It’s a lure,” Lady Limora replied.
“What happened to the others?”
“It’s a long story,” Lady Limora said quietly.
Caleb inhaled deeply, nostrils flaring, then his expression darkened.
“Fear,” he said. “Right here.”
He pointed to a patch of ground that looked no different than the rest, bringing us back to the reality of the situation.
“There’s fear on the wind,” he continued, “but there’s nothing to fear.”
Bella crouched, palm hovering just above the soil.
“It’s planted,” she said. “It’s a scent memory to add panic.”
