"Such as?" Aidon prompted when Jean-Marc hesitated.
"Lyra's been siphoning power from ley lines for decades. It was not a recent thing. The corruption goes back at least sixty years, maybe longer." Jean-Marc's fingers flew across his keyboard. He pulled up charts and graphs that made my head spin. "She's been building this network for a very long time.
"Look at this," he continued, turning the laptop screen toward us. He showed a map dotted with red markers that spread across the continent like a disease. "Every major supernatural community disaster in the past six decades? The Salem fire. The Vancouver pack massacre. The Chicago coven collapse. All of them happened at ley line convergence points."
"Holy shit. She's been systematically weakening the supernatural community for generations," I breathed, watching the pattern emerge with horrible clarity.
"There's more," Jean-Marc continued in a voice tight with barely controlled fear. "The anchor data is showing massive energy buildups at sites we haven't identified yet. She's not preparing for tonight's eclipse. She's abandoning her current strategy entirely."
"What do you mean?" Aidon demanded.
"I think she's planning to trigger a cascading failure across the entire ley line network," Jean-Marc said. "If she can't steal the babies' power directly, she'll collapse the magical infrastructure of North America and feed on the resulting chaos."
The enormity of what he was suggesting made my vision gray at the edges. "She'd kill millions of supernatural beings."
"And probably destabilize the Earth itself in the process," Aidon agreed. "The ley lines are what keep magic stable and predictable. Without them..."
"We'd have random magical surges, reality breaks, and dimensional bleeds," I finished. My nurse's training made the catastrophic implications clear. "It would be Armageddon."
"Which is why she's abandoned subtlety," Aidon snarled. "She knows we're onto her, so she's moving to scorched Earth tactics."
The sound of Nina's laughter drifted from inside the house. It was incongruously bright against our grim conversation. When I looked through the window, I saw her sitting cross-legged on the living room floor with a young Fae girl who couldn't have been more than eight years old. The child was laughing while Nina gently braided flowers into her silver hair.
"When this is all over, we'll plant you a new garden. An even better one." Nina's magic flared softly, creating tiny illusions of butterflies that danced around the child's head. "See? They're already waiting for you."
The little Fae giggled, clapping her hands as the magical butterflies settled on her shoulders. "She's developing empathic abilities," Tarja informed me telepathically. "Being around so much pain and loss is awakening dormant magical gifts. She's feeling everyone's grief as if it were her own."
My heart clenched as I watched my daughter comfort a child who'd lost everything. Tarja’s comment changed how I saw my daughter. Nina had always been compassionate, but this was different. It was a deep, magical empathy. One that would be either a blessing or a curse. Depending on how she learned to control it.
"She's going to need training," I murmured to Tarja. "Empathic magic can be overwhelming if she doesn't learn to shield herself."
"After we deal with Lyra," she agreed. "Right now, she's helping more than she knows."
Jean-Marc cleared his throat, drawing my attention. "I don't think Lyra's is working alone anymore."
"We knew about the Forgotten Ones and the other factions Cordelia mentioned," I said.
"Not them. These are human magical signatures. Powerful ones." Jean-Marc's expression grew troubled. "She's recruited other witches to her cause."
"Who would be stupid enough to join her?" I demanded.
"People who think she can make them more powerful," Aidon replied grimly.
"Either way, it means tonight's assault won't just be her vile creatures and stolen magic," Jean-Marc said. "We'll be facing Tainted witches who can combat our spells."
A soft knock on the door frame interrupted our conversation. Thalia stepped out onto the deck. "Cordelia finished explaining my family's history," she said without preamble. "The prophecy about the lost daughter? It's not about me returning home. It's about me sacrificing myself to break the parasitic network."
The deck went dead silent except for the distant sound of waves and the soft murmur of refugees inside the house. "What exactly does that mean?" Aidon demanded a second later.
"The parasitic bonds can only be severed by someone with the Pleiades bloodline who willingly gives up their life force to fuel the severing," Thalia said matter-of-factly, as if she were discussing the weather instead of her own death.
"We can't let you do that," I said immediately. "We'll find another way."
"There is no other way," Thalia replied sadly. "Lyra's network is too extensive, too deeply rooted. The only power strong enough to cleanse it completely is a Pleiades soul freely given."
"I won't let you die for us," I insisted, struggling to get out of my chair. "There has to be another solution."
"Phoebe," Thalia said gently, "I've been dead for thirty-eight years. Everything since my escape has been borrowed time. If I can use that time to save your children and protect the supernatural world, then it's time well spent."
