“Not alone,” he whispered.
She nodded, letting him ease her closer. Together, they knelt at the edge. The air just above the water felt cold, metallic, tinged with something like grief.
Poppy dipped her fingers into the surface. A jolt shot up her arm so sharp she gasped. Mingxi yanked her back instantly, foxfire erupting around them.
“What did it do?” he demanded.
Poppy shook, breath hitching. “It wasn’t an attack—it was recognition. The moonwell… it knows me.”
“And the shard?” Caelan asked from behind them.
Poppy hesitated. “It’s inside,” she whispered. “Deep. And it’s poisoning everything.”
Caelan knelt beside her, pressing his hand near the water without touching it. Water-qi pulsed outward, shimmering across the basin, revealing fractures beneath the surface like cracks in glass.
“This is structural damage,” he murmured, his face pale. “Not just corruption. The moonwell’s core is destabilizing.”
Lirrane crouched next to him, tracing the air with glowing teal fingers. Her brows furrowed. “The shard’s lodged at the center. Rooted. It’s feeding off the wellspring.”
Mingxi’s flame flared. “Then we cut it out.”
“You can’t,” Caelan said gently. “Not like this.”
Poppy pressed a hand over her sternum. The tug grew stronger, more insistent, weak but constant.
“It’s scared,” she said softly. “It’s trying to hold itself together until we can help it.”
Mingxi brushed his thumb over her knuckles, expression breaking. “Then we help it now.”
Before anyone could reply, a soft shimmer of foxfire spiraled through the air behind them, and a portal opened.
Xu Yunlian waved the newcomers forward. Minghua came first, carrying a lacquered box of talismans and silver-threaded ritual cords. Her robes fluttered in the still air, catching faint glints of moonlight that weren’t coming from the sky.
Behind her came Elder Suyin, Elder Qiao, Mingzhao, and three Guardians hefting bundles of incense, chalk, and bowls carved from crystalized foxfire.
“I told them to come as soon as the wards stabilized,” Yunlian said. She looked at the moonwell, and her breath hitched.
Mingzhao exhaled heavily, his expression grim. “It is worse than the scrolls described.”
“We expected contamination,” Suyin murmured. “Not collapse.”
Lirrane snorted. “Collapse is polite. This thing’s hanging on by two threads and a prayer.”
Caelan shot her a warning look.
She shrugged. “I’m being honest.”
Yunlian approached Poppy, cupping her cheek gently. “Are you steady?”
“I’m trying,” Poppy said quietly. “It keeps calling. It’s… hurting.”
Yunlian’s fingers tightened. “Then we must begin.”
Mingzhao gestured for the Guardians to spread out. They began clearing a flat circle at the moonwell’s edge, sweeping aside frost, stones, and brittle grass. Elder Suyin placed chalk down in long, careful arcs, tracing the first lines of the purification circle.
Poppy watched as foxfire lanterns were lit and hung in the surrounding trees. The basin brightened, glowing with flickering blues and golds—reflecting across the moonwell’s cracked surface like scattered starlight.
Caelan and Lirrane began shaping the tidal boundary, pulling water into a stable ring around the pool. Mingxi stood close beside Poppy, tails brushing her back, radiating warmth and fierce protectiveness. His foxfire shifted in color—pale, bright, ready.
