Poppy inhaled. Her bracelet warmed against her wrist, silver threads glowing faintly. The tug in her chest grew sharper, more urgent, but beneath it—beneath the shard’s cold hunger—she could feel the moonwell’s true voice. Weak. Wavering. But alive and ready.
Elder Suyin raised her hand. “Begin.”
The circle flared—light snapping outward like a struck bell—and the moonwell responded with a shuddering pulse that cracked the surface of the water like lightning inside glass.
Caelan shouted, “Hold the boundary!”
Lirrane’s voice cut through the roar. “Pressure rising. Get ready!”
Mingxi stepped closer behind Poppy, foxfire blooming like a shield. “Poppy,” he breathed, “it’s coming.”
From the depths of the moonwell, something stirred. Not light. Not shadow. Something in-between—and hungry. The moonwell’s surface shattered inward, not physically, but with a shock of force that rippled up the circle and slammed into every living thing inside it.
Poppy staggered. Mingxi caught her shoulders instantly, foxfire flaring high enough to singe the air.
Caelan gritted his teeth. “It’s pushing back. Hard.”
Lirrane dug her heels into the earth, tidal force rising in coiling green-blue spirals. “Then push harder!”
A second pulse hit—stronger, deeper, like a heartbeat made of pressure and grief. Poppy gasped. She felt it. The shard. Beneath the moonwell’s surface. Cold. Sharp. A presence that didn’t belong in this world. Not alive, not dead—just hungry.
It reached for her again.
Mingxi moved faster than she thought, foxfire exploding in a barrier between her and the water. The blast sent a wave of heat through the circle, bending the grass flat around them.
“No!” he snarled. “You don’t touch her.”
The shard pushed harder.
Poppy cried out as the tug in her chest sharpened into a spike. Her knees buckled. Mingxi wrapped his arms around her from behind, anchoring her to his body and to the circle.
“It’s trying to pull her in!” Caelan shouted.
Lirrane snapped back, “It’s trying to replace the moonwell’s tether with its own.”
Yunlian’s voice rose above them, calm and unwavering. “Poppy. Listen to me. Do not reach for the shard. Reach for the moonwell.”
“I’m trying,” Poppy gasped. “It’s faint… so faint.”
“Then get closer,” Yunlian said.
Mingxi tensed. “No.”
Poppy leaned into him. “I have to.”
The shard slammed the circle with a blast of force that sent a crack racing through the chalk line. Caelan hissed and threw both hands forward, water filling the fracture like liquid glass.
“Hold the circle!” he shouted.
Lirrane planted her hands to the earth. “I’m holding! Gods above, Caelan, it’s fighting like a cornered eel!”
The air shook with another pulse. Poppy couldn’t breathe. Not from fear but from recognition. She felt the moonwell’s voice under it. Small. Flickering. Trying to reach her through the shard’s weight.
“Help me.”
“Mingxi,” she whispered, “let me feel it.”
He didn’t move.
