By the time the candles burned low, and the tea had gone cold, they had a plan.Fragile, perhaps, but a beginning.Isaac looked around the table at the faces of his family—old and new—and felt the weight of two centuries shift.For the first time in lifetimes, they weren’t scattered pieces of a broken bond.They were together and they would hunt the Council, track the Stone, and end this war.
Together.
****
The study smelled ofold leather and smoke.Maps were spread across the oak desk, pins marking half a dozen sites.His hand hovered over one, the Druid Stone drawing closer with each report.He could feel it—the hum of old power stirring like a heartbeat beneath the ground.
The phone buzzed.He answered with a single word.“Report.”
A low, male voice crackled back.“The woman I had been watching—she’s gone to them.Reconnected with the witches.As you suspected, she is reincarnated from the brat who defied you and I two hundred years ago.”
The antagonist’s jaw tightened.His eyes narrowed on the pin.“You should have ended her when you had the chance.”
The caller gave a cruel laugh.“I’ll bathe in her blood yet.She won’t escape me this time.”
His lips curved into something darker than a smile.“See that you do.The Stone is nearly within reach.Once it’s ours, their little circle won’t stand a chance.”
He ended the call, leaning back in his chair, the maps and pins like a game board beneath his hands.“What would those four witches think,” he murmured, “if they knew how close they were to it already?”
Chapter Seven
The rooftop of FatedInk was always quiet, a space that lived outside the notice of the city below.Saffron had warded the building long ago, weaving layer upon layer of protection into its bones.To passersby, it was just another old brick structure with a tattoo shop on the ground floor.To magical eyes, it shimmered with misdirection, a place half-hidden in shadow, unreachable to those who meant them harm.Up here, on the roof beneath the wide expanse of night, they could train without fear of being seen.
The four of them stood together—Saffron, Willow, Ursula, and Brielle—forming a loose circle.The hum of their joined presence pulsed in the air, a resonance Saffron had not felt in two centuries.It was both comforting and terrifying, the weight of destiny pressing at the edges of her chest.
She drew in a breath, letting the city sounds fade beneath the drum of her heart.“We are not just four women standing on a roof,” she began.“We are the four points of the compass, the four marks of time.The Moon Goddess bound us this way, and our strength is in knowing who we are in that weave.”
Willow’s brow furrowed, but she smiled softly.“You always did have a dramatic way of starting a lecture.”
Saffron arched a brow.“And you always interrupt.West suits you perfectly—always tugging against the tide, stubborn as the ocean.You are the dusk, Willow.The setting of the day, the strength that carries us into the dark.”
Willow’s cheeks flushed, but she nodded, her gaze flicking to her mates where they leaned against the stairwell door, watching silently.
Saffron turned to Ursula.“South.Fire and fury.The noon sun blazing at its zenith.You ground us in strength and passion.Even when your body falters, your flame never does.”
Ursula gave a half-smile, her dark eyes glinting.“Flame’s a polite word for temper.”
