“Zara?” Ramona approached her carefully.
“This is my fault.”
“What?”
“The corruption.” Zara gestured at the stones. “It’s demonic energy. Hell magic.Mymagic.”
“You don’t know that?—”
“Yes, I do.” Zara’s voice was tight. “This is what demons do to sacred spaces. We poison them just by existing near them.”
“But you’ve been all over Fernwick,” Felix pointed out. “Why would it only affect us here?”
“The ritual.” Zara turned to face them. “We came here because the convergence point would amplify the magic, right? Make it strong enough to break the binding. But instead it amplified my demonic signature. Pulled Hell energy through me and into the convergence point. Infected it.”
“Or it amplifiedmymagic,” Ramona said. “I was the one channeling the ritual. Maybe I somehow made it worse.”
“You don’t know that?—”
“Neither do you.” Ramona’s voice was firm. “We did this together, Zara. Both of us. Stop trying to take all the blame.”
“So, how do we fix it?” Cammie said after a moment.
Zara stiffened, glancing toward Cammie, then situating herself on the other side of Ramona.
“The grimoire in Thornwood’s archives should have the cleansing ritual,” Kashvi added. “And if my theory is right — if cleansing and severance rituals share fundamental structures — it might also help us modify our approach to breaking the tether.”
“Two birds, one felony,” Ramona said.
“Exactly.” Felix pulled out his laptop. “I’ve been looking at the building schematics for the restricted section of the library. There are wards, obviously, but they’re keyed to faculty access signatures. Which means?—”
“The key will get us in,” Ramona finished.
“In theory.” Felix pulled up a diagram. “But we need to understand the security protocols. Guard rotations. When faculty are most likely to be in the building. Felix, you said you could pull schedules from their servers?”
“Already did.” Felix tapped his phone. “Guards change shifts at midnight. Faculty clear out around ten on weeknights. Weekends are quieter — just a skeleton crew.”
“So, then go on a weekend,” Cammie said. “Late. When the building’s mostly empty.”
“Tomorrow night?” Posey suggested quietly.
Everyone turned to look at her.
“The corruption is spreading,” Posey said, gesturing at the ground. “Every day we wait is another day this place dies. I can already feel so much pain here. And if what Kashvi found is right — if the cleansing ritual can help us understand how to properly break the tether — we need that information as soon as possible.”
“Tomorrow’s fast,” Felix said. “We’d need to finalize the plan, coordinate timing, make sure we know exactly where to find the grimoire?—”
“I know where it is,” Ramona said quietly. “The restricted section. Third floor, west wing, like you said. The historical texts are organized by century and subject. Fifteenth-century purification magic would be in the middle stacks.”
Everyone stared at her.
“I used to work there,” Ramona added. “I’ve been in this exact section.”
“Then we do it tomorrow,” Zara said. Her voice was calm, certain. “We get the grimoire. We cleanse the convergence point. We figure out how to break the tether properly.”
“That’s… ambitious,” Kashvi said slowly.
“That’s necessary,” Ramona corrected.
