They stood at the edge of the clearing. All of them.
Ramona could hear their breathing — Felix’s quick and shallow, Kashvi’s measured and controlled, Posey’s whimpers of pain, her breathing already labored like she knew what was coming. Cammie stayed with the group, there for moral and emergency support only. Gerald was unusually still on Felix’s shoulder, head tucked against his neck. The fox pressed warm and solid against Ramona’s leg, a point of comfort in the growing dread.
“Whoa,” Cammie breathed. Her voice was barely a whisper, like speaking too loud might wake something. “It’s worse than I remember.”
“The corruption’s been accelerating,” Kashvi said. “We need to start now. Before it spreads further.”
Ramona could feel it through the soles of her shoes. A wrongness in the earth. A sickness. The convergence point wasn’t just corrupted — it wasdying. And taking everything around it with it. If it got beyond the convergence point, would it ever stop? Or would it consumeeverything?
Ramona shivered.
They moved into the clearing.
Each step felt like walking through water. The air grew thicker. Heavier. Ramona’s lungs worked harder for each breath. Beside her, Zara’s jaw was tight. Through the tether — still there, still humming between them — Ramona felt her tension. Her focus. Her fear.
They set up in the pattern they’d practiced. The circle they drew was in the center of the clearing, approximately five feet in diameter. Ramona at the north end of the circle. Zara at the south. Felix at the east. Posey at the west. The others arranged themselves outside the immediate ritual space — close enough to help, far enough to be safe. Or as safe as anyone could be.
The supplies were laid out with shaking hands. Lunar water in glass jars, still glowing that faint silver that seemed too delicate for what they were about to attempt. Blessed iron nails that Felix placed with reverent care. Sacred salt from Greenbriar Manor — Ramona tried not to think about her mother or sister, or about anything except the ritual.
They had everything they needed.
Everything they’d prepared since the last ritual.
Everything that suddenly felt completely inadequate.
“Ready?” Kashvi called from outside the circle. Her voice was steady, but Ramona heard the tremor underneath.
Ramona looked at Zara. Through the tether: determination like steel. Love like drowning. Fear like falling.
This was it.
After the ritual, everything would be different.
After the ritual, Zara would be gone.
Ramona’s throat closed. She forced words out anyway. “Ready.”
They began with the convergence point cleansing.
Zara spoke first. The banishment.
Her voice dropped into that register Ramona had only heard a few times — the one that wasn’t quite human, wasn’t quite anything that should exist on this plane. Dark, velvety sounds like promises, like temptation incarnate.
The temperature plummeted. Not gradually. Instantly. Ramona’s breath fogged in front of her face, thick white clouds that hung in the air too long. Frost spread across the dead grass in delicate patterns. Her fingertips went numb inside her gloves.
The corruptionresponded.
The dark marks on the ground didn’t just sit there. Theywrithed. Pulled back from Zara’s words like living things recoiling from fire. Ramona could see them moving — oily, viscous, wrong wrongwrong.
Zara intoned. Her voice echoed strangely, like the clearing was bigger than it should be. Deeper. She’d translated the words for Ramona:Return to your origin. Return to Hell. This is not your place.
The words bounced off the circle of ancient trees. Multiplied. Ramona heard them from every direction — Zara’s voice and not-Zara’s voice, speaking in unison, in rounds, in terrible harmony.
The corruption pulled back farther. Retreating toward the center of the circle. Concentrating. Getting darker. Denser.
Worse.
Felix’s turn.
