He stepped forward on legs that shook. His voice came out thin at first, reedy. He cleared his throat. Tried again.
His words, in a forgotten tongue:Cleanse this place. Purify the sacred earth. Dissolve all corruption.
She picked up the first jar of lunar water. It was heavier than she remembered. Or her arms were weaker. The glass was cold enough to burn her palms even through her gloves.
She began to pour.
Where the water touched the ground, it hissed. Not like water on hot metal. Like water on acid. Like something being destroyed at a molecular level. Steam rose in white plumes that smelled wrong — sweet and rotten at the same time. The ground beneath seemed tosigh. A sound like dying, or like relief.
Her magic pushed out from her — weak, uncertain, fighting against the curse that had suppressed it for twenty-seven years. It felt like pushing through mud. Through concrete. Through something that didn’t want to move. But it was working. She could feel it. The lunar water amplifying Felix’s invocation, carrying it deeper into the earth, the words sinking in like roots.
She moved around the circle. Pouring as Felix spoke, his voice getting stronger as his magic found its rhythm.
The second jar. The third.
Her hands were shaking so hard water slopped over the sides. Wasted. She couldn’t afford to waste any, but she couldn’t stop shaking.
The fourth jar. The last one.
She poured the final drops, stumbling as she stepped back.
The purification was done.
Now Posey.
Posey moved to the center of the circle. She was already pale, gray-tinged, ashen. Already swaying like a tree in high wind.
“Posey—” Ramona started. Her voice sounded far away.
“I’m fine.” Posey’s voice was strained. Tight. Absolutelynotfine. “Let me finish this.”
She knelt on the poisoned ground. Her knees sank into the soft earth. She pressed her palms flat against it.
And began to speak.
It wasn’t a language Ramona knew. It was something older. Known words, but the cadence was wrong — ancient, primal, from a time before language crystallized into modern forms.
“Remember what you were,” Posey said. Her voice was soft, but it carried. Filled the clearing. Seemed to come from the ground itself. “Remember the green and growing things. Remember life. Remember connection. Remember the roots that go deep. Remember the flowers that reach for sun. Remember?—”
Light burst from her hands.
Not metaphorical light. Actual, physical light. Green and gold and soaliveit hurt to look at. It spread across the ground like roots, like veins, like the vascular system of something vast and sleeping. Where it touched, the darkness dissolved. Not slowly. Violently. With small popping sounds like bubbles bursting. The grass began to grow again — not gradually but fast, too fast, shooting up green and vital. The clearing lightened from black to gray to verdant.
But Posey was shaking.
Her whole body trembled with effort. Her hands were sinking deeper into the earth like it was trying to pull her down. Sweat poured down her face despite the cold. Her breathing came in gasps.
“Posey!” Cammie’s voice was sharp with fear.
“Don’t—” Posey’s gasp was barely audible. “Don’t break the circle. I can… I can finish.”
The light intensified. Spread farther. The corruption retreated like a living thing trying to escape. Dissolved. Disappeared in those awful popping sounds.
A pulse like the heartbeat of the land shot in every direction, a circle of light flowing like a ripple through the air.
The convergence point was clean.
Clean and empty and somehow more terrifying for it.
