“Everyone clear on the plan?” Calder asked, his voice dropping into that tactical tone that meant he was running scenarios in his head, calculating risks and contingencies.
“Fly north,” Wickett said dryly. “Try not to die. Reach Dyssara before the oath kills us. Simple.”
“Simple,” I echoed, though nothing about this was simple.
“Make sure your cat avoids the Erelith,” Wickett said for the third time, running his hands through his hair as he retied it back.
I refused to acknowledge whatever my heart did at the tone of worry in his voice. Nor did I pay any attention to the concern in his downturned brows. But Furies help me, there was no getting past the firm line of his lips. The hard look in his stormy eyes. “He’s not going to willingly fly into purple fire. We’ll be safe.”
“Then let’s move before we lose the light,” Riot said.
We filed out into the clearing. The sun was already sinking toward the horizon, painting the Bloodwood in shades of amber and crimson that made everything look like it was already burning. I closed my eyes, pushing against the fear of that.
Riot walked to the center of the clearing, rolling his massive shoulders once, twice. Then he shifted, and my heart stopped.
It wasn’t like watching the shifters transform. There was no violence in it, no cracking bones or perceived pain. This was fluid, inevitable, beautiful in the way that sacred things were beautiful. Each movement precise and purposeful.
Scales erupted across his skin in waves of iridescent purple that caught the dying light and threw it back in shades of amethyst. His body stretched upward, growing larger with each breath until he towered above the cottage, above the trees, a living mountain of muscle and magic and ancient power. Wings unfurled from his back with a sound like thunder, membrane stretched between bone that looked delicate but had to be stronger than steel to carry his weight.
I held my breath without meaning to, caught between awe and the irrational fear that something so powerful shouldn’texist in the same world as me. His face elongated, became something reptilian and majestic, amber eyes the size of doors but somehow still recognizably him. Still Riot beneath the scales and teeth and impossible size. He lowered himself to the ground, belly pressed to the earth, making himself as small as a being that enormous could be.
I stood near Silas by the house, hand buried in his fur as I watched Lucy move first, climbing onto his back with the sort of athletic grace that came from years of Nexus training. No surprise there. She settled onto her stomach, wrapping leather reins around one of the large horns for leverage. Calder followed, helping Aureth position herself beside Lucy, the Oracle’s hands finding purchase on her reins with unerring accuracy. I knew it was the damn raven she kept so close, but I couldn’t get over it.
Calder settled last, unbuttoning his coat so Pip had plenty of room in his chest pocket before he laid, propping himself on his elbows so they all fit shoulder to shoulder near Riot’s neck.
Wickett stood apart from the group, near where Timber waited at the clearing’s edge. The black, horned wolf watched his master with eyes that held more intelligence than most people I’d met, more understanding than creatures pulled from the Ash were supposed to possess.
The hunter knelt, one hand resting against Timber’s massive head. He didn’t speak. Just stayed there for a long moment, the two of them existing in that quiet space between beast and master, between violence and the strange gentleness they’d found in each other.
Finally, Wickett stood. “Stay close to the cottage. Hunt when you need to. I’ll come back.”
The cinderhowl made a low sound. When Wickett turned away, Timber settled onto his haunches, watching, waiting, believing the promise because it was all he had.
“Syn.” Calder’s voice pulled my attention. “You have a spell to keep yourself on Silas? Something to make sure you don’t fall?”
I looked at my familiar, who’d been waiting with patient silence. His blue eyes found mine, and through the bond I felt his certainty. His confidence. His absolute refusal to let anything happen to me.
“I’ve got it handled,” I said.
Calder nodded.
Riot rose slowly, his massive body lifting from the ground with surprising grace. His wings spread wide, blotting out half the sunset, and then he was moving, gathering speed, launching himself skyward. He swooped low, his talons extending, closing around Wickett with care. The hunter didn’t flinch, didn’t fight, just let himself be lifted into the air like it was the most natural thing in the world to be carried by a dragon into the dying light.
Silas moved like a house cat, stepping between my feet before he grew to a size even I had never seen. Still not as large as Riot, as I believed few things were, but my thighs sank into the soft down at his shoulders, the warmth of him thrumming through my skin. His back broadened under me, feathers shifting like breath and silk, until I found myself astride him, knees tight to his shoulders, fingers buried in the warmth of his coat where fur met feathers.
I turned back to the cottage one last time, letting go of the horrors it held. The pieces I’d blocked out. The screams of my grandmother as the hunters stormed the cottage seven years ago. The panic in my soul. The fight I gave up as Silas dragged me through the Bloodwood before I could be seen.
For all its horrors, the cottage had kept me alive. The walls remembered not only screams but spells, not only blood but the breath of becoming. It was Eda Mire’s sanctuary—hers long before my grandmother and I called it home. The place she’dwanted me to remember. Now my magic felt rooted here, no longer something I had to fight for every breath.
“Adhesio levis,” I whispered, and let the fire come.
Not water magic. Not the safe, acceptable power I’d performed my whole life. This was flame, invisible and intimate, flowing from my palms into Silas’s body like a secret only we shared. It didn’t burn. It never burned him, just wove through the space where we connected. A magical suggestion written with heat, that my body would move with his instead of against him, that gravity would bend just enough to keep me secure.
I didn’t know if it would hold. But we were leaving Grimora behind, and that meant this one small freedom: the chance to be what I was born to be, even if only my familiar would ever witness it.
I leaned forward until my chest pressed against his shoulders, until we were one shape instead of two.
Ready?
