“Then why say it at all?”
“Because you asked,” he replied.
I exhaled slowly, trying to keep my frustration from boiling over, because that wasn’t going to get me anywhere with him.
“When?” I asked instead. “When is the time right?”
His gaze shifted again. “Soon.”
But then a sound echoed through the marsh, low and distant.
It was different from anything we’d heard before.
Gideon’s head turned sharply, as his entire posture changed in an instant, like whatever that was had just confirmed something for him.
“Did you hear that?” he asked.
My pulse jumped, and I held my breath for a second, listening.
March. March.
There it was again.
“Yes,” I said quietly.
His eyes snapped back to mine, as something urgent flickered there. “Then you need to—”
Suddenly, the shadows moved in.
They swirled like a tornado, and one moment he was standing there, solid, present, and the next, the darkness folded in around him as if it had always been waiting, pulling him back into it without a sound.
“Gideon—” I stepped forward, but there was nothing there to reach.
I only felt his lingering presence, and then that too slipped away.
The sound grew closer, and whatever it was, it wasn’t slowing down.
“Maeve!” Keegan’s voice cut through everything as he and the others broke through the trees behind me, their steps quick and urgent.
“What happened?” Nova asked, her eyes already scanning the marsh, her attention snapping toward the direction of the sound.
“He was here,” I said, turning back to them, my breath uneven. “He heard something and then he just—”
The ground shifted beneath us. It wasn’t enough to knock us off balance, but it was enough to feel it.
Enough that it mattered.
Stella’s gaze sharpened as she stepped closer. “That’s not normal movement.”
“No,” Nova agreed. “It’s not.”
Keegan reached for my hand. His grip was firm and steady. “We need to move.”
“I know,” I said, though my eyes kept drifting back to where Gideon had been, like he might reappear and give me one more piece before everything slipped too far out of reach.
But whatever was coming—
It was almost here.
