"The girl is right. I've watched him hunt for centuries. He picks the lonely ones." Her dark eyes swept the crowd. "So don't be lonely."
That settled it. Not because anyone stopped being afraid, but because Baba Yaga's endorsement carried the weight of something ancient and inarguable. Within the hour, Hazel had the community room converted into a coordination center, with Mrs. Shufflewick—now in full air traffic controller headset—assigning pairs to practice locations across town.
The next thirty-six hours blurred.
At Ivy's shop, the herbalist stood knee-deep in hanging rosemary bundles while Zelda perched on the counter, auburn curls wild, feeding magic into a protective ward that smelled of sage and something sharper underneath.
"Hold steady." Ivy twisted a bundle of dried thyme into the lattice. Green light pulsed between them—not romantic, not the charged heat that crackled between paired lovers, but something older. Steadier. The magic of two women who'd pulled each other out of dark places and never once let go.
"Our friendship has its own magic," Zelda said, and the ward flared gold at its edges. She winced. "Ow. Felt that one."
"You always feel everything." Ivy didn't look up from her work, but her hand found Zelda's wrist and squeezed once.
Three blocks east, Cricket's potion shop rattled with a different kind of energy. Sam Rodriguez stood behind the counter he'd never worked, his psychic sensitivity turned outward like a satellite dish while Cricket measured powdered moonstone with stained fingers.
"Left—no, my left—pour slower?—"
"I'm a bookstore owner, not an alchemist."
"Business partnerships count too." Cricket grinned, a streak of something iridescent across her cheek. "Shared purpose, shared trust. The magic doesn't care about labels."
Sam closed his eyes and let the connection between them—forged through years of neighboring shops, borrowed sugar, and covering each other's shifts—hum to life. Pale blue threads materialized in the air between the potion bottles. Cricket laughed and nearly knocked over the moonstone.
In the library's restricted section, Mrs. Shufflewick had abandoned her headset for something more personal. She sat cross-legged on the floor—a position that should have looked absurd on a woman of her years and posture—surrounded by candles, her silver hair loose for the first time Hazel had ever seen.
"The spirits are eager to help—they want to be part of the network." Her voice carried none of its usual channeling distortion. This was Dorothea Shufflewick, speaking plainly. "Every personality I've ever channeled left a thread behind. Hundreds of connections across time."
Hazel knelt beside her. "Can you weave them in?"
Mrs. Shufflewick's eyes glittered. "Watch me, dear."
She began to hum, and the candle flames bent sideways toward the building's walls, reaching for the wards Hazel had set years ago. Gold met silver met blue. The library groaned softly, the way old buildings do when they remember what they were built for.
Hazel felt it then—standing in the stacks with her hand pressed against a shelf—the network taking shape. Not a wall or a shield but a web. Every strengthened bond became a node, every connection a filament, and the whole thing pulsed with the irregular, gorgeous rhythm of a town's collective heartbeat.
Nate found her there, eyes closed, tears tracking silently down both cheeks.
"Hazel?"
"I can feel all of them." Her voice cracked. "Every single one. Zelda and Ivy. Sam and Cricket. Mrs. Shufflewick and her hundreds of ghosts. Raven and the cats. All of it."
He wrapped his arms around her from behind. His magic slotted against hers like a key finding its lock, and the web brightened.
"Is it enough?" he asked.
She opened her eyes. The library hummed around them, golden light pooling in corners and spilling down staircases, and beyond the walls she could sense the town—alive, connected, fierce.
"Ask me tomorrow."
Tomorrow came at dusk.
Hazel felt him before anyone saw him—a wrongness threading through the web like a black needle pulling at golden thread. She'd been checking the ward anchors alongMain Street, her fingers still tingling from adjusting Cricket's storefront lattice, when the sensation punched through her sternum and stole her breath.
Not pain. Absence. A pocket of nothing moving toward them through the October twilight.
"He's here." She didn't shout. Didn't need to. The network carried her whisper to every node, every bonded pair, every connected soul in Assjacket. She felt them respond—a ripple of fear, then resolve hardening like cooling glass.
Nate materialized at her side before she'd taken three steps toward the square. His hand found hers. Their magic locked, and the web sang a low, resonant chord that vibrated in Hazel's molars.
