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Ashby's rifle swung toward Garrick.

Time fractured.

Ashby's finger curling around the trigger, Garrick's eyes widening as he realized he was too far—twenty paces at least, the distance suddenly impossible⁠—

The rifle cracked.

Sound exploded across the yard, sharp enough to make my teeth ache.

Marigold's hands shot up.

Not graceful. Not controlled. Desperate.

The air screamed—a sound like glass being dragged across stone, high and awful and wrong. The space between us warped, visible for half a breath as reality bent under the force of an eleven-year-old girl refusing to watch another person she loved die.

The bullet struck the barrier. Metal shrieked against magic. The bullet crumpled, then dropped to the dirt.

Marigold widened her stance. The shield expanded outward, pulling back to cover Adeline where Garrick had left her against the barrels, then me, then Mira and Beatrice. Garrick was already running through the gap. He'd left himself outside the barrier on purpose.

For one suspended heartbeat, no one moved.

Then Ashby adjusted his aim and fired again.

The barrier rippled, distortion spreading outward in concentric rings. Marigold gasped, not in pain but in shock, as though the bullet had hit her too.

Garrick was running—head down, shoulder leading, the way men ran when they had no intention of stopping until they hit something. Fifteen paces. Too far.

Ashby fired a third time.

The shield spiderwebbed. Hairline fractures bloomed across the invisible surface, spreading like ice cracking under weight. Light bled through the cracks—not golden, not warm, but the sick grey of something breaking that was never meant to break.

Marigold's breath hitched and held there—caught somewhere between fear and effort, refusing to come out the way it should. A small whimper escaped before she could swallow it back.

"Stop," she whispered.

Another shot. The fractures widened. The barrier was seconds from shattering completely.

"I said STOP!"

The scream tore out of her—raw, animal, the sound of someone who had already lost too much and would not, could not, lose anything more.

The air didn't just pulse. It detonated.

The shockwave slammed outward in all directions, visible for half a second as a ring of distorted space. Ashby flew backward, boots leaving the ground, arms pinwheeling as he crashed into the barrels hard enough to splinter wood. The younger hunter behind him went down like he'd been struck by a fist. Even Morrison staggered, boots scraping against cobblestone as he fought to stay upright.

Garrick reached Ashby as he struggled to rise from the wreckage. His fist connected with Ashby's jaw with a sound like a branch snapping. Ashby's head whipped sideways. Blood sprayed from his mouth. He tried to roll, tried to create distance, but Garrick was already on him—elbow to temple, knee to ribs, brutal efficient strikes born from years of training beside the man he was now beating into the ground.

Ashby managed to block one strike. Took another. His hand darted to his belt. Steel flashed.

They separated, circling, both bleeding now, both breathing hard.

"Should've stayed loyal," Ashby panted, knife held low and steady.

"Should've stayed empathetic," Garrick shot back.

I didn't wait to see who moved first.

The younger hunters were recovering. Spreading out. Flanking. Three of them converged on our position with rifles raised and fingers already tightening on triggers.