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“Thank you.” The irony she’d been aiming for didn’t quite arrive. It came out closer to actual.

He nodded. He didn’t say, “You’re welcome.” He didn’t say, “Of course.” He didn’t say any of the things people usually say to fill the silence after someone thanks them, which she’d noticed was a pattern with him and had not yet decided whether she found it frustrating or something else entirely.

She walked back to Ink and Ember, the envelope under her arm and her coffee, now lukewarm, in her hand. The cobblestones were uneven beneath her boots. The fountain runes were still load-bearing. The magical supply district smelled of beeswax, old magic, and things she wasn’t ready for yet.

Normal person day. Absolutely nailed it.

The retirement account was still the retirement account. The former marital residence was still a number, to two decimal places.

Her pulse was, inexplicably, fine.

SIX

DRAYCE

The alert came at dusk, and Drayce was up before the second ping hit his radio.

He recognized the signature immediately — the one he’d been tracking since she’d arrived, her magic stirring up Rift activity along the northern boundary the same way it always did. He’d flagged it, logged it, and buried it in reports nobody above him bothered reading closely. The northern cliff section ran thin. Thin places drew attention.

He covered the cliff path in eleven minutes. Fast for the upper route.

Pike’s voice came over the radio as he cleared the first rise, coordinating the evacuation of civilians in the area. Calm and efficient, doing what Pike did in the field: keeping people moving and talking fast enough that nobody had time to panic. Drayce clicked twice to confirm his position and kept moving.

The cliffs at dusk held the day’s warmth in the basalt — you could feel it through your boots on the upper path, already gone by the time you reached the standing stones. The Atlantic below had darkened faster than the sky. The ward line offshore was wrong — he felt it in the back of his throat, an uneven pitch instead of the steady hum, a boundary with something leaning on it.

He pressed two fingers against the nearest standing stone as he passed. Considerably warmer than dusk would explain.

His wolf locked in. It ran the perimeter of his awareness, cold and efficient, threat identified, nothing else registering.

He let the partial shift come in—not full, because full meant the instincts took the wheel and he needed to drive. No change of shape, just the push underneath: eyes gold, claws in, speed up, senses at the edge — the body staying the same one his clothes were cut for. He knew how much wolf to let out for each situation—thirty years of calibration.

He came around the northern curve of the path and stopped.

Three of them.

Not scouts.

The scouts from two nights ago had been small, testing. These weren’t scouts. Bigger. Heavier, their joints moving at angles that made the wolf lock in immediately. They moved like something wearing a body it hadn’t finished learning.

They were pressed against the ward line at the section nearest the town square.

He’d run the math after the square incident. Her emotional discharge had seeped into the ward infrastructure and left a trace, and whatever was directing activity from the other side of the Rift read it the same way he did. The creatures from two nights ago found the thin place on the boardwalk. These three found the thin place in the square. The pattern was not subtle.

They turned when he came around the curve.

He lunged first.

The first one charged low and fast. He went lower, under the sweep of its limb — wrong in length and angle — and drove it back toward the cliff edge with his shoulder. It corrected faster than the scouts had. He noted that and kept moving.

The cliff path was three feet of viable ground, dropping to the left and a basalt wall to the right. He’d run it in the dark enough times to memorize every unevenness. The creature didn’t have that. He used the footing advantage — cut right, let it overextend toward the drop, then drove it back to the ward line. Not through. Following them beyond the boundary was a dead end.

The second came from the north while he was handling the first. He read its angle half a second early — enough — and stepped into the cliff face to let it pass wide, then caught it on the redirect.

Two down.

His wolf was firmly convinced two down wasn't enough. It wanted to go through the ward line after them and make the point comprehensively. Drayce had explained this position many times, but his wolf still found the explanation inadequate.

The third held back.