The air in the ruined manor had changed.

  At first, it was subtle. A barely noticeable shift in the heavy stillness, a faint stirring of dust where no breeze should have reached. The ash at their feet, undisturbed for years, whispered against itself in dry, delicate swirls. But then the weight came.

  Heavy. Crushing.

  It was not a presence that could be seen or heard, but felt— thick as smoke, pressing against their ribs, their breath, their thoughts. It crept in like the slow gathering of a storm, sinking into the marrow of their bones, coiling through the empty spaces between heartbeats.

  The Mirrorwood was aware of them now. And it did not like intruders.

  Annemarie shivered as the sensation crawled down her spine, cold and sharp, settling like a blade pressed lightly to the base of her skull. A warning. A promise. The prickle of unseen eyes. The certainty that something was watching.

  She turned.

  Her gaze swept across the wreckage of the manor, past the burned-out archways and the hollowed skeletons of rooms that had once held laughter, warmth, and life. The ruins stretched before her in an expanse of blackened stone and collapsed timber, a graveyard of memories long since buried beneath the weight of time and fire.

  Empty. Except they weren’t.

  She saw her then. A child. Small, frail, no more than nine or ten, standing just beyond the shattered bones of the estate. Beneath the skeletal remains of a collapsed balcony. She was barely more than a smudge against the ruined backdrop, her limbs thin, her face streaked with soot. Wide, dark eyes— too dark, too deep— watched her.

  She did not move. She did not speak. She only watched.

  Annemarie’s breath caught. Her pulse slammed against her ribs, the urgency rising before she could even understand why. “Brandon—” she started, stepping forward, her fingers half-lifting as if reaching for something that wasn’t there—

  The girl blinked. And then she was gone.

  Not fled. Not turned and run. Not even a flicker of movement. Just gone.

  The space where she had stood lay empty, undisturbed. No trail in the ash, no shift in the ruins. No sound, no breath, no trace of her existence at all.

  Annemarie’s stomach dropped into a cold, hollow pit. “Did you see that?” she whispered.

  Brandon’s frown deepened. His eyes swept the ruins, sharp, searching, but finding only the lifeless husk of Byfox. “See what?”

  “A little girl—” Annemarie turned in a slow circle, eyes flicking between the crumbling archways, the gaping hollows of burned-out windows, the long-dead remains of the house that had once belonged to Callista Nazenne. But there was nothing. Only silence. “She was right there. Watching us.”

  Julia and Melissa exchanged a glance— uneasy, careful, something unspoken passing between them. “Anne,” Julia said, tone measured, deliberate. “Are you sure—”

  The ground shifted. Not an earthquake. Not a tremor. Something deeper.

  The ruins inhaled. The weight in the air sharpened into something heavier, something pressing down from above and curling up from below. Stone groaned, a slow, drawn-out sound like ancient bones shifting after too long at rest. Charred beams creaked, their blackened frames brittle beneath the weight of forgotten history.

  The dead city stirred.

  Brenna’s fingers flew to her wrist, pressing against the warding bracelet as if the fractured runes there might offer reassurance. They didn’t. “Shit,” she muttered. “It’s reacting.”

  Melissa tensed beside her, knives already in her hands, her stance low and ready. “Reacting to what?”

  The answer came in the movement at their feet. The ash shifted— not tossed by wind, not scattered by their steps, but moving. Rippling outward in slow, deliberate waves, like breath from the earth itself.

  “To us,” Annemarie whispered.

  She felt it all too keenly. The pull of the bond. The pressure of the Mirrorwood. The weight of something beneath them, slow and waking.

  The ruins exhaled. A slow, deep shift, like something vast and unseen stretching after too long in stillness. The weight pressing against them grew heavier, thick as damp wool, curling around their ribs, their throats, their breath.

  And then the silence cracked.

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  A sharp, splintering pop— wood snapping under pressure, stone grinding against itself. Somewhere deep in the manor, a sound like footsteps echoed, impossibly distant yet too close at the same time.

  Melissa’s grip on her daggers tightened. “I hate this.”

  “You think I don’t?” Julia muttered, shifting her weight, scanning the ruins.

  The ground beneath them trembled. Brandon took a step back, sword raised, jaw clenched tight. “We need to move.”

  Brenna’s lips pressed into a thin line, her fingers still curled around the cracked edges of her warding bracelet. “We might be a little past that point.”

  Annemarie’s heart pounded against her ribs. The pull forward was relentless now, a pulse deep in her bones, tugging her back toward the burned-out husk of a manor. Toward the wreckage of House Nazenne.

  The girl. The moment she had disappeared, the city had woken up. Annemarie had a horrible, sinking feeling that that wasn’t a coincidence.

  She turned sharply, stepping involuntarily toward the ruined doorway leading into the estate. “We have to—”

  The ash at their feet lurched. Not wind. Not breath. Something beneath them moved.

  The rippling deepened, spreading outward from the shattered remains of the manor like ink bleeding into water. The tendrils of it curled unnaturally, slithering between the stones, creeping up the broken walls.

  Melissa let out a sharp breath. “Yeah, okay, we’re leaving. Now.” She turned toward the street—

  And the first shadow took shape.

  It rose from the ash as if forming from the ruins themselves, its edges blurred, flickering, indistinct. Not solid. Not human. A figure of deep black, its shape shifting, unfixed— its limbs stretching long, its head tilting too sharply to one side.

  It did not have eyes, but Annemarie felt it looking at her.

  Her stomach clenched.

  Brandon swore, stepping between her and the thing, his blade raised. “Move.”

  “Shouldn’t you know by now that your sword isn’t going to work?” Julia hissed.

  Brandon flipped her off.

  But the figure did not attack. It didn’t lunge. It simply stood.

  And then, another appeared. And another. All rising from the ruins, from the crumbling bones of Byfox itself, their forms flickering in and out of focus. A slow, whispering murmur spread through the ruined streets, a sound just below comprehension.

  Not words. Not voices. Something older.

  Something wrong.

  Brenna inhaled sharply. “This isn’t just the Mirrorwood.”

  Julia’s hand went to her belt, her fingers curling around the hilt of her ruined dagger. “Then what the hell is it? “

  Brenna didn’t answer. She didn’t know.

  The air thickened, pressing against them like unseen hands. The shadows stood still, watching, waiting, but the ruins of Byfox were shifting around them. The walls of the manor groaned, blackened stone shuddering in place, the splintered remains of its wooden beams cracking under invisible strain. The ground beneath their feet felt unsteady— not crumbling, not breaking apart, but wrong. Like something beneath them had begun to breathe.

  Brandon’s sword remained raised, but his grip was tight. “We need to move. Now.”

  “No argument here,” Melissa muttered, brandishing her daggers at the looming shadows.

  Julia’s eyes darted between the shifting shadows, calculating, assessing. “The eastern road—”

  “No.” Brenna’s voice was sharp, immediate. “We don’t want to go back.”

  The figures had begun to shift. Not stepping forward, not changing, but adjusting, tilting their head at unnatural angles. The whispering around them grew louder, not words, not voices, but understanding.

  The city itself was responding to them. And it was closing in.

  “We need an opening,” Brandon said, scanning for an exit that didn’t lead them into a dead end.

  “We don’t have one,” Brenna shot back, her fingers twitching at her side as though debating whether magic would work against whatever this was.

  The ash stirred. The shadows twitched.

  And, as one, they all felt it.

  A pull— not Annemarie’s pull, the pull of the bond. Not calling them forward, not leading them toward Callista, but pressing outward. A pressure, a force coiling inside their chests, curling through veins like fire waiting to be released.

  “What the fuck is that?” Julia spat.

  Annemarie’s breath came fast, uneven. “It’s rejecting us.” And it wasn’t just pushing them out— it was trying to erase them.

  They wouldn’t make it out in time. Not if the city had decided they weren’t meant to leave. Unless—

  Annemarie didn’t think. Her hands lifted, fingers curling as something deep inside pulled— not from the Mirrorwood, not from Callista, but from herself.

  A warmth— sharp and insistent— flared beneath her skin. Not fire. Not light. Something in between.

  Annemarie exhaled sharply and pushed.

  The air shattered. A pulse of force erupted outward from her chest, ripping through the ruins in a wave of crackling heat and sound. The ash on the ground exploded outward in all directions, blasting back the shifting figures, sending them flickering and breaking apart like smoke in a gale.

  The ruined walls of Byfox screamed. Wood snapped. Stone shuddered. The city itself recoiled.

  For a moment, everything stopped. The pressure lifted, the weight pressing down on them vanishing as if the ruins themselves had flinched from her touch.

  And then Brandon grabbed her wrist. “Run.”

  They ran.

  Through the shattered ruins, past broken walls and streets that twisted even as they moved, past doorways where figures no longer stood, past alleys where whispers had fallen silent.

  The city no longer tried to stop them, but it was watching.

  Annemarie didn’t look back. She felt the weight of it, the unseen eyes lingering just beyond sight, the memory of what had tried to hold them in place.

  The remains of Byfox faded into the horizon behind them, and as they crossed the final threshold of the ruined city, the wind exhaled.

  Like something disappointed to have seen them go.