Aida skipped ahead, her bare feet soundless against the packed earth.

  It should have been unsettling— was unsettling, if Annemarie let herself think about it too long— but there was something so effortlessly childlike about the way she moved that made it difficult to remember what she was. What she had to be.

  If she had been anyone else— just a lost little girl instead of something left behind in the ruins of Byfox— she would have looked almost normal. Just another child walking the road, humming softly under her breath. But she wasn’t normal. And Annemarie could tell, even without the way the air seemed to shift around her, that something was keeping its distance.

  Gorgoloth, for one.

  The massive spider, usually unbothered by things that should have unnerved him, skittered closer to Melissa’s side whenever Aida came too near. His eight legs moved in careful, deliberate steps, his body angled slightly between them and the skipping girl ahead.

  Melissa reached out absently, running a hand along his thick carapace. “Not a fan, huh?” she murmured.

  Gorgoloth let out a low, clicking sound. He wasn’t a fan. Which, honestly, didn’t help Melissa’s feelings about the situation.

  Brandon was quiet, his gaze flickering between Aida, Annemarie, and the thinning trees around them. “This is it, isn’t it?” he asked finally. “The last stretch.”

  No one needed to ask what he meant.

  The land ahead of them was different. Not just beyond the reach of the Mirrorwood, but beyond the weight of anything that still lingered in its shadow. The trees weren’t just untainted— they were real, solid, untouched by the warping presence they had walked through for days. The sky above was clearer, the air crisp in a way that made it feel like they were finally stepping back into a world they recognized.

  Melissa exhaled, rubbing a hand over her face. “God, I hope she’s here.”

  “She is.”

  The certainty in Annemarie’s voice made everyone look at her. She didn’t need to explain how she knew. The bond had been pulling at her for so long that she had stopped questioning it. Callista was close— so close that it made Annemarie’s whole body feel unsteady, like she was teetering on the edge of something inevitable.

  She looked up, past Aida, past the path stretching out before them.

  Just a little further.

  The road stretched on, a thread of worn dirt carved between the fading remnants of the Mirrorwood and the open land beyond. The trees, once tangled and oppressive, thinned with each step, their warped silhouettes retreating into memory. Above them, the sky stretched vast and pale, the light of the dying sun spilling over the horizon in muted golds and deepening blues. The air felt wider, lighter— almost free.

  Each step forward was heavier than the last, weighted by something unseen, something inevitable.

  Annemarie could feel it. The bond hummed beneath her skin, coiling tight in her chest, pulling her forward with a force she could not resist. Every breath, every heartbeat, was laced with that unrelenting tether, drawing her toward the end of a journey she hadn’t even known she was on.

  Callista was close. Too close.

  Aida no longer skipped. Her steps, once light and careless, had slowed to something measured and deliberate. She moved like a girl walking toward something she already knew was waiting for her, as if the future had already been written and she was merely stepping into the space it had left for her.

  Her gaze never wavered from the path ahead. And then—

  A figure stepped from the shadows.

  She did not emerge suddenly. She did not startle them, did not break the silence with sound. She simply was, as though she had always been there, waiting in the periphery, waiting in the spaces where the light did not touch.

  Tall. Noble. Unbroken.

  Callista moved with quiet strength, her boots crunching against the earth, a blade resting loose in one hand. She carried herself like a woman who had fought and survived— but not without cost.

  She was alive. But she was not untouched.

  Dark veins, sharp and jagged, threaded beneath her skin. They curled like black lightning from her fingertips, trailing along the curve of her throat, seeping toward her jaw. Not sickness. Not corruption. Something else.

  Something she held back by sheer force of will.

  Her hair had been pulled into a crown of braids, woven with strands of silver-threaded charms that shimmered faintly, resisting the pull of whatever clung to her dark skin. She looked like a queen without a throne, a warrior without an army.

  And when her gaze swept over them, searching, tense— she saw her. And froze.

  “No.” The word came raw, barely formed, barely spoken. Then she was moving. Her sword fell from her grip, forgotten. Her strides were quick, unrelenting, unstoppable.

  Aida beamed. “Sister!”

  Callista dropped to her knees, her arms outstretched before Aida had even reached her. The girl ran into them without hesitation, her small fingers twisting into the fabric of Callista’s coat, clinging to her like she had been waiting for this moment longer than time itself.

  Callista’s eyes squeezed shut. Her breath hitched— an uneven, shaking thing, thick with everything she had not let herself feel for two years. “I’m here,” she whispered, voice breaking. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  Her hands moved over Aida’s back, mapping out the fragile shape of her, desperate, aching. As if she could hold her there forever. As if she could make up for the years she had lost in this single moment.

  And then, she whispered something. The words slipped from her lips, soft and ancient, weighted with finality. A spell hummed through the air, deep and resonant, like a storm rolling in from the horizon.

  Aida stilled. Then— her body began to disintegrate.

  Not violently. Not like something being torn away.

  Softly.

  Ash lifted in slow, curling wisps, dissolving into the still air. It flaked from her fingers, from her arms, from the soot-streaked curve of her cheek.

  She did not scream. She only blinked— once, twice— before her form crumbled entirely, the last fragments of her rising upward, lost to the sky.

  And then, she was gone.

  Callista remained kneeling, her arms still outstretched, empty now. Her breath shuddered, soundless, her entire body trembling beneath the weight of everything she had refused to feel.

  The Mirrorwood did not react.

  The wind had settled, the land around them suspended in unnatural stillness. The air felt too thin, too fragile— like the world itself had yet to catch up with what had just happened.

  “What the fuck did you just do?” Julia’s voice slashed through the silence, raw with horror, her words jagged and barely contained.

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  Callista’s head snapped up. Golden-brown eyes burned with something dangerous, but Julia did not back down.

  “She was your sister!” Julia spat, her hands shaking, her breath uneven. “You just— just killed her—”

  “No.” Callista’s voice cut through the space between them, cold and sharp as steel. “That was not Aida.”

  The weight of her words settled heavily in the air, suffocating, unrelenting. There was no hesitation. No doubt. Only certainty, solid as iron. Her grief was there— buried deep, locked behind something too strong to shatter.

  She exhaled once, slow and controlled, then rose to her full height, shoulders squared, spine straight. She was imposing. Not just in stature, but in presence.

  A force that had spent two years standing against the inevitable and refusing to break.

  “Aida died two years ago,” Callista said, her voice steady and deliberate. “Whatever followed you out of Byfox was just an echo. And now she can rest.”

  “You don’t know that!” Julia snapped, stepping forward, fury sparking like flint against stone.

  “I do.” Callista didn’t waver. Her gaze was measured, unwavering, unyielding. “I have been fighting this war for two years,” she said, her tone devoid of patience. “And you don’t have a clue what you’ve walked into.”

  Silence fell again, thick and suffocating. Callista’s gaze swept over them, sharp and assessing, calculating. Then, she locked eyes with Annemarie.

  The weight of it stole her breath.

  The bond thrummed violently beneath Annemarie’s skin, responding to Callista’s presence in a way that made her stomach twist. It wasn’t just recognition. It wasn’t just magic. It was something else, something deeper— something inevitable.

  Callista’s expression hardened. “Now,” she said, her voice dropping into something colder, deadlier. “Tell me why the fuck you’re here.”

  The weight of Callista’s words pressed against them, thick as smoke, settling over the group like an unshakable force. Aida’s ashes had barely faded into the air, yet Callista stood unshaken, staring them down with the intensity of someone who had been fighting alone for far too long.

  Her voice was sharp, measured— each word deliberate, honed to a razor’s edge. But beneath the exhaustion, beneath the unyielding steel of her stance, there was something else— something harder to name.

  Desperation.

  Melissa crossed her arms, unimpressed. “Wow. Not even a ‘thanks for coming’, huh?”

  Callista didn’t look at her. Didn’t react at all. Her gaze remained locked on Annemarie. “You felt it, didn’t you?” she asked, stepping closer, movements precise and controlled. “The pull? The bond?”

  She didn’t need to ask what Callista meant. She had felt it for weeks— pulling her across a world that wasn’t hers, carving something unfamiliar into her bones, something she couldn’t fight no matter how much she had tried.

  She swallowed hard. “Yes.”

  “Then you should have stayed away.”

  The words hit like a physical blow. Annemarie flinched, but Callista wasn’t finished.

  “This is not your fight,” she continued, her voice cutting, sharp as the edge of a blade. “This is not your war, Traveller. You have no idea what you’ve walked into.”

  “Then tell us,” Julia snapped, stepping forward. “Because we’ve been running across half of Iona trying to find you, and I’d love to know what exactly we almost died for.”

  Callista’s jaw tightened, frustration flickering across her face, her fingers flexing at her sides.

  But before she could speak, Annemarie took a shaky step forward. “We’re here because we had no choice,” she said, her voice unsteady but firm. “The bond—”

  “The bond is a curse,” Callista interrupted. Not cruel. Not mocking. Just stating a fact.

  A truth she had accepted long before Annemarie had even known the word alánder.

  “You think this is fate?” Callista asked. “That we were meant to find each other?”

  Annemarie hesitated. Yes. Yes, she had. Through all the uncertainty, through the impossible weight of what she had been forced into, through the fear and exhaustion— she had believed it meant something.

  Callista stepped closer, lowering her voice, and for the first time, there was no anger in her words. Just something raw. “It’s not fate. It’s a mistake. An accident of magic that should have been severed at birth.”

  Annemarie opened her mouth. Tried to argue. Tried to tell Callista she was wrong.

  But she couldn’t. Deep down, she had thought the same thing.

  Brenna, arms still folded, exhaled a slow breath. Steadied herself. “Look, I get that you’re tired and pissed off, and probably one bad night away from fully snapping, but—”

  She never got to finish.

  Callista’s gaze snapped to her, and for the first time she looked truly furious. Not frustrated. Not annoyed. Furious.

  “Do you think this is just about me?” Her voice was sharp enough to cut. She took a step forward, her entire presence shifting, burning, the air around her thick with something barely restrained. “Do you have any idea what I have been doing here?”

  She wasn’t looking at Brenna anymore. She was looking at all of them— at Annemarie, at Julia, at Melissa, at Brandon.

  She lifted a hand and gestured behind her, toward the Mirrorwood’s jagged, unnatural edge. The cursed land loomed like a living thing, writing just beyond the threshold where reality still held firm. The divide was stark—a clean, unbroken line where the corruption ended.

  “I have been keeping this at bay,” Callista said, voice low and seething. Her fingers curled into a fist. “Every day, every night— it wants to spread, and I stop it. Again and again.” Her breath hitched, but it wasn’t weakness. “I have given everything I have to hold this ground. And if I fail—”

  She stopped, but she didn’t need to finish. They all knew: If Callista failed, if she faltered, then the Mirrorwood would spread.

  Not the queen, not the nobles, not all the armies of the world could stop it.

  Callista had been standing here, alone, on the very edge of existence, holding back the tide with nothing but her own strength.

  And they had walked straight into it.

  The silence that followed was heavy, suffocating. No one moved. No one spoke.

  Then, finally, Callista exhaled a long, slow breath, and when she spoke again her voice was quieter. Not softer. Not kinder. Just final.

  “You shouldn’t have come.”

  Annemarie stared at Callista, stunned into silence. Not because she was intimidated. Not because Callista had somehow earned the right to shut her down.

  But because after everything— the sleepless nights, the constant pull westward, the visions that left her breathless and shaking— this was Callista’s response?

  “We shouldn’t have come?” Annemarie repeated, voice dangerously low. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  The others tensed at her tone. Even Melissa, who usually thrived on conflict, shot her a wary glance.

  Annemarie barely registered them anymore.

  Her hands curled into fists, nails biting into her palms. Her head pounded with exhaustion and the bond burned in her chest like a second, unwanted heartbeat. The pressure of it, the weight of weeks— months— of being dragged toward this moment, coiled so tightly inside her that she thought she might snap.

  “I have been dragged across half a goddamn continent,” she said, each word clipped and shaking with barely restrained fury. “Sleepwalking, blacking out, losing control of my own body—” She took a step, then another. Jabbed a finger at Callista’s chest, the contact sharp and accusatory. “And now you’re telling me you don’t even care?” Her voice cracked, but she ignored it. “That this whole thing was just a mistake?”

  Callista’s jaw tightened. Her expression remained unreadable, her golden-brown eyes locked onto Annemarie’s with something that looked almost like restraint.

  “I didn’t say I didn’t care,” she said, her voice even and controlled.

  “Sure sounds like it,” Annemarie snapped.

  Callista exhaled sharply, frustration rippling through her tense frame. But she didn’t step back. Instead, she met Annemarie’s fury head-on. “You think I haven’t suffered, too?” Callista asked, her words a sharp-edged blade slicing through the air between them. “You think you’re the only one who’s had to deal with this?”

  Annemarie hesitated, but only for a second. “Oh, so it has been bothering you?”

  Callista’s expression cracked. Not much. Not enough for most people to notice. But Annemarie saw the flicker of something behind her eyes— the slip of control, the barely-contained rage.

  Callista took a step forward, closing the distance between them. “Bothering me?” she hissed. “Annemarie, I have been ripped out of my own mind, dragged into the Mirrorwood time and time again because of this bond. I have been pulled into the dark, forced to fight for my life while my body is left defenseless—”

  Her breathing was uneven now, but her voice didn’t falter.

  “And every time I get closer to understanding this curse, every time I think I’m making progress—” Callista’s fists tightened, her magic stirring faintly in the air, “—I get dragged back. And the Mirrorwood surges. And my efforts to stop this thing suffer.”

  The wind had died completely. The world around them felt held in place, trapped between breaths, waiting.

  Annemarie stiffened. “The Curse has been getting worse?”

  Callista’s expression darkened. “Every time the bond pulls me toward you, the Mirrorwood takes advantage of my distraction.”

  Silence. A heavy, horrible silence.

  Melissa shifted uneasily, rubbing her arms. “Okay, so that’s bad.”

  Julia’s stomach twisted. “You’re saying the Curse has been spreading because of Annemarie?”

  “Because of the bond,” Callista corrected. Her voice was level, but there was no mistaking the weight behind her words. “And yes. It has.”

  The air felt colder. Annemarie felt something awful settle in her gut, heavier than exhaustion, heavier than the bond itself.

  It felt something like guilt.

  She had thought— hoped— that this bond had been affecting them both equally. That Callista, like her, had been suffering the same disorientation, the same sleepless, restless nights.

  But it was so much worse than that. It was affecting the entire world.