"I got some footage. Let me see if it loaded to the cloud before Thaniel fried my phone," Nina added. She did something on the backup phone for several seconds before a smile spread across her face. "It’s there. It’s not a great quality. The smoke kind of ruins most of it, but..."
She pulled up the video, and we crowded around the small screen. Aidon's arm came around my waist, anchoring me, while Tarja leaped to the dresser to get a better view. Mom leaned in from my other side with Nana behind her.
The footage showed the market crowd, shaky and unfocused, as Nina had tried to film while moving. Then a figure in a dark hood, just for a moment. Aidon’s finger darted out, reaching for the screen. "Pause it there."
Nina froze the frame. The figure's face was still hidden, but you could see the pale, extra-long fingers. And despite her claim, the quality was good enough to make out details I'd missed in the moment. Each finger had an extra joint. And the nails weren't black from polish or paint. They were blackened bone, curved and sharp like talons.
"What the hell is that?" Nina breathed.
"Nothing I recognize," Aidon said grimly.
"Nothing natural," Mom added, her voice tight. "That looks like a deliberate modification. Magical or surgical, I can't tell from a video, but that didn't happen by accident."
"Well, isn't that just peachy?" Nana muttered. "A monster with a makeover. Do we think this is a parting gift from Lyra?"
"Keep playing," Aidon said.
“That’s all for this one, but I have more. Hold on.” Nina scrolled back through the footage she'd captured before everything went to hell.
I hadn't even noticed her filming. I wasn't part of the generation that documented every breathing moment for the internet's consumption. But right now, I was damn grateful she was such a typical Gen Z-er, because what she'd caught on camera made my blood run cold.
The figure appeared twice more as Nina scrubbed through the video. Her phone screen cast a pale glow across her face. Each time she'd panned across the bustling market with her camera, there it was—lurking at the edges of the frame like a predator circling prey.
Always watching us and positioned with a clear line of sight to the strollers. My stomach dropped. This wasn't a coincidence. Someone had been hunting us long before we knew we were being followed. I'd been oblivious, worried about vegetables and whether my babies would behave.
“I should have monitored you closer,”Tarja projected, her mental voice thick with self-recrimination. “I would have sensed them.”
"You couldn’t have known," I reminded her. "We thought we were safe with Lyra gone."
"It’s clear now," Nana said, "that we need to try harder. We need to stick together until we know what we're dealing with."
Mom nodded. "Agreed. And I'm calling in some favors. The witches in the coven want to help more. They enjoyed being part of things."
Mythia zipped between the cribs, her agitation showing in the rapid flutter of her wings. "The pixies will keep our eyes and ears open. I’ll start asking around."
Aidon rewound the video to the clearest shot of the figure's hands. "Send this to Jean-Marc. He might be able to enhance the image and get us more details."
"On it." Nina's fingers flew across her screen.
Aidon kept staring at the frozen frame. "The energy you described—reddish-orange and reeking of decay. That's not standard offensive magic."
"No kidding." I crossed my arms, suddenly cold despite the room's temperature returning to normal. "It felt... hungry. Like it wanted toconsume."
"It’s like a wraith," he said, his voice going dark and deadly.
"Is that what we're dealing with? Some kind of wraith?"
"If it is, they've been altered." His hand tightened on my waist, fingers pressing into my hip hard enough to bruise. "It could have been modified, like Mollie suggested. Not only do they look different, but wraiths are opportunistic scavengers. This thing? This thing had intent." His jaw flexed. "If that had hit Melaina?—"
"It didn't." I turned to face him fully, cupping his face in my hands and forcing him to look at me instead of spiraling into whatever nightmare scenario was playing out in his head. "It didn't, because Nina reacted fast, and my deflection worked. They're safe."
"This time." He leaned into my touch, his eyes closing briefly. When they opened again, the fear there gutted me. "Phoebe, something is hunting our children. Something with enough power and knowledge to track you to a market, cloak itself from detection, and launch an attack that could have killed on impact."
“I know,” I replied.
"We need to call Stella and tell Layla, Selene, Tseki, and Murtagh." Aidon looked around the room. "The witches are fineand good, but we need the rest of our family up to speed. I want to find this thing before it gets another chance."
"I can’t wait," Nana said with a smile that could freeze fire, "to introduce it to the concept of consequences."
