I snatched it back, clutched it to my chest.“I’m fine.It was weird for a moment.”
Dougal stepped closer, his gaze fixed on me now.His voice dropped low, urgent.“Don’t hesitate when the time comes,” he said, as though he sensed something horrible was about to go down.“Once it’s drawn to you, there’s no going back.”
I met his eyes, still clutching the Disk that hummed against my ribs.“I won’t.”
Owen’s hand stayed on my back, steadying me.“Dad… the grimoire already recognized her.Will the Disk—”
“It’s keyed to the same bloodline,” Dougal said, cutting him off.His gaze stayed on me.“Guardian relics answer to Alice’s line.The grimoire woke when you touched it.The Disk will bind to you the same way.”
“Bind?”My voice came out smaller than I meant it.
“Acknowledge you,” Dougal corrected gently.“The grimoire called across the veil.The Disk will anchor you to the Crossroads itself—make you visible to the land, not to what’s trying to break through.”
Owen’s grip tightened.“So when she uses it—”
“It’ll recognize her as Guardian,” Dougal said.“Properly this time.Not inheritance—choice.”
“We need to go,” Owen said.
Dougal held my gaze a moment longer, then nodded once.“Go.”
Owen ushered me toward the door.
We were out of the shop and back in his truck in minutes.I scanned the parking lot across the street looking for Rylyn.She’d disappeared into the night, leaving me with nothing but my raw regret.
I needed to do better.
I would.
Right after I stopped whatever was turning my life into a hunting ground.
I gripped the disk between both hands as Owen drove like a race car driver from town toward the woods.I didn’t have time to worry about his driving—I was too busy trying to understand the feeling coursing through me while I held it.
It was ancient.As though it knew me, which was insane.Whatever was humming through the talisman and into me was tuning itself to me.Sensing me.Merging with me.
That wasn’t possible.
Was it?
It was as if it knew I was Alice’s blood.
Owen pulled the truck to a halt and cut the engine.Seconds later we were out, moving fast through the woods as the sun dipped dangerously close to the horizon.
I noticed it then—the shimmer on the leaves and the trees and the ground.Not frost.
A gold-threaded distortion that led us deeper, tugging like a thread in my ribs.
The woods were unnaturally quiet, too.No birdsong.No cicadas.No rustling of underbrush.
As we approached the clearing, the shimmer thickened, gathering at the base of the old hickory tree where the crossing still stood open—black sludge bubbling like a wound that refused to close.
And someone stood near it.
Garrat.Tall, dark, too still and half a step away from the bubbling edge, as if the crossing itself had spit him out and he hadn’t bothered to hide the fact.
Garrat.
He turned his head slowly, like he’d been waiting for us.
