“Or a cover,” Amara says. “Or both.”
Silas pushes off the doorframe. His expression has shifted—the detached Council envoy is gone, replaced by something more alert. “I think we need to talk to Dahlia.”
“Dahlia?” Griffin frowns.
“She’s an Omega shadow witch. If anyone in this town has insight into what’s happening with the Rift and the Omega population, it’s her.”
I shake my head. “Dahlia doesn’t remember her visions after they happen. It’s like a dream—she wakes up, and the details are gone. All she retains is the feeling. And the last time she had one, she said one thing that stuck.”
“What? She had a vision? When?” Amara asks.
“Just before we came here. Silas saw her by the rift. She was looking terrified, her eyes glazed over. She said death was coming.”
Griffin pales. Amara’s jaw tightens.
Silas is quiet for a moment, processing. Then: “How did she even end up as an Omega shadow witch? Those two things don’t naturally coexist. Shadow magic is hereditary, passed through bloodlines. Omega designation is biological. The odds of both occurring in a single person are?—”
“Almost nonexistent,” I say. “Which is why it’s never happened before. At least not in any recorded history I can find.”
“So how do you explain Dahlia?”
I look at each of them in turn. Amara. Griffin. Silas. Three people who, an hour ago, I would have kept this from without hesitation. But things have changed. The rules have changed.
“Dahlia is adopted,” I say.
The word drops like a stone.
“No one knows this,” I continue. “Not the town, not the other kids, not even Dahlia herself. Her parents brought her to Willowbrook when she was an infant. They never filed the adoption through Council channels—they went through a private intermediary, someone who handled it quietly. I only know because my father was the one who helped them. He did a favor for a friend, and that favor was making the paperwork disappear.”
“Why?” Silas asks. “Why go to such lengths to hide the adoption?”
“I don’t know. But whatever the reason, it means Dahlia’s biological lineage is a mystery. We don’t know where she came from, who her birth parents are, or what’s in her blood. She could have shadow witch ancestry from any number of lineages. She could have Omega markers from a bloodline nobody’s tracked. We don’t know why she’s an anomaly. We don’t know what she has to do with the Rift, if anything.”
“But there’s something we’re missing,” Amara says quietly.
“Yeah.” I rub the back of my neck. “There’s something we’re missing.”
Silas is staring at the floor, his brow furrowed. I can practically see the gears turning—every piece of information he’s gathered since he arrived in Willowbrook, every report he’s supposed to file, every assumption he’s been told to make. Reassessing. Recalculating.
“If the Rift is being manipulated,” he says slowly, “and the mechanism is the Omega population, then whoever is doing this understands the connection between Omega magic and ley lines on a level that goes beyond standard Council research. That’s not common knowledge. That’s specialized.”
“Specialized how?”
“I don’t know yet. But I intend to find out.”
The sound of footsteps down the hall makes us all turn. Caroline appears in the doorway, dressed in cozy pajamas—fleece pants with little stars on them and an oversized T-shirt that slips off one shoulder. Her hair is damp, combed back from her face. She looks softer than I’ve ever seen her.
“What are you talking about?” she asks.
“Nothing,” Amara says, a little too quickly. “Just town stuff. How are you feeling?”
“Better. Tired.” She pads into the room, Thistle weaving between her feet. “I’m craving something salty. I would kill for some potato chips.”
Amara glances at me, then at Griffin. “How about we order a pizza and watch a movie? You can put all the salty toppings you want on it.”
Caroline’s face lights up. “That sounds amazing.”
“Actually,” I push off from the mantel, “Silas and I have something we need to check out. We’ll be back in a few hours.”
