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Of course she fucking drank.

I stand at the edge of the crowd and watch Sage McBride lower the cup from her mouth.

For two hundred and thirty-five years, the Earth beneath Ward Farm has been silent… not dead.

Ezra likes to call it dead. He needs it to be dead.

I know better.

Dead things don’t wait.

The Earth has been waiting and tonight, it takes its first full breath.

The stage shudders under Sage’s boots and her knees bend making her eyes widen.

She felt it.

Good.

Around her, hundreds of people scream and cheer as the music starts again.

They don’t feel anything. Why would they? They aren’t part of this. They’re noise. Bodies. Heat. Offerings of excess without ever knowing what they’re giving. They drink because they’re thirsty. Eat because they’re hungry. Dance because the music tells them to and they touch because they want to.

The old ones would’ve called it worship. Now… they call it Halloween.

The Earth doesn’t care what name we give it.

Sage looks directly at me.

Finally.

I’ve watched her all night and now she sees me. The red ribbon around her wrist gleams under the lights.

Beautiful. Wrong… but right.

I mouth the only words that matter.

YOU’RE HERE.

The Earth pulses again, she stumbles but Ezra moves immediately.

Of course he does.

He reaches the stage before Rhett—before me.

His hands close around her waist as she steps down.

She startles. “Jesus.”

“I’ve got you.”

“I can walk.”

“Clearly.”

She shoves at his chest. “Was that sarcasm?”

“No.”