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“We’re talking about calling on Hecate, and Hecate isn’t a cosmic goddess. She’s the goddess of crossroads, thresholds, and liminal spaces.” Her eyes are steady, and I flash to Miles telling me the same thing in the library when I was searching for answers about T, which feels like a lifetime ago. “Her domain is the boundary between worlds. Saying Hecate can’t be summoned across a threshold would be like saying a fish can’t be summoned into water. You’re not pulling her somewhere she doesn’t belong. You’re inviting her into the space she already occupies.”

With that, she disappears through the back door, and I hear heavy objects being moved and pages being turned. I look at Logan, whose face is doing the thing where his left eyebrow is slightly higher than his right, which in Logan language translates roughly to everything I thought I knew just shifted, and I’m recalculating.

“The Council spent centuries looking for those scrolls,” he finally says. “And they’ve been in a coven library in Pine Valley this entire time.”

“Apparently so.” I reach for his hand, and my electricity buzzes against it in a way that feels like hope, which is a dangerous feeling to have when you’re a star touched champion with no celestial weapon, a Revenant boyfriend, and a goddess who won’t return your calls.

But hey, given that we survived a sea that tried to kill us, and no one suspects that Logan’s the exact thing I’m supposed to destroy, I’ll take it.

20

JADE

I’ve done a lot of questionable things in the last three months. I’ve electrocuted a Hydra, fallen in love with a Revenant, and voluntarily eaten Papa John’s pizza. But standing at the entrance to Pine Valley at midnight, holding a torch, waiting to summon a goddess so she can deliver a message to the goddess who’s been ignoring me might be the most ridiculous thing I’ve done yet.

However, Thalia thinks the entrance is a good place for the ceremony, since Hecate is the goddess of the crossroads, so here we are.

Shifters are in clusters along the road, some fully human, some partway shifted with amber eyes catching the moonlight. Ruby and Connor are at the front, shoulders touching, radiating the calm authority of two people who’ve done enough impossible things in the last two years that a midnight goddess summoning ritual barely registers as unusual. Then there’s Logan three feet to my left, holding his own torch with hands that could rewind time if this all goes wrong, and my electricity is doing erratic things along my arms that I’m blaming entirely on the situation and absolutely not on his fire magic reaching for mine across the gap between us.

Focus, Jade. You’re about to light a pyre and talk to a crossroads goddess. This is not the time to worry about your overly powerful Revenant boyfriend who’s currently surrounded by wolf shifters that would kill him in a heartbeat if they knew what he is.

I take an instinctive step toward him anyway, as if that could make a difference if this all goes to hell.

Four shifters step forward, carrying clay plates piled with bread, garlic, eggs, honey, and dark red wine. They kneel at the base of the gate and place the plates in a row along the threshold line. When the last plate is set, the shifters retreat, and Thalia steps forward with the scroll in her free hand and her torch in the other.

“Jade, you stand there.” She points across from her. “Logan, you stand between us.”

I move into position, and Thalia and Logan’s fire signatures press against my skin from two directions. Thalia’s is warm and steady from my right, Logan’s cooler and more contained from my left.

My chest tightens. Every witch has a unique magical signature… but what if someone suspects Logan’s cooler one? What if someone points at him and says Revenant? What if shifters are strong enough to kill Revenants? What if⁠—

“The ritual requires unified intent, such as three witches opening the crossroads as a single act,” Thalia says, snapping me out of my spiraling thoughts so intensely that I nearly fall over.

Somehow getting ahold of myself, I tighten my grip around the torch. The flame leans toward the pyre as if it’s eager to get started, and my fire magic is reaching for the stacked wood with a hunger that mirrors the pull I felt toward the divine wards last night.

“Be ready in three,” Thalia says slowly, starting the countdown. “Two. One.”

We lower our torches, three flames hit the wood at the same moment, and the pyre’s fire climbs fast. The column stretches upward toward the dome, and the wards respond with a ripple of silver light that races outward from the point directly overhead.

Thalia opens the scroll and starts reading.

The language is older than anything I’ve encountered in three months of fire magic theory at Blaze… and I sat through Professor Carver’s lectures on ancient ceremonial forms.

As Thalia’s voice rises, the flames shift color. Deep orange, to red, then to a violet so dark it’s almost black.

I glance at Logan, but there are no black flames around him.

Good. The orange fire in his torch is controlled and unremarkable, which is exactly what we need from him tonight. Boring. Bland. Definitely not a time-traveling Revenant at all.

Thalia’s voice builds to a crescendo, the final word vibrating inside my skull.

When she’s done, we look to the fire, waiting for something—anything. But it keeps its steady crackle, the glow of the wards doesn’t flicker, and the offerings sit there going cold on their clay plates. The only magic moving in this clearing is mine, restless under my skin, sparking at my fingertips and finding nothing to answer it.

I look at Thalia, who’s spinning her maybe-but-probably-not ankar token ring on her finger. I look at Logan, whose jaw has tightened by a fraction. Then I look back at the fire, which is doing absolutely nothing divine.

Seriously? I’m in a shifter sanctuary, holding a torch next to ancient scrolls and clay plates full of garlic bread. What else does Hecate want from me?

My electricity dies against the torch shaft, and the hope that’s been building all day turns into the same frustration I’ve been carrying since T vanished and left me to figure out the rest on my own.