The Autumn Court smelled like burning leaves and secrets.
Caelan walked through its corridors with the ghost of Rowan’s touch still lingering on his chest. It made him…irritable. Distracted. He hated both those things.
She was human.
She was trouble.
She was also, infuriatingly, very much *herself,* even in her dreams.
“Stop smiling,” Lucien said from behind him. “It’s unnerving.”
Caelan’s jaw snapped shut. “I’m not.”
“You are,” Lucien said. “It’s very small and very smug, but it’s there. Like a cat that just knocked a priceless vase off a shelf.”
They turned a corner. Servants scattered, pressing themselves to the walls as the two men passed. A pair of courtiers—a man with sapphire antlers and a woman with hair like smoke—fell abruptly silent mid-gossip.
“Interesting timing,” the woman murmured when she thought Caelan was out of earshot. “The mortal’s nearing her coming-of-age and he can’t stay away from the seams.”
“Maybe he’s finally going to shatter something useful,” the antlered man replied. “One can hope.”
Caelan’s ears twitched.
Lucien noticed. “You’re going to grind your teeth into dust if you listen to every idiot with an opinion,” he said.
“We should replace them with iron,” Caelan muttered. “Idiots and teeth.”
Lucien snorted. “Spoken like a true prince.”
They reached the outer doors of the throne hall.
They were not the largest doors in the Palace—that honor belonged to the gates of the Hunt Yard—but they were certainly the most ornate. Carved from a single slab of dark wood, inlaid with veins of amber and copper, they depicted scenes of Autumn glory—harvest feasts, triumphant hunts, the first King crowning himself with a wreath of leaves and antlers.
If you looked closely enough, though, in the curls of vine and the shadows under the trees, you could see other things. Thin, small figures in chains. Faces in the roots. Eyes that didn’t belong to any mortal animal.
Caelan pushed them open.
The throne hall was a forest turned inside out. Stone pillars rose like trunks, their capitals carved into leaves and branches that curled into an arched ceiling painted to look like twilight sky. The floor was glossy wood, inlaid with patterns that shifted if you stared at them too long.
At the far end, on a dais of intertwined branches and horns, the Autumn King sat on his throne.
He looked worse.
The last time Caelan had seen him, there had been color in his cheeks. Now, his skin was the color of old paper, his cheekbones too sharp. A cloak of fox fur and fallen leaves draped his shoulders, more for appearance than warmth—the throne hall was always temperate, magic holding the air at a comfortable chill.
His eyes, though—amber, sharp—were bright.
To his right, on a lower seat that was still obnoxiously elaborate, lounged Lady Maerlyn, High Seat of Thorns. Old even by their standards, she wore her age like another jewel—hair white as fresh snow braided with black thorns, skin a map of fine lines, lips painted the deep red of overripe fruit. Her gown was a tangle of dark green silk and briars that moved on their own, pricking anyone who stood too close.
To the King’s left, standing with her weight on one hip, was Aisling.
The stolen girl.
She was not a girl anymore, strictly speaking. Twenty-five, like Rowan. But where Rowan’s twenty-five had been marked by bookstore dust and cheap coffee and small, careful hopes, Aisling’s had been marked by blood and pleasure and learning how to smile without showing teeth.
Her hair was a bright, unnatural gold, like sunlight caught in glass. It fell in loose waves down her back, threaded with tiny bits of metal—gold, copper, the occasional glint of iron, though she never touched it with her bare hands. Her eyes were green, bright and sharp, rimmed in kohl that made them look even larger.
She wore a dress the color of wet leaves, cut to show off long legs and strong arms. A thin circlet of bronze rested on her brow, shaped like curling vines.
She looked human.
She did not *move* human.
When she turned her head, it was with a serpent’s fluidity. When she smiled, it was slow and deliberate, like a blade being drawn.
“Brother,” she said, the word a purr.
Caelan resisted the urge to bristle. They were not actually related, though the Court liked to pretend. It made for better stories—two siblings, one stolen, one left.
“Aisling,” he said.
She pushed off the dais and sauntered down a few steps, hips swaying. “I heard you went to see her,” she said. “Our little mirror.”
The Court murmured. Gossip traveled faster than magic here.
“I did,” Caelan said.
“And?” Lady Maerlyn asked, voice like dry leaves. “Did she sprout thorns and start singing prophecies?”
Maerlyn was dangerous. Not because of her age or her power—though she had plenty of both—but because she’d survived so many coups and changes of king that she saw everything as a move in a game.
“She alphabetizes fantasy novels,” Caelan said dryly. “If that is a sign of world-ending power, we are all more doomed than I thought.”
A ripple of amusement went through the hall.
The King smirked faintly. “You always did like to downplay things,” he rasped. “Come closer, boy. Let your old man see if mortal air has improved your complexion.”
Caelan crossed the hall, Lucien drifting along at a respectful distance.
Aisling watched him, head tilted like a bird of prey.
“You smell like her,” she said. “Under the Court. Human dust. Paper. Cheap soap.”
“You smell like boredom,” he said. “Have you been torturing poets again?”
She smiled, unoffended. “They like it.”
“Everyone likes something bad for them,” Lucien muttered under his breath. “That doesn’t make it healthy.”
Lady Maerlyn tapped her long black nails on the arm of her seat. “Enough foreplay,” she said. “We are here to discuss the mortal girl.”
“And my impending death,” the King said. “Don’t leave that out. It’s very important to me.”
“You’ve been impending for a decade,” Maerlyn said. “We grow bored.”
The King wheezed a laugh. Then his gaze sharpened on Caelan.
“Well?” he said. “Tell them.”
Caelan scanned the hall. Faces watched him—some curious, some hostile, some amused. He saw the Huntmaster leaning in a shadowed alcove, arms crossed, eyes like chips of flint. He saw Whisper’s flickering shape half-hidden among the carved branches of the ceiling, ember eyes bright.
He pitched his voice to carry.
“I went to the mortal realm,” he said. “I spoke with the changeling. I made her an offer.”
Murmurs.
“An offer,” Maerlyn repeated. “Without the Council’s assent.”
“The King gave me leave,” Caelan said.
All eyes flicked to the King.
He smiled, slow and lazy. “I did,” he said. “Surprise. I’m still in charge, in between coughing up organs.”
A low chuckle rippled around the room.
Maerlyn’s lips thinned.
“And what did you offer?” the Huntmaster asked. His voice was rough, like someone who’d swallowed gravel. “Our hounds are eager. It has been long since they had such sport.”
“I offered her the choice to come as my guest,” Caelan said. “Under my protection. To learn. To train. To see what she is before you decide whether to kill her or not.”
Laughter, sharper this time.
“Always so romantic,” Aisling murmured.
Maerlyn’s gaze narrowed. “You would bind yourself to her,” she said. “Make her your…pet project.”
“Yes,” Caelan said simply.
“And if she turns out to be the fire that burns us,” Maerlyn said, “you will take the blame.”
“Yes,” he said again.
The King watched him with that half-amused, half-appraising look he wore when his favorite dog did a new trick.
Lucien shifted next to him, nearly imperceptible. *Are you sure?* his eyes asked.
Caelan was not.
He was committed anyway.
“Why should we trust you with this?” Maerlyn asked. “You have always been…soft.”
“Soft?” Lucien muttered. “Tell that to the swamp rebellion.”
Caelan ignored both of them. “Because I have been the one watching her for twenty-five years,” he said. “I know her patterns. I know her attachments. None of you care enough to have bothered.”
“Attachment,” Whisper hissed from the rafters. “Yes. You have grown…attached.”
A ripple of discomfort flicked through the hall. Whisper’s voice did that—hit those places in people they didn’t like to admit existed.
Caelan’s jaw tightened. “I have grown…informed,” he said. “There is a difference.”
“Is there?” Whisper whispered.
Aisling slid down the last few steps and sauntered toward him. She stopped a pace away, looking up through thick lashes.
“What is she like?” she asked. “Our…other self.”
Caelan studied her.
Aisling’s beauty was…deliberate. Crafted. The Court had poured gifts into her from the moment she arrived, a baby with a mortal’s fragile bones and a mortal’s short lifespan. They’d propped her up like a doll and taught her how to dance on knives.
“You’ve seen her,” he said. “In the scrying pools. In dreams.”
“It’s not the same as…being in the same room,” she said. “Feeling her *breathe.*” Her gaze sharpened. “Does she look like me?”
“No,” he said.
Her lips parted. “No?” she repeated.
“Similar bones,” he allowed. “Similar…foundation. But she is not carved the way you are. She is…softer. Stronger, in other ways. She walks like no one is watching.”
Maerlyn barked a laugh. “Poor thing,” she said. “Imagine living like that.”
Aisling’s fingers curled. “You told her about me?” she asked.
“Yes,” Caelan said.
A tiny crack appeared in her composure. “What did she say?”
“That you have her life,” he said. “And you might want it back.”
Murmurs.
Aisling’s jaw clenched. “Do I?” she asked, as if daring him to say yes.
He held her gaze. “Do you?”
She smiled, slow and sharp. “I have never had her life,” she said. “I have had *mine.*”
It was half a lie, half a truth. Typical Court answer.
“She has your…humanity,” Whisper hissed.
Aisling shot it a look of pure loathing.
“She has a job,” Maerlyn said, amused. “And rent. And student loans, probably.”
Several courtiers shuddered theatrically.
“She has…mundanity,” Lucien murmured. “Coffee and laundry and long bus rides. Things we write poems about and never experience.”
Aisling’s hand twitched. “I can have coffee whenever I like,” she said.
“It’s not the same,” Lucien said, something thoughtful in his tone.
Caelan cleared his throat. “We’re not here to debate the merits of barista culture,” he said. “We’re here to decide whether we let the prophecy drive us…or whether we drive it.”
Maerlyn’s eyes glittered. “You think you can…harness it,” she said. “Use the mortal girl as a…tool.”
“I think if we treat her as a threat,” he said, “she will become one.”
“And if we treat her as a pet?” the Huntmaster asked. “Will she become a lapdog?”
“No,” Caelan said. “She would bite.”
A few chuckles.
“The King has already given his blessing,” Caelan continued. “He has made it clear that if she comes under my protection and I fail to keep her from destroying us, the consequences will be…mine.”
Heads turned toward the throne again.
The King smiled lazily. “He summarized correctly,” he said.
Maerlyn’s mouth thinned. “You are willing to stake the Court’s future on this…personal experiment,” she said.
“I am willing to stake mine,” he corrected. “The Court’s future is already staked on her, whether we like it or not. The prophecy saw to that.”
Whisper’s ember-eyes glowed. “The story has teeth,” it murmured. “You can pull some. Not all.”
Aisling’s eyes glittered. “What if I want to go?” she asked.
Silence fell like a dropped curtain.
The King’s brows rose. “Go where?” he asked mildly, as if she’d asked to go to the market, not to another world.
“To *her* world,” Aisling said. “To see the other side. To smell this…coffee. To walk down a street without anyone bowing. To see what she’s done with my…raw material.”
The Court buzzed.
Maerlyn’s expression went from annoyed to alarmed in a heartbeat. “Absolutely not,” she snapped. “We can hardly manage one cross-world complication. Two would unravel us.”
“Afraid I’ll prefer their bland little lives to your knives?” Aisling asked sweetly.
“Afraid you’ll get yourself killed and take half our border magic with you,” Maerlyn said. “You are ours. Rooted. We poured too much of ourselves into you to risk you dissolving in their sky.”
Aisling’s jaw flexed. “I can handle myself,” she said.
“She’s not wrong about that,” Lucien murmured.
Caelan shot him a look. “You are not helping.”
“I never help,” Lucien said. “It’s part of my charm.”
The King cleared his throat, a wet, ugly sound. The hall quieted instantly.
“Children,” he said. “Stop scratching at each other for a moment.”
Aisling’s shoulders tightened. She hated being called that.
“The mortal girl will come or she will not,” the King said. “Caelan will either succeed in charming her into our jaws, or he will die trying. Either way, it will be…interesting.” His gaze slid to Aisling. “You, little thorn, will stay where you are for now.”
Her eyes flashed. “You can’t keep me caged.”
He smiled, all teeth. “Watch me.”
She opened her mouth.
Whisper dropped from the rafters like a spider, landing in a crouch between them. Its thorn-shadow limbs flexed, ember eyes wide.
“Oh, do go,” it whispered to Aisling. “Start a war. Tear the sky. Bleed on the roots.”
Several courtiers shuddered.
“Do not encourage her,” Maerlyn snapped.
“I encourage…everyone,” Whisper said pleasantly. “It makes the story more interesting.”
The King massaged his temple. “Enough,” he said. “We are all very dramatic. It’s exhausting.” He pointed at Caelan. “You. Go back to your mortal. Talk her into this madness. Or don’t. Either way, report back.”
He pointed at Aisling. “You. Stay away from the seams. If I hear you so much as *think* about leaving, I will lock you in the library with only agricultural treatises for a year.”
Aisling recoiled. “You monster.”
He grinned. “I know.”
Maerlyn’s gaze flicked between Caelan and Aisling, calculation in every line.
“This will end in blood,” she said.
“Yes,” Whisper said happily. “The question is whose.”
***
After the Court session, Lucien dragged Caelan to a balcony overlooking the North Garden.
Below, red and gold leaves carpeted the lawn. A fountain carved in the shape of a stag poured water that looked like molten moonlight into a pool ringed with black stones.
“You’re scowling,” Lucien said, leaning on the rail. “More than usual.”
“I don’t like Whisper taking such an interest,” Caelan said. “It never ends well.”
“It never ends *tamely,*” Lucien corrected. “There’s a difference.”
“Aisling wants to go to the mortal world,” Caelan said. “That will end *badly.*”
“Depends on your definition of ‘badly,’” Lucien said. “For us? Probably. For her? Might be fun.”
Caelan rubbed a hand over his face. “We’re all going to die.”
“Everyone dies,” Lucien said. “The question is whether or not you get to kiss someone interesting before it happens.”
Caelan’s hand stilled. “You have been spending too much time with the poets,” he said.
Lucien’s eyes glinted. “You were awfully close to that mortal in the dream,” he said. “From what Whisper showed me.”
Caelan stiffened. “You were…watching,” he said slowly.
“Whisper was watching,” Lucien said. “I was merely…in the vicinity.”
“Get out of my dreams,” Caelan said, teeth clenched.
“Tell your subconscious not to project images onto the rafters,” Lucien retorted. “Seriously, though. You like her.”
Caelan stared out at the garden. “I don’t…know her,” he said for what felt like the hundredth time.
“You know enough,” Lucien said. “Enough that the idea of her walking into this Court untrained, unprotected, unclaimed, makes you want to set the place on fire.”
Caelan didn’t answer.
Lucien sighed. “You’re not the only one dancing on knives,” he said. “She is too. She’s human. They’re always…messy. Soft. Brave.” His mouth twisted. “We break them. Or we love them. Sometimes both.”
“I am not going to…” Caelan stopped. His jaw worked. “This isn’t about me,” he said.
“Everything is about you,” Lucien said, too dry to be mocking. “That’s the burden of being a protagonist.”
Caelan snorted.
Lucien’s expression softened. “Listen,” he said quietly. “When you go back…don’t just talk at her. Don’t just dump prophecies on her like rotten fruit. Ask what *she* wants. Even if it’s something you can’t give. Especially then.”
“She wants to stay,” Caelan said. “To keep her life. Her grandmother. Her friends.”
“Of course she does,” Lucien said. “So we figure out how much of that she can carry with her. And how much she’s willing to risk.” He nudged Caelan’s arm. “You’re not just selling her on your Court. You’re selling her on *you.* And I mean that in the least sexual way possible.”
Caelan gave him a look. “That was a very specific caveat.”
Lucien smirked. “I saw the way you looked at her. And the way she nearly kissed you.”
“I pulled away,” Caelan said sharply.
Lucien’s brows rose. “How noble.”
“She deserves better than…entangling herself with a fae prince while deciding whether to throw her life into our meat grinder,” Caelan snapped. “Her choices need to be clear, not clouded by—”
“Lust?” Lucien suggested.
“Confusion,” Caelan said.
Lucien laughed. “Keep telling yourself that.”
Something in Caelan snapped. “You think this is amusing?” he demanded. “You think I *enjoy* this? Being dragged between a promise I made to my King, a prophecy older than both of us, and a girl who looks at me like I’m both a lifeline and a knife?”
Lucien’s amusement faded. “No,” he said quietly. “I don’t think you enjoy it. I think you’re terrible at enjoying anything that isn’t a strategic advantage.” He paused. “Except, perhaps, her.”
Caelan looked away.
“It’s not about pleasure,” he said. “It’s about…weight.” He closed his eyes briefly. “When she said my name in that dream…everything tilted.”
Lucien’s fingers tapped a restless rhythm on the railing. “She has a claim on you now,” he said. “More than she did before.”
“And I on her,” Caelan said. “Yes.”
Lucien let out a low whistle. “Possessive, are we?”
Caelan glared at him. “Not like that.”
“Like what, then?” Lucien asked mildly.
“Like…gravity,” Caelan said, frustrated. “Like…a center of balance. She is…where things cross. Our world and hers. Old magic and new. If I stand near her, I can…nudge what falls which way.”
Lucien eyed him. “You’re dancing very close to ‘fate’ talk.”
“I hate ‘fate’ talk,” Caelan muttered. “Fate is lazy storytelling.”
“Tell that to Whisper,” Lucien said. “It wants a front-row seat.”
A crow—Ash—flapped down to land on the railing between them. He tilted his head, looking from one to the other, then cawed sharply.
“Report,” Caelan said.
The crow opened his beak. Images spilled out—not exactly pictures, not exactly words. Feelings. Impressions.
Rowan in her kitchen, pouring tea. Rowan and her friends spread out on the floor with books and a laptop, scribbling notes. Rowan touching the window glass, staring out at the street with a look that was half longing, half dread.
“She’s…studying us,” Lucien said, amused. “Adorable.”
“She’s preparing,” Caelan said. “Good.”
Ash pecked his knuckles, then hopped to Lucien’s shoulder to preen his hair.
Traitor.
Caelan flicked a leaf off the railing.
“I have to go back,” he said.
Lucien nodded. “Soon,” he agreed. “Before someone else gets there first.”
Caelan’s stomach tightened. “You think Aisling will try something.”
“I think,” Lucien said, “that she has spent twenty-five years being told that her life was a consolation prize. That there is another girl out there with her face and her DNA and a *different* set of choices. I think that would drive anyone a little mad.”
Caelan didn’t disagree.
“And I think,” Lucien added, “that Maerlyn and certain others wouldn’t mind if the prophecy…resolved itself…without their bloody hands on it.”
“You mean if Aisling kills Rowan,” Caelan said.
Lucien’s eyes were steady. “Or vice versa.”
Caelan’s grip on the stone tightened. “I won’t let that happen.”
Lucien smiled faintly. “Then you’d better hurry.”
***
In her tower rooms at the far edge of the Palace, Aisling slammed the door behind her and stalked to the window.
Outside, the wildwood loomed—a dark, tangled line along the horizon where the Court thinned and the Between began. She could feel the seams from here, faint tugging sensations just under her skin, like someone plucking a harp string too softly to hear but not softly enough to ignore.
She pressed her hands to the glass.
“Stupid,” she muttered. “Stupid, stupid, stupid.”
They’d laughed at her.
They always laughed.
Little human, they’d thought when she first arrived. Little soft thing. Let’s see how long she lasts.
She’d learned fast.
How to twist words like vines. How to smile with her teeth together. How to make people bleed without lifting a knife.
How to swallow iron with a straight face.
(That last one had hurt. A lot.)
She’d done everything they asked. More. She’d been the perfect little experiment. A human raised fae. A trophy. A symbol of their “mercy.” Their “innovation.”
And still, they treated her like a child.
Like a pet.
Like something they’d grown in a greenhouse and could prune or toss on the compost pile at will.
Meanwhile, out there, in a world of fluorescent lights and microwaves and people who didn’t bow when she walked by, another version of her had been living a different life.
Waking up to alarm clocks. Going to school. Working jobs.
Falling in love, probably. Or at least lust.
The idea scraped her nerve endings raw.
They’d all watched Rowan, of course. How could they not? The prophecy had wrapped around her like vines as soon as she drew breath. Whisper had slithered into anyone’s ear who would listen, hissing about “the blood of both worlds.”
From the first time Aisling saw Rowan in a scrying bowl—small, serious, hair in messy pigtails, glaring at a teacher who’d told her fairies were make-believe—something had twisted in her chest.
“This is you,” they whispered. “This is who you would have been. Look. Look what you missed.”
She’d refused to.
She’d told herself she didn’t care.
But on nights when the Palace was too loud, when the halls echoed with laughter that sounded like teeth clicking, she’d crept down to the scrying chambers and watched.
A girl blowing out birthday candles over a lopsided cake. A girl crying in a school bathroom, fists clenched. A girl kissing someone behind a row of lockers, then laughing, bright and startled, when the fire alarm went off.
A girl sitting by an old woman’s bed, eyes red, hand tightly wrapped around a wrinkled one.
A girl standing in a bookstore, arguing with a man with silver eyes.
Caelan.
Jealousy ate at her like acid.
Not because of Caelan, specifically. He was…interesting. Pretty. Powerful. A challenge. They’d tangled before, in battle and in bed.
But Aisling didn’t crave him the way some did.
She craved…*choice.*
Rowan had grown up making small ones, all her life. What to wear. Where to work. Who to kiss. Whether to go home for Christmas.
Aisling’s choices had always been…large. Dramatic. Who to ally with. Who to eviscerate. Which High Seat to flatter, which to insult.
No one had ever asked her where she wanted to *live.*
She pressed her forehead to the glass.
“I want it,” she whispered. “I want to see.”
The wildwood seemed to lean closer. The line between worlds hummed.
“You heard,” she said to it. “In there. How he talked about her. How they all did. ‘Mortal girl this.’ ‘Changeling that.’ Like we’re…pieces.”
The wind outside gusted. Leaves swirled in a small vortex.
“What if I break the board?” she whispered. “What if I tip the table?”
The wildwood didn’t answer.
But something else did.
A soft voice, from the shadows behind her. “I do love a girl with ambition.”
Aisling spun.
The woman in her room was tall and willowy, wearing a dress that looked like swamp water made silk—dark green and brown and black, swirling in patterns that hinted at shapes beneath the surface. Her hair hung in wet ropes, threaded with lilies. Her eyes were a murky gold, pupils dilated too wide.
“Mire Queen,” Aisling said, forcing her shoulders not to tense.
The ruler of the Marsh Court smiled, slow and sharp. “Child,” she said. “You look restless.”
“I’m not your child,” Aisling said. “I’m nobody’s.”
The Mire Queen’s smile widened. “Of course you are,” she said. “We all are. To someone. To something.”
She drifted closer. A faint smell like stagnant water and crushed herbs wafted from her.
“What do you want?” Aisling asked.
“To offer you something your King will not,” the Mire Queen said. “A chance.”
Aisling’s fingers dug into her own palms. “I’m listening.”
“Maerlyn is right about one thing,” the Mire Queen said. “If you go to the mortal world through the Autumn Court’s seams, you will…dissolve. Their magic clings to you too tightly. You’d drag half their border with you. They won’t risk it.” Her smile turned sly. “But my Court’s seams…are different.”
Aisling’s heart thudded. “Different how?”
“More…flexible,” the Mire Queen said. “More…forgiving. The marsh absorbs. It does not break. If you were to walk through one of *my* doors into their world, you would not tear any roots but mine.”
Aisling narrowed her eyes. “And what do you get out of this?”
The Mire Queen laughed, a bubbling sound. “Ah, child,” she said. “You think like them. Always calculating.” She tilted her head. “I get…chaos. And I am very fond of it. If you go to the mortal world, if you tug on that thread, everything here will…move. People will show their teeth. Alliances will shift. The Autumn King will cough harder.”
She leaned in, breath cool and damp against Aisling’s ear. “And when things…fall,” she whispered, “the marsh is always there to catch what sinks.”
Gooseflesh rose along Aisling’s arms.
“You’re using me,” she said.
“Of course,” the Mire Queen said. “The question is—will you use *me* in return? Or will you let Caelan and Maerlyn and all the rest decide what you are from the safety of their chairs?”
Her words slithered under Aisling’s skin.
She turned back to the window.
In the glass, her reflection wavered. For a heartbeat, she saw not herself but Rowan—hair darker, eyes different, but something in the set of the jaw so, *so* familiar.
“I want her life,” Aisling whispered. “Just for a little while. Just to…see. To know.”
“Then take it,” the Mire Queen said. “You are fae-raised, little thorn. You know how. Trade. Borrow. Steal.”
“And if I break it?” Aisling asked. “If I break her?”
The Mire Queen’s smile was a swamp thing’s. “Then the story will bleed,” she said. “And I will be there with a cup.”
Aisling’s fingers curled against the glass until her nails squeaked.
“All right,” she said. “Show me your seam.”
The Mire Queen’s eyes gleamed.
Outside, in the wildwood, a thin place shivered.
And somewhere in the mortal world, Rowan Vance shivered in her sleep, unaware that her mirror had just stepped closer to the glass.
---