Vesper studied Rafe’s profile as they walked. His jaw remained tight, shoulders rigid beneath his coat. The silence stretched between them, filled only by their boots crunching through fallen leaves and the whisper of wind through bare branches.

  Her hands burrowed deeper into her coat pockets, fingers curling against the cold. The knowledge of Aldrick’s past with the Empirical Order bothered her. She didn’t know much about the corrupt mage factions within Nightreach, many of them had fallen apart long before she arrived, but Aldrick had been part of it all. And had walked away from it.

  She glanced at Rafe again. Would telling him help or hurt? Learning his mentor had concealed this dark history too might push Rafe into a place she wasn’t sure he’d come back from.

  No. The truth about the Empirical Order could wait. Rafe carried enough pain right now without adding to it.

  Vesper exhaled, her breath clouding in the chill air. The ley lines hummed beneath her feet, their power a steady pulse drawing them northeast. At least that much was clear, even if nothing else was. Even if they could only find one fragment, it was enough to stop others from putting the Echo back together.

  Vesper opened herself to the flow of magic, resisting her instinct to control it. The fragment’s presence lingered at the edges of her awareness—an unexpected dissonance interrupting the natural rhythm. Each time she reached for it directly, it dissipated and scattered. But when she relaxed, let the magic move through her naturally, the fragment’s location became a steady pressure in the back of her mind.

  Rafe walked ahead, his shoulders set under the weight of recent revelations. His own connection to the Echo remained a mystery, but Vesper felt it in the way the ley lines responded to his presence, bending ever so slightly toward him as if drawn by an invisible force. He might not see the magical currents as she did, but they recognised him all the same.

  “I think here is an okay place,” she called out to Rafe.

  He stopped, turning towards her. “Are you sure?”

  “I want to get a clearer picture of where the fragment is,” she said, looking around. A general direction could mean anything from one to a thousand miles away in the wilderness.

  “Okay.” He let his bag fall to the forest floor. “I’ll keep watch.”

  Vesper pressed her fingertips against the rough bark, letting her eyes fall closed. The tree’s life force thrummed beneath her touch—old, patient, wise. She breathed deep, the scent of wet earth and decaying leaves filling her lungs.

  The ley lines pulsed beneath her feet, flowing wild and free, twisting through root and stone like liquid starlight. As she opened her senses to their song, images flickered through her mind.

  Moonlight on stone. A circle of hooded figures. Candlelight reflecting off ceremonial daggers.

  The memories weren’t her own. They belonged to the land itself, imprinted in the bones of the earth. Each pulse of energy carried fragments of what had come before, what had been witnessed by these timeless powers. Echoes.

  Blood dripping onto consecrated ground. Words of power echoing through time. Power, newly born, drinking in the sacrifice freely given.

  The images came faster, almost too quick to process, but through it all ran a current of warning, of power that should never have been bound. The ley lines themselves rejected what had been done, yet were powerless to prevent it.

  The echo crashed into Vesper without warning, overwhelming her senses completely. Her fingers curled against rough bark, but her mind plunged elsewhere—into cold, weathered stone that thrummed with forgotten power. The air grew thick, heavy with magic that pressed against her skull until breathing became difficult.

  Reality folded inward, the forest dissolving around her. In its place rose a standing stone, its weathered surface stretching toward a sky she couldn’t quite see. Faded runes marked its surface, their meaning lost to time. It wasn’t the Echo, just a stone placed there long ago by some forgotten people.

  Her gaze dropped to the stone’s base where crystalline formations jutted from the earth. They pulsed with a faint inner light, sharp and jagged like the clusters that grew throughout Nightreach’s streets like weeds.

  Time seemed to blur and stretch. Memories that weren’t her own whispered at the edges of her awareness—echoes of ritual and sacrifice, of power bound and contained. The stone had witnessed it all and had absorbed the echoes of countless ceremonies into its surface.

  A shadow stirred at the edge of her vision. A figure stood knee-deep in the dark water, their form unsteady and blurred, shifting in and out of focus. Even indistinct, their presence was undeniable, pressing against Vesper’s magic with suffocating weight.

  The figure began to move. Each step sent ripples across the surface, though no water actually existed here and now. They reached toward her with desperate urgency, and Vesper’s breath caught in her throat. Her magic recoiled and surged forward simultaneously, recognition sparking deep in her core. She knew this presence. Had always known it, somehow, though she couldn’t say why or how.

  The pressure built in her chest, magic responding to magic. The figure drew closer, their form still frustratingly unclear, but their energy unmistakable. It resonated with something inside her, some dormant part of herself she hadn’t known existed until this moment.

  Vesper staggered backwards, her shoulder hitting rough bark as the forest crashed back into focus around her. Cold air rushed into her lungs and she gulped it down, her heart thundering against her ribs. The phantom weight of that presence still pressed against her chest, power recognising power across an impossible distance.

  “Vesper!” Rafe’s hands gripped her shoulders, steadying her. His face swam into view, brow furrowed with worry. “What happened? You went completely still.”

  She blinked, forcing her eyes to focus on his face rather than the afterimages still burning behind her eyelids. “I saw—” Her voice came out hoarse. She swallowed and tried again. “There’s a standing stone. North of here. Ancient runes carved into it, worn away by time.”

  “A standing stone?” Rafe’s grip tightened. “Like the Echo?”

  “No, smaller. Older, maybe. Just a stone, but a place where people did rituals.” Vesper pressed her palm against the rough bark. “But there are crystals growing around it, like the ones in Nightreach. And there was someone there. A figure standing in dark water. They reached for me and I felt…” She shook her head, struggling to put the sensation into words. “It was like looking into a mirror and seeing yourself for the first time. Like recognition.”

  “The fragment?”

  “It has to be. Whatever’s there, it resonated with something inside me.” The memory of that connection made her magic stir restlessly beneath her skin. “We need to find that stone.”

  Rafe’s expression shifted, a shadow passing across his features. “The fragment presented itself to you as a person? Did you recognise them?”

  “No. It was just a shadow. No features. Nothing.” That figure had reached for her with such desperate purpose, as if they’d known her, as if they’d been waiting.

  Rafe searched her face, looking for something more concrete than the vague sensations she’d described, but that was all she had.

  Vesper exhaled slowly. The echo’s chill had faded, but the most important details remained sharp in her mind—the weathered stone rising from earth, dark water stretching beyond it, crystal formations catching what little light reached them.

  “There’s a lake,” she said, certainty settling into her bones. “I saw it behind the stone. The water was completely still, like glass.” Her magic hummed beneath her skin, responding to the fragment’s distant presence. “That’s where we need to go.”

  Rafe studied the northern horizon as if he could see through the dense trees to their destination. “There’s a lake near Millbrook. Ellesmere Lake.”

  “How far is it?”

  “From here, maybe a few kilometres.” He paused. “North-east.”

  Vesper pulled her coat tighter, her magic still thrumming from the vision. “We should get moving before we lose daylight.”

  Rafe nodded, but his eyes remained fixed on the northern horizon. “People avoid Ellesmere Lake. They say it’s cursed.”

  “Of course they do.” Vesper’s fingers traced the rough bark one last time. The ley lines pulsed beneath her feet, pointing her forward. “Did Aldrick ever take you there?”

  “No.” Rafe’s jaw tightened. “He forbade me from going near it.”

  Which meant that’s exactly where they needed to be.

  “There’s likely a convergence point there under the water,” Rafe went on. “An old one, if there’s standing stones.”

  “A perfect place for a fragment to hide.”

  Now she knew where to look, another problem arose. How to retrieve the fragment from the ley lines.

  The standing stone from her vision rose clear in her mind—weathered runes, dark water, crystal formations catching what little light reached them. The fragment’s energy pulsed like a beacon, guiding her forward.

  Whatever secrets lay beneath Ellesmere’s surface, they were meant for her to find. She was sure she’d work it out.

  Chapter 23

  Vesper kept pace with Rafe as they picked their way through the thinning forest. The sodden ground squelched beneath her boots, soft with recent rain and decaying pine needles.

  The silence between them had grown heavier with each passing kilometre. She glanced at him, noting the tightness around his jaw and the distant look in his eyes. Whatever thoughts plagued him, he wasn’t sharing them.

  She understood. Betrayal cut deep. Rafe had an entire childhood he didn’t remember. She’d had that, at least. But if she ever learned about her own parents, she wasn’t sure she’d feel any different than he did right now.

  “We should reach the lake with plenty of light left if we keep this pace,” Rafe said, breaking the silence as he ducked beneath a low-hanging branch.

  “Good.” Vesper adjusted her pack, wincing as the strap dug into her shoulder. Her power stirred beneath her skin, growing stronger as they moved northward. The fragment was calling to her, its pull unmistakable now that she knew what to look for.

  The forest thinned further, revealing glimpses of grey sky between the branches. A fine mist had begun to settle around them, dampening her hair and forcing the earthy scent of wet soil and pine to rise.

  “What exactly is it about the lake that people don’t like?” she asked.

  “People are afraid of strange magic,” Rafe replied. “Curses and spirits are tangible things here, unlike the otherworld. But I think the magic there is more unstable than anything.”

  “And you never went to see for yourself?”

  “No.” He shrugged. “I was too lazy to walk.”

  “No Threads?” she wondered.

  “None that came here.”

  Vesper studied him as they walked. His movements were deliberate but stiff. The man who’d fought beside her in Nightreach seemed somewhere else entirely. The man who’d carried her out of the Fold. Who’d let her into his home.

  The urge to reach for him, to offer some kind of comfort, pulled at her, but she held back. There was always some barrier between them, keeping her from taking the next step. From taking the biggest risk of them all. Shadow mages, D’Arco, the Concordat, the Echo, a collapsing city, necromancers, Fold Hunters, shadow constructs, elemental spirits, the end of memory as they knew it… Always something.

  Vesper swallowed the lump in her throat, wishing there was something she could do to help Rafe. That she hadn’t shattered the Echo after all. She could’ve given him his past if she’d just merged with the stupid rock.

  Rafe’s footsteps faltered as if he’d heard her thoughts. He stopped, one hand pressed against a weathered oak.

  “It was the right thing,” he murmured. “Doesn’t make it any easier, though.”

  “What?” she asked. “Leaving?”

  Rafe nodded.

  “Of course it wasn’t easy,” she added. “He’s your family.”

  “Is he?” Rafe’s fingers curled against the bark. “Family doesn’t lie to you. Keep you in the dark about who you are, where you came from.”

  “Maybe he thought he was protecting you.” Seeing the hurt in his eyes, the pain in his stance, she still tried to find something good in Aldrick’s actions…for Rafe’s sake.

  “By controlling every aspect of my life?” Rafe’s laugh held no humour. “You saw how he treated me. Like I was still that lost boy he found wandering the village. Someone to be managed.”

  Vesper moved closer, drawn by the pain radiating from him. His magic rippled, sending clashing notes through the forest.

  “I spent six years trying to prove myself worthy of his trust.” Rafe’s shoulders sagged. “But he never planned to tell me the truth. About my past, about the pendant, any of it.”

  The forest seemed to hold its breath. Even the persistent whisper of magic through the ley lines had gone quiet.

  “Sometimes the people we trust most are the ones who hurt us deepest.” Vesper’s own words surprised her, carrying echoes of her own past, of foster homes and broken promises.

  Rafe turned to face her, something vulnerable flickering in his eyes. “I thought leaving Nightreach was hard. This…” He gestured vaguely at the path behind them. “This feels like leaving everything I thought I knew about myself.”

  “What’s really bothering you?” The words slipped out before she could stop them.

  Rafe’s gaze drifted upward to the grey clouds hanging low above the trees. He exhaled, a long breath that seemed to carry the weight of years.

  “I’m scared.” The admission came quietly, almost lost in the whisper of wind through leaves. “Not of what we might find at the lake, or even the Echo fragment.”

  Vesper waited, giving him space to continue. Her abilities pulsed in response to his distress, wanting to reach out, to comfort.

  “What if—” His voice caught. “What if I finally learn who I was, and I hate what I was?” His fingers raked through his hair, leaving it more dishevelled than usual. “What if knowing the truth changes everything?”

  The vulnerability in his voice made her heart ache. She’d never seen him like this. He was Rafe Thorne, mage, smuggler, protector…warrior.

  “I’ve spent six years building a life, becoming someone I thought I could be proud of. But what if that person isn’t real? What if knowing my past unravels everything I’ve become?”

  His words hit too close to home. Vesper knew all about that kind of fear. The terror of uncovering truths that might destroy everything she thought she knew. She’d faced it herself when her Resonant abilities first emerged. She was still facing it.

  Rafe sighed. “I’ve lived with this…this void where my memories should be for so long, I almost convinced myself it didn’t matter. Before you shattered the Echo, I’d already made my peace. I was okay with never knowing as long as…” he trailed off, biting his lip. “But now? Now the answers might be right there, waiting, and I—” He shook his head.

  The raw honesty in his voice made her energy surge beneath her skin, responding to his pain. For once, the man who always seemed to have everything figured out looked completely lost.

  “You’re still you,” she murmured. “Whatever happened in your past, whatever we find out—it doesn’t change who you are now.”

  Rafe’s eyes met hers, uncertainty written across his features.

  “The Rafe I know chose to help a complete stranger. A clueless girl who’d found a dangerous book. He protected me in the Fold, taught me about magic, fought beside me against countless enemies.” Her voice grew stronger with each word. “Those weren’t choices someone else made for you. They were yours.”

  The tension in his shoulders eased slightly. Her power reached toward him, drawn by his vulnerability.

  “I understand being afraid of what you might learn. Every time my magic changes, I wonder what I’m becoming. If I’ll still be me when it’s done.” She took a deep breath. “But the past doesn’t define us, Rafe. It’s the choices we make now that matter.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because I know you. The real you. Not some memory or past version, but the man standing right here.” She gestured at him. “The one who makes terrible jokes when things get serious. Who pretends to be all mysterious but actually cares more than anyone I’ve ever met. The one who…” She swallowed hard. “Who never gave up on me, even when I was ready to give up on myself. Even when the void was literally swallowing me whole, you reached in and dragged me out.”

  The vulnerability in his eyes made her breath catch. For once, all his carefully constructed walls had fallen away, leaving just Rafe. Not the mage or the warrior. Just…Rafe.

  Rafe’s gaze shifted to her face, and something in his expression changed. The hard lines of worry softened, replaced by an intensity that made her breath catch. His eyes searched hers, no longer distant but present, focused entirely on her.

  The air between them grew thick with possibility. Power thrummed beneath Vesper’s skin, responding to the shift in energy. The forest fell away—the damp earth, the whispering trees, the calling fragment—until there was only this moment. Only them.

  Her heart thundered in her chest as the space between them charged, their magic reaching out towards one another. All the near misses, the careful distance they’d maintained, the moments they’d pulled back from—they crystallised into this single point in time.

  Vesper didn’t let herself think. Didn’t let herself remember all the reasons they shouldn’t, all the complications that made this a terrible idea. She stepped forward, closing the distance between them, and pressed her lips to his.

  The kiss was soft, hesitant at first. Her abilities sparked at the contact, reaching for him. His lips were warm despite the chill air, and she felt his sharp intake of breath against her mouth.

  For one terrifying heartbeat, he remained still.