She lifted her chin, refusing to look away from Aldrick. She’d made her choice. The Echo fragments needed to be found before whatever consciousness dwelled within them found a new vessel. The world had changed too much to risk letting something that ancient loose without understanding it first.

  Aldrick exhaled, his gaze shifting between her and Rafe. “And if it does pose a threat?” His voice was quiet, but Vesper knew the weight of the question.

  The fragment pulsed against her side, a reminder of the power she held, and the responsibility that came with it. But she had no answer. Not yet.

  “Then,” she said, her magic stirring, “I’ll make it understand.”

  Rafe stared at Vesper, knowing she was right, but fearing what it could mean.

  “Fragments aside, would you allow me to examine your magic?” Aldrick asked Faith. “And perhaps someone could explain what happened at the lake?”

  The firelight caught the silver threads in Aldrick’s hair as he pulled various bottles and implements from the cabinets.

  Faith’s head lolled against the worn leather of the armchair, her skin carrying an unnatural sheen. Dark circles ringed her eyes, and her fingers trembled where they gripped the chair’s arms.

  Vesper stood rigid by the hearth, her arms crossed tight against her chest. The flames cast dancing shadows across her face, but couldn’t mask the distrust in her eyes as she tracked Aldrick’s movements. The Echo fragment in her bag seemed to pulse with a subtle energy that made Rafe’s skin prickle.

  “This won’t hurt,” Aldrick muttered, mixing something in a copper bowl.

  A log shifted in the fireplace, sending up a shower of sparks. Faith flinched at the sound, her eyes growing wider for a moment before sliding back to their exhausted glaze. The sight stirred something in Rafe’s memory—a flash of fear, stone walls, reaching hands—but it slipped away before he could grasp it.

  Rafe drew in a steadying breath. “The lake wasn’t natural. You must have felt it from here, a void where magic should be. The surface was like glass, perfectly still. No ripples, no movement. Just these…shapes beneath, waiting.”

  Aldrick’s hands stilled over his implements, though he kept his back turned.

  “The crystal formations weren’t just growing on the shore. They were spreading from deep within the lake itself, climbing up through the water like roots.” Rafe gestured to Faith. “We found her completely encased, frozen mid-step. And then the shadows came.”

  The fire popped, and Rafe caught the slight tensing of Aldrick’s shoulders.

  “They rose from the water. Constructs like the ones that guarded the Echo. But these were different. Stronger. Each time we destroyed them, they reformed with more power. When Vesper connected with the ley lines, everything changed. The moment she took the fragment, the magic dissipated. The crystals dissolved, the shadows vanished, and the influence on the lake’s magic lifted.”

  Aldrick turned slowly, his weathered face unreadable. But there was something in his eyes. Recognition, perhaps. Or fear.

  “The crystals.” Aldrick’s voice came rough, worn. “I’ve seen their like before, during my time with the Order. We studied similar formations in ancient sites where reality had fractured.” He moved to the hearth, shoulders heavy. “The Echo fragment wasn’t just present at the lake. It likely merged with the fabric of that place, reshaping everything it touched.”

  Memories of crystal-covered streets in Nightreach flashed through Rafe’s mind. The way they’d spread like weeds, clustering in cracks in the cobblestones, climbing walls like ivy, and growing rampant in the forgotten quarters. Perhaps they’d been saved the same fate as Faith because the Echo was still whole, bound within the stone.

  “If left…” Aldrick went on. “The fragment’s influence would have spread beyond the lake. The entire forest might have crystallised.”

  “You knew,” Rafe accused. “You knew what the Echo could do, what it was capable of. That’s why you tried to keep me away from Nightreach.”

  Vesper shifted beside Rafe, her grey eyes darting between them. “I should check on Faith, maybe make her something to eat.” She squeezed Rafe’s arm before slipping from the room.

  Rafe studied the man who’d raised him, taught him magic, kept him safe. The firelight caught the silver in Aldrick’s hair, making him look older than he’d ever seen him. For the first time, Rafe wondered if Aldrick’s rigid control, his harsh lessons, came not from a place of authority but fear.

  He glanced at Faith, but she seemed lost in a daze.

  “Her magic is altered,” Aldrick said. “She seems to be falling into an intermittent state of catatonia, though her mind seems to be experiencing something beyond my knowing.”

  “So she can’t hear what we’re saying,” he murmured. “Convenient.”

  Rafe’s fingers curled into fists at his sides as he watched Aldrick fuss over his potions and implements. “When we fought the shadows at the lake, something happened. The magic showed me something. A memory. An echo.”

  Aldrick’s hands stilled over the copper bowl.

  “Stone walls. Underground. Someone reaching for me.” Rafe took a step forward. “Not some random vision. My memory.”

  The flames cast Aldrick’s face in sharp relief as he turned, his expression carefully blank, but Rafe caught the slight tightening around his eyes, the way his fingers gripped the edge of the workbench.

  “All these years you’ve told me nothing about who I was before I came here. You said you couldn’t help.” Rafe’s voice dropped lower, steadier. “But you knew, didn’t you? About the Echo, about what it could do to memories. About me.”

  Aldrick remained silent.

  “I’m not asking anymore.” Rafe planted his feet, magic thrumming beneath his skin. “Tell me who I am. Tell me what you know about my past.”

  The silence stretched between them, broken only by Faith’s shallow breathing and the crack of burning logs. Rafe held Aldrick’s gaze, refusing to back down. Not this time.

  “Who am I, Aldrick?”

  Rafe’s magic pulsed beneath his skin as he waited, the silence stretching taut between them. Heat from the fire pressed against his back, and he caught the subtle shift in Aldrick’s stance. The loosening of his shoulders, a slight bow of his head.

  “I don’t know who you are.” He lifted his gaze, and something in those weathered eyes made Rafe’s chest tighten. “But I have…suspicions.”

  The admission slammed into him. All these years of asking, searching, hoping…

  “Your pendant,” Aldrick continued. “The one you carried when you first arrived, the one you traded away. I recognised that symbol the moment I saw it.”

  Rafe’s hand went to his chest where the pendant once rested, muscle memory from years of worrying the metal between his fingers. “What do you mean, you recognised it?”

  “It bore a mark I’d seen before, long ago, during my time with the Order.” Aldrick’s voice dropped lower. “It’s tied to the Arcana.”

  The word hung in the air between them. The Arcana, legendary magical relics lost to time. Power beyond measure. And somehow, impossibly, connected to his past.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” The words came out barely above a whisper, but they carried the weight of years of silence. “The Echo is part of the trove. It⁠—”

  “Because knowledge of the Arcana is dangerous, Rafe. The Order spent centuries hunting down those relics, and anyone connected to them rarely met a peaceful end. They never found any, but if they had…”

  His gaze drifted to Faith, still lost in whatever vision held her captive. The firelight played across her vacant expression, highlighting the dark circles under her eyes. The way she’d stumbled over her memories at the lake, the confusion in her voice when she tried to recall how she’d ended up there…

  Cold realisation crept down Rafe’s spine. He turned back to Aldrick, his heart hammering against his ribs.

  “The Echo fragment took Faith’s memories. She can’t remember what happened from the time she stepped onto the shore until Vesper and I found her.” His voice came out rough. “It’s the same, isn’t it?” He took a step closer to his former mentor. “Is that what happened to me? Did I encounter the Echo before? Is that why I can’t remember anything from before you found me?”

  Rafe’s magic stirred beneath his skin, responding to the surge of emotion. He watched Aldrick’s face, searching for any flicker of recognition, any sign that would confirm the suspicion growing in his chest.

  The pieces were falling into place. His mysterious arrival in Millbrook, the pendant’s connection to the Arcana, his complete inability to recall anything before waking up in this village. His entire past, possibly stripped away by the very power they now pursued.

  “Perhaps you’re right,” Aldrick said at last. “But maybe it wasn’t the Echo. Maybe it was something just like it.”

  “What?” His magic coiled tight beneath his skin, responding to the surge of unease that rippled through him. Something like the Echo? Another relic with the power to strip away memories, to reshape reality itself?

  The woman’s voice from his dreams echoed in his mind, distant yet achingly familiar, calling his name with such desperation it made his chest ache. He’d always assumed she was family, someone he’d lost when his memories were taken. But what if it was more than that? What if she was trying to warn him about something?

  Rafe pressed his fingers to his temples, trying to grasp at the fragments of memory that always seemed to dance just beyond his reach. Stone walls. Underground passages. Reaching hands. The pendant with its ancient symbol. Each piece felt significant, yet they refused to form a coherent whole.

  His past, the years before Millbrook, before Aldrick…had they already been entangled with forces he couldn’t comprehend? He’d spent so long searching for answers about who he was, never considering that perhaps those answers might lead him somewhere far darker than he’d imagined.

  The woman’s voice whispered through his mind again, urgent and pleading. Who was she? What had she been trying to tell him?

  Aldrick shifted his weight, breaking through his spiralling thoughts. The older mage’s shoulders sagged, as if finally letting go of a burden he’d carried far too long.

  “The pendant, Rafe. It’s the key to understanding your connection to all of this.”

  Of course, The one thing that might have held answers, and he’d traded it away. “The Nightweaver has it now.” And no wonder the collector took it in place of his magic. If it was truly connected to the Arcana, then it was a fine trade indeed.

  “Then you must get it back,” Aldrick said. “It may be more important than either of us realised.”

  Rafe let out a sharp breath, the irony of it all settling like lead in his stomach. He’d spent years searching for answers about his past, and he’d literally handed away perhaps the most important clue he’d ever possessed. The pendant’s familiar weight against his chest had been his one constant, the only physical link to whoever he’d been before. Now it sat in the Nightweaver’s collection, probably buried among countless other magical artefacts.

  Rafe stopped pacing, forcing himself to face the reality of what needed to be done. “But dealing with the Nightweaver…” He left the thought unfinished. Everyone knew the stories. The shadow trader never made the same deal twice, and he never gave up what he’d claimed.

  Aldrick narrowed his eyes. “From what I’ve heard about your exploits in Nightreach, it’s well within your capabilities.”

  Before Rafe could respond, Aldrick’s expression shifted. The firelight caught the harsh angles of his face as he fixed Rafe with a look that made his skin crawl.

  “Be careful with Vesper.” Aldrick’s voice dropped low, barely carrying over the crackle of flames. “Love is a fool’s game, but loving a Resonant…”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Rafe’s jaw clenched as he met his former mentor’s gaze.

  Aldrick watched him for a long moment, his weathered face unreadable in the dancing shadows. “Vesper is changing. Her magic is evolving, reshaping itself in ways even she doesn’t understand. Before long, she may not be the same woman you fell in love with.”

  The fire popped, sending up a shower of sparks. Rafe’s fingers curled into fists at his sides, his nails biting into his palms.

  Rafe held Aldrick’s gaze, refusing to flinch. The idea of losing Vesper, of watching her slip away just when he’d finally allowed himself to reach for something real, something true…

  The kiss in the forest flashed through his mind—the way their magic had tangled together, creating something beautiful and new. The trust in her eyes when she looked at him. The steady presence of her hand on his arm. After years of holding everyone at arm’s length, of guarding his heart behind walls of uncertainty and lost memories, Vesper had walked right through those defences like they didn’t exist.

  No. Rafe knew Vesper—knew her determination, her fierce loyalty, her unwavering sense of right and wrong. Those weren’t just surface traits that magic could strip away. They were fundamental parts of who she was.

  Aldrick turned away from Rafe’s stubborn silence, moving to where Faith sat lost in whatever visions held her. “I need to do a deeper examination of her magic,” he said, his tone making it clear the conversation was finished. “Perhaps I can see where her mind is going and give her some semblance of control.”

  The dismissal hung heavy in the air between them, but Rafe barely noticed. His thoughts circled around Vesper, around the way she’d looked at him in the forest, around the strength he’d felt in her magic as it twined with his own.

  No, he wouldn’t let Aldrick poison what they’d found. He’d lost too much already to fear losing more.

  Rafe turned away, unable to watch as Aldrick began his examination. The flames threw his shadow long across the floor, stretching it into something unrecognisable. Like everything else in his life, even his own shadow seemed uncertain, caught between what was and what might be.

  He left the room without another word, his footsteps heavy on the old floorboards. He needed to find Vesper.

  Chapter 33

  Owen moved through the shattered nave of Saint Aldwin’s, the remnants of the ruined cathedral groaning faintly under the pressure of the fluctuating ley lines. His footsteps echoed against stone walls and into the open sky through the collapsed roof. Moonlight cast long shadows across the uneven floor where soot streaked across broken stone slabs. Markings that looked strangely human.

  This was once a major convergence point. Seven ley lines used to meet beneath the foundations of the cathedral and crypt marking a place of great power. Owen could feel them still, pulsing beneath his feet like arteries of a wounded beast. The fracturing of the Echo hadn’t changed the magic here entirely. If anything, it felt more raw.

  He stood beside the stone altar, running his fingers along its jagged edges. It felt warm to the touch, almost alive, as if it still remembered the power that tore through it. Ember had told him that Vesper had performed a ritual here she thought was going to find the Echo, but ended up waking it instead.

  Owen didn’t know how to feel about it. Part of him still wanted to believe it could have been stopped—if the Limina had been consulted, if proper protocols had been followed. But another part, the part that had seen the silver gleam in Ember’s eyes as Thornhallow consumed her, wondered if anything could have truly prevented what was happening now.

  The stone table was split clean through, as though it’d given way under the immense wave of magic Vesper had channelled. Owen placed his palm flat against it, closing his eyes to better sense the currents flowing beneath.

  “What are you?” he whispered to the magic pulsing beneath his hand. “What do you want?”

  Only silence answered him, but in that silence, Owen felt something shift—a subtle change in the rhythm of the ley lines, like a heart skipping a beat.

  And suddenly, he didn’t feel alone. He felt…watched.

  “Ember?” he whispered, not knowing why he thought she would follow him here.

  The magic pulsed in response, as if recognising the name. Her silver-eyed stare when she’d dismissed his warnings still haunted him more than any magical anomaly ever could. The silver markings spreading up her arm, the inhuman gleam in her eyes…these weren’t just signs of Thornhallow’s influence. They were signs of surrender.

  Yet some part of him still believed she was in there. Not as High Witch or as a symbol of power, but just her. The version he never got to love enough.

  Owen looked up. Maybe…

  The anomaly had reacted with intelligence before, so if he could just communicate with it, maybe he could stop it from tearing apart the city. Then he would be free to help Ember untangle herself from Thornhallow. But for that, he’d need to go down again.

  Alone.

  Owen approached the entrance to the crypt, summoning an orb of light he then pushed into the darkness. Stairs descended, so he followed them down, his boots slipping on the worn steps.

  The air didn’t just become cooler as he left the surface, but it became unnaturally cold. Each breath emerged as a cloud of white mist, wrapping around his face before dissipating into the darkness.

  This was the same bone-deep chill he’d felt at the other anomaly sites, but as he’d expected, it was far stronger here. According to his calculations, this was the epicentre of the phenomena. Anything he found here would be far more concentrated than those outer sites.

  The narrow stairwell opened into a vast circular chamber. Owen’s light illuminated the tombs of Nightreach’s founding families arranged in a perfect circle. Seven ornate mausoleums positioned like spokes in a wheel, each carved with the insignia of a different bloodline, and smaller graves and sarcophagi fanning out behind them and fading into the darkness. The crypt felt impossibly endless, and he couldn’t tell how far it went, but it was definitely larger than the cathedral grounds above.