He had spent hours coaxing fragments of her awareness through the pages, letting them surface as symbols, half-memories, and sensations…but the words twisted into chaos almost immediately. The interference was stronger now, the dual consciousness of Threnody and Vesper creating impossible static. He could almost sense both of them. One ancient and fractured, the other bright and afraid. Colliding within the same space.

  Interesting that she would allow Vesper to remain as he had with Ash de Brigue.

  Threnos steadied his breathing and began the process again, tracing a pattern across the page. The ink rippled outward, forming a new sequence of script that rose and faded. He spoke softly, the old syllables of his first language resonating through the small room.

  The grimoire answered faintly this time. A pulse, a vibration under his palm.

  For a heartbeat, he caught a glimmer of Threnody’s essence in a memory that wasn’t his. Crystal, light refracting across an endless plane, the echo of a voice that could be hers but sounded distant, distorted.

  Then it broke apart, leaving the page empty and the air still.

  Threnos tried again, tracing a pattern across the page. The ink rippled outward, forming a new sequence of runes that rose and faded. He spoke softly, the old Arcana syllables resonating through the small room.

  Threnody…

  The air thickened. The lamp flame bent sideways as if it was caught in a breeze, though nothing moved. Within him, Ash stirred for the first time since the merge, but he retreated again just as fast.

  The grimoire’s pages turned black, ink flooding across the parchment before coalescing into a single symbol.

  Where are you?

  The symbol pulsed once, then fractured into dozens of tiny Cyrillic letters that crawled across the page. Then they dissolved, replaced by a shadow that spread from corner to corner.

  Tenebrae.

  A pulse, a vibration under his palm that travelled up through his fingers and into his chest. For a heartbeat, he caught a glimmer of Threnody’s essence in a memory that wasn’t his.

  Crystal. Vast structures rising toward an impossible sky, their facets catching light that didn’t come from any sun. Light refracting across an endless plane, splitting into colours that human eyes had never seen. The architecture of a world that no longer existed, preserved only in fragments of divine memory.

  He could almost hear it. The echo of a voice that could be hers but sounded distant, distorted by the layers of consciousness between them. A feeling that might have been his name, spoken in a language he hadn’t heard in millennia.

  The vision sharpened for just an instant. He saw the spires more clearly now, the way they curved and intersected in patterns that defied geometry. Saw the shimmer of what might have been water, or power, or both, flowing between them in rivers of pure luminescence.

  Then it broke apart.

  The image fractured, each piece dissolving before he could grasp it. The page emptied, the script fading back into ordinary ink. The air stilled, and the resonance died, leaving only the heavy silence of the surrounding shop.

  She was alive, but lost in herself, submerged somewhere beyond reach. Trapped with another consciousness, fighting to maintain coherence while Tenebrae worked to break her will.

  He kept his hand on the page, feeling for any lingering trace of her presence, but there was nothing. The connection had severed completely.

  Threnos leaned back in the chair, exhaustion settling into his bones. The wooden seat creaked under his weight as he stared at the boarded windows, pale light filtering through the gaps. Specks of dust drifted in the thin beams as if they were the only things moving freely in this broken city.

  Outside, the city continued its slow collapse. Fractured ley lines spilled raw magic into streets where it shouldn’t exist, warping reality in unpredictable patterns. Humans picked through the ruins of their homes, scavenging what they could while avoiding the worst distortions. In the shadows between buildings, Tenebrae’s influence spread, dark and insidious, claiming territory and followers with each passing hour.

  Beneath it all, Threnos could feel the tremors of what was to come. This was merely the beginning of the unravelling. Everything Threnody had feared, everything she had sacrificed herself to prevent thousands of years ago, was happening again. Only this time, she was trapped, unable to stop it.

  He needed to try a different tactic. A more direct one.

  Threnos picked up a pen and began to write in the grimoire, not forcing the words but letting them flow from memory and feeling.

  Memory. Return. I am here.

  The symbols formed under his hand, ancient and powerful. He let his own resonance flow through the characters, imbuing each stroke with his essence, leaving traces of himself in the ink.

  The page trembled beneath his touch and for a moment, there was nothing but that gentle rhythm. Then the ink vibrated, disturbing the patterns he’d created. New symbols formed beside his own. Wild, chaotic shapes that overlapped and contradicted each other.

  The response was incoherent. Characters split and reformed, flowing across the page. Some he recognised as Threnody’s voice, others were unfamiliar. Perhaps it was Vesper’s consciousness interfering with the connection.

  The dissonance built as the symbols fought for dominance. The page seemed to warp slightly, the parchment rippling as if it struggled to contain the conflicting energies written upon it.

  Threnos watched, keeping his hand steady on the page, trying to maintain the connection even as it frayed. The symbols continued their frantic dance until, with a sudden flare of light, they collapsed entirely.

  There was nothing left to show for his latest attempt except for a dark stain that spread across the parchment. A smear of thought that was formless and void of meaning.

  Threnos closed the grimoire. The connection had been shattered, fragmented like Threnody herself. What remained was merely echo and shadow. It wasn’t enough.

  He pressed a hand to his chest, feeling the faint vibration there. The resonance of their bond still existed, a thread connecting them across the broken landscape of Nightreach, but it was growing fainter by the hour.

  The Echo’s shattering had been violent enough, but the final merge—when all fragments converged within Vesper’s mortal form—had harmed Threnody’s consciousness in ways even he couldn’t have predicted. Until she regained wholeness, communication would remain impossible.

  Vesper’s presence complicated everything. Human emotion was difficult, even for him. It was too much feeling, too much noise. Under normal circumstances, he might have waited for Threnody to find a balance between the two souls she now contained.

  But there was no time.

  Tenebrae had her. The Arcana who had survived by twisting his own soul into something that should never have existed. If he broke Threnody’s will and gained control of her power, the consequences would be beyond imagining.

  The vibration beneath his palm weakened further. The connection still existed, but it was slipping away.

  The grimoire was no longer enough on its own. He would have to venture into the heart of whatever nightmare Tenebrae had created. There would be traps, defences designed to capture another of their kind, but there was no choice.

  Threnos pushed back from the table and stood. The chair scraped against the floor, the sound loud in the quiet shop. He looked down at the grimoire one last time before closing it completely, his hand resting on the worn leather cover.

  To find Threnody, he would have to move through a city that was already turning on itself. Through magic that no longer obeyed the laws they once wrote.

  He would have to reveal more of what he was than he’d shown in millennia. For thousands of years, he had been careful to remain unseen, then to blend into the world humans had built on the ruins of his own. He had worn Ash’s form like a mask, respectful of the boundary between them, allowing the human his autonomy while keeping his own power tightly controlled.

  That restraint had been necessary. It had kept him safe, kept him hidden from Tenebrae. From Fermata who’d hidden within Thornhallow. From Fortis who prowled the darkest depths of the ley lines.

  Once he stepped outside and used his full power, there would be no hiding again. The other Arcana would sense him immediately. If there were other souls who had survived, they would converge on Nightreach. They might already be here after the merging. If not, then his power would certainly draw them.

  But there was no other way.

  He had lived too long with the weight of what they lost. The fall, the silence, her absence. The memory of crystal spires shattering, of light dimming across an entire world as everything they had built collapsed into dust and darkness. He had carried that grief for millennia, had let it hollow him out until there was nothing left but the faint hope that one day, somehow, she might return.

  And now she had. Broken, trapped, barely coherent, but alive.

  He would not lose her a second time.

  The lamp flickered, its flame bending sideways. Threnos went still, his senses sharpening as he caught movement. A shadow passed beneath the door, blocking the thin strip of light from the shop front.

  Someone was outside.

  He closed the grimoire without a sound, fingers lingering on its cover as he listened. Footsteps scraped against stone. A voice murmured something he couldn’t quite make out.

  The door latch shifted slightly, metal against metal. Testing. Probing. Someone checking if it was locked. Inside him, Ash’s consciousness stirred again, a flicker of fear and recognition. They’ve found us, the human thought before retreating deeper.

  Threnos moved, gathering what little he needed. The grimoire went first into the leather satchel that hung on a hook by the desk. His fingers brushed against the ancient binding one last time, feeling the last remnants of connection to Threnody fade completely as he secured it away. Then he reached for the black coat draped over the back of his chair.

  Another sound came from beyond the door. The scrape of something metallic against the lock.

  He leaned forward and blew out the lamp with a single breath. Darkness flooded the room.

  Then he crossed silently to the rear door, avoiding the floorboard near the bookcase that always creaked. The wards he’d woven would take care of anyone who dared enter the shop, and what remained of Ash’s forbidden collection of books and scrolls. There would be nothing left.

  Threnos stepped into the alley behind the shop, closing the door quietly behind him. The night pressed close around him, thick with the scent of burnt magic and smoke. He paused, breathing in the changed air of Nightreach, tasting the wrongness in it.

  The sky overhead was still fractured, veined with faint iridescent light from the magical storm still raging in the south. Buildings leaned at unnatural angles, their foundations destabilised by the surges of wild power that continued to pulse through the streets. He adjusted the strap of the satchel, securing the grimoire against his side.

  Somewhere beyond that chaos, Threnody was held captive by Tenebrae. The bond between them thrummed faintly beneath his skin, an ancient thread of connection that neither time nor catastrophe had fully broken.

  He closed his eyes briefly, focusing on that sensation. It pulled him toward the oldest part of the city where the foundations of Nightreach had first been laid. Where the strongest ley lines had once converged before the shattering of the Echo. The Spirefields.

  Threnos let the sensation guide him as he started walking, leaving the shop behind.

  Behind him, he heard the front door of the shop splinter. Voices called out to each other as unknown mages breached the outer wards, still unaware of the deeper protections woven into the foundations of Brigue & Sons.

  Three steps. Five. Seven.

  The explosion tore through the night, a concussive wave of released magic that shattered windows for blocks in every direction. The shop erupted in violet flame, books and scrolls and forbidden knowledge consumed in an instant. The wards he’d placed collapsed inward, drawing the blaze back toward its centre rather than allowing it to spread to neighbouring buildings.

  Threnos kept walking without looking back, the reflection of flames briefly illuminating his features before darkness swallowed him again.

  His search for Threnody had begun.

  Chapter 6

  Blair’s boots crunched over broken glass as she led Reed, Barnes, Denny, and Sienna through the northern quarter. The buildings on either side had collapsed inward, their upper floors caved through the lower levels. Brick and timber jutted from the wreckage at broken angles.

  They’d crossed the Darkmese hours ago. It had been rough, the water choppy and dark, but they’d all made it to the northern bank—the wounded, Cormac, and all the remaining agents. The southern quarter and the sanctum were behind them now. She led the advanced team, searching for somewhere they could secure as a temporary safehouse…but they were quickly discovering that the north hadn’t fared much better than the south.

  The cobblestones were cracked, split by fissures that ran through the street. Blair stepped over one wide enough to swallow her leg and kept walking. The damage here was just as bad as what they’d left behind.

  The air tasted burnt and magic residue coated everything. Blair had tasted it before when spells failed, but never this thick.

  An overturned cart blocked half the street ahead, its contents rotting across the pavement. Vegetables. Grain spilling from a torn sack. No one had bothered cleaning it up. No one was left.

  The city had emptied. Survivors fleeing through whatever Threads still worked, desperate to get out before Nightreach finished tearing itself apart. Blair had helped the refugees Praxis had helped cross into the south leave entirely, showing them how to get to the old gates and into Surrey. Families. The elderly. Anyone who could still walk. She’d watched them disappear and wondered how many would actually make it to the wall and into the outside world.

  She kept her hand on the hilt of her sword, scanning the ruins. Reed walked at her left. Barnes and Denny flanked them. Sienna watched their backs. They moved quietly, picking their way over broken ground.

  Every surface felt wrong. A thin coating of something that wasn’t quite visible but was definitely there. Shadow magic residue clinging to stone and wood. Blair felt it through her boots, a faint pulse that felt like nails running down a chalkboard.

  It must be Tenebrae’s influence. The shadows reminded her of the Nightweaver’s magic, and now that he had the Echo, he was reaching for more power. Consolidating control while the city burned. It didn’t matter what he left behind, not when he could remake it all once he had control of the Echo’s power.

  And Vesper was trapped in that somewhere. Buried beneath the consciousness of yet another Arcana. Only this one seemed to have the power to cause an apocalypse.

  Blair pushed the thought away. She couldn’t think about Vesper right now. They needed shelter. Somewhere defensible. Somewhere the fractured magic wouldn’t kill them while they slept.

  Blair stopped at the edge of a cracked intersection and raised her hand. The others fanned out without a word, weapons ready, eyes scanning the surrounding ruins.

  The magic beneath her feet pulsed in distorted patterns. Not the steady hum she’d grown accustomed to feeling since becoming a Channeller, but something jagged and unpredictable. The city was unravelling…the ley lines were rebelling as if they knew reality was on the precipice of ruin.

  “This one looks promising,” Reed murmured.

  She studied the building on their right. Three stories, or what was left of them. The roof had partially collapsed, but the lower two levels looked intact. Stone walls, thick and reinforced. Small windows that could be defended. Multiple exits if they needed to run. It wasn’t perfect, but it had cover. If the structure held through the night, it could work as a temporary safehouse.

  Blair gestured to Sienna. “Sweep the interior. Check for structural damage and any squatters.”

  Sienna nodded and moved toward the entrance, her blade drawn, steps careful as she tested the ground near the doorway before committing her weight.

  “Barnes, Denny,” Blair said. “Perimeter check. I want to know if there’s anything living within a block of this place.”

  The two men split off in opposite directions, circling the building. Barnes kept close to the walls while Denny moved wider, scanning the surrounding streets for movement.

  Reed stayed beside Blair, watching the path they’d come from. “You think it’ll hold?”

  “No idea,” she replied. “But it’s better than sleeping in the open.”

  Blair kept her eyes on the empty street ahead. Her growing Resonant senses picked up fluctuations in the magic saturating everything around them. Not just the steady pulse of shadow residue, but something active. Gathering. The northern quarter felt wrong in a way she couldn’t quite name. Not just destroyed. Something worse than that.

  The wind moved strangely here, breaking into odd patterns where it passed through the shattered buildings. It didn’t flow the way wind should. Instead, it stuttered and shifted direction without reason, whistling through cracks in notes that didn’t quite harmonise.

  Blair adjusted her grip on the hilt of her sword. The leather wrapping was worn smooth from use, familiar beneath her fingers. She scanned the alleys branching off the main street, watching for movement.

  Her instincts were screaming. She’d learned to trust them over the years, and right now they were telling her something was wrong.

  “Reed,” she whispered. “Something’s not right.”

  The shadow residue coating the cobblestones wasn’t just sitting there. It was moving. Collecting in shallow pools where the stones dipped, flowing slowly toward central points like water finding a drain. Blair had seen enough magic in her life to recognise when someone was gathering it.