They came like a plague.
Black-cloaked riders, the symbol on their banners an unfamiliar spiral—wrong, shifting even as the eye tried to follow it. Wolves and men moved beneath it, shadows wearing flesh.
And leading them, astride a pale horse, sat Garrick.
Alive.
Unscathed.
And smiling as if the world had always belonged to him.
But it was the sight of Milo—dragged behind him in chains, bloodied and bowed but alive—that tore the breath from Quinn’s chest.
“No,” Quinn whispered, stepping forward. “Milo…”
Rowan’s light flickered beside him.
“I feel him,” the boy said softly. “He’s not gone. But he’s hurt.”
Jace moved to his mate’s side, his voice a growl barely restrained. “Garrick should be ash.”
“I watched the fire swallow him,” Quinn whispered. “It wasn’t enough.”
“He was neve
