Maisie’s eyes snapped open at dawn. Rowan felt it before she heard it — the way the old floorboards under the Guthrie house shivered like something alive, roots pressing up through the gaps like veins seeking a new heart. Rowan sat with her back against the cold hearth, Maisie’s small body curled into her side, Lucien’s shadow hunched at her other shoulder like frost clinging to a dying candle.
The hush was too thick to breathe. Rowan hadn’t dared sleep — not since Kellen’s grin slid back into the swamp with the promise of old teeth and older roots hungry to find new ways in. The witches of her Circle drifted in the corners — Edith whispering prayers she hadn’t used since Rowan was a girl, Miriam pacing near the back door, her salt bowl held so tight her knuckles cracked white.
Maisie tw
