The forest was silent again, but it wasn’t peace — it was the heavy, taut kind of silence that follows something unnatural.
The rogues were gone.
The fog, however, lingered.
Dustin’s boots crunched over frost and fallen leaves as he walked the ridge where the figure had stood. There were no footprints, no scent — only the faintest trace of something wrong, a sharp metallic tang that didn’t belong to blood or soil.
Crystal stood a few paces behind him, arms wrapped tightly around herself. She was back in human form, though her skin still carried the faint shimmer of Bree’s spirit beneath. Her bare feet were streaked with mud, her hair tangled with twigs and dried blood, but her eyes — bright, luminous silver — were clear and burning.
“They shouldn’t have known we’d be out here,” she sa
