The Oakhaven Equinox Festival raged behind me, a riot of color, firelight, and music. The laughter and clamor were muffled here, at the edge of town, where the streets ended and the Ironwood forest began. In this narrow strip of neutral ground, the air was sharp and cool, carrying the scent of pine and damp earth. The festivities felt like another world, a world I had left behind, a world that didn’t know what I was about to risk.
The Null Stone pressed against my throat, its cold surface biting into my skin. I could feel its constant, insidious pull, a leash that Sibal had thrown around me like a chain. But even as it hummed with its oppressive magic, my fingers brushed the crack that Guilermo had made, hairline and almost invisible. A fissure in the impossible, a tiny rebellion. The sto
