Moonlight filters through a thinning veil of clouds, painting the fields in white and shadow. The runes Grams and I carved last week shimmer faintly beneath the soil—soft, pulsing light tracing the lines of the fence, the barn, the house. Each rune hums in my bones as I walk the perimeter, salt bag in hand, marking weak points.
William follows behind, silent except for the crunch of gravel under his boots. His presence moves with the same weight as a storm cloud—contained, waiting to break.
I don’t ask him to stop watching me. I’ve learned that’s pointless.
“You don’t have to hover,” I murmur, kneeling to redraw a faded line. The iron in the mixture stains my fingertips dark.
“I do when the air feels like this,” he replies. “Something’s moving on the other side of the wards.”
I glance
