*Aria*
By morning, the forest had new eyes.
You could feel them in the way the air pressed against the windows, in the restless pacing of the warriors outside, in the tight way everyone held themselves—as if expecting something to lunge out of the shadows at any moment.
I woke from a thin, fractured sleep with my heart already pounding, the memory of charcoal on stone vivid behind my eyes.
A circle.
Three lines through it.
The mark of the witch.
Nightfang had answered.
Not with words.
With a symbol.
An agreement.
An invitation.
An I see you.
Rhea had not come back yet when I finally pushed off the blanket and sat up. Judging by the color of the sky at the window—pale gray, clouds like dirty wool—it was early, but not obscenely so. The manor was already stirring.
I washed qu
