The cold, solid stone of the sanctuary lingered in my marrow, a remnant of the Nøkken's Stillness we had cultivated for hours. But the moment we stepped past the heavy oak thresholds and into the main artery of the Sylvancrest Enclave, the ambient magic grew suffocatingly dense.
In the library, the air had been manageable, filtered by my personal wards. Ivy had spent the afternoon focused, her instincts adapting well to the structural meditation patterns I had laid out to starve the Dreamweaver. But here, the palace was a different beast entirely. It was teeming with Fae of every house and lineage. The air carried the oily, unmistakable scent of high-court ambition—a heavy, metallic pressure that instantly triggered the erratic frequencies in Ivy's baseline.
Beside me, Ivy’s stride alter
