Serena opened her front door and froze.
Valan stood on her threshold, exactly as he had the morning before.
Same posture. Same stillness. Same infuriating calm, as if he belonged there.
A faint smirk touched his mouth when he saw her expression.
“You have got to be joking,” Serena said flatly.
Valan’s gaze slid past her shoulder, already cataloguing the glow of the wards she had etched into the stonework overnight. They shimmered faintly, layered upon layered, Blackthorn sigils braided with older protections she had pulled from forbidden tomes. The magic hummed, alert, defensive, sharp.
He stepped forward.
Nothing reacted.
No resistance. No recoil. No surge.
Serena spun on him. “I spent two hours rebuilding those.”
“I know,” Valan said, stepping fully inside. “You reinforced the
