Annalise's POV
Memory Sequence
I stand in our wooden cottage, the air thick with storm clouds and tension. The man is beside me, his grip firm as he directs my gaze to the scene unfolding before us.
The door bursts open, and my father storms in, flanked by six cloaked witches. Their skeletal hands are grotesque—an eerie blend of bone and sinew. The leader, her face shadowed, prowls through the room.
“It’s too protected. We can’t perform the ritual here,” she rasps, her voice a nightmare made real.
“I don’t care where,” my father growls, his voice laced with fury. “Just get the children out of her belly. I’ve already lost the first three—I won’t lose my chance at this power again.”
The witches nod in unsettling unison and exit. The man beside me grips my arm as we follow.
Outside, tw
