Warmth hovered at the edge of my awareness—soft, unfamiliar, drifting in and out like a hand brushing my hair. I surfaced slowly, heavily. As if sleep had been something I fought with, not rested in.

  A roof of woven branches greeted me when my eyes cracked open. Not a prison ceiling. Not the Tower's stones. The air smelled of mint leaves crushed underfoot and the faint burn of yesterday's fire.

  I tried to sit up. A bolt of pain shot through my left side.

  A sling. A crude one—clean linen torn into strips, knotted with each twist pulled by someone who understood anatomy but had neither time nor resources. My arm was bound tight against my ribs, the shoulder packed with herbs I could smell even through the linen.

  And I was wearing a robe that definitely wasn't mine.

  Loose at the sleeves. Tight across the chest. Tugging at the hips.

  Seraphine's.

  My cheeks went hot, imagining how she must have changed me out of my torn and crusted robes.

  "Careful," came a soft voice. "It's easy to undo a night's work when you're being reckless."

  Seraphine sat by a stove in the corner, coaxing a cy pot over low coals. Her hair was unbound, falling in a bright curtain around her shoulders, and shadows clung under her eyes in a way that didn't match her tone.

  The hut around us was small but lived-in. Bnkets piled in corners. Drying herbs strung along a ceiling beam. A chipped mirror propped against the wall beside a wooden comb. Someone had once cared about their appearance here.

  Seraphine poured tea into a cup and limped over, lowering herself beside me with careful grace.

  "One of the witches lived here," she said. "She left years ago to do... whatever witches do. So we're borrowing it for now. I tidied a bit."

  I took the cup with my good hand. Steam curled up, scented with something sharp and sweet—forest mint, cracked amberroot, and a pinch of hyssop.

  A tonic for pain and infmmation. Thoughtful. Intentional.

  "You're a bad liar," I murmured.

  Her fingers froze around her own cup.

  "Am I?"

  "Seraphine." I turned slightly so I could see her face. "Are you alright?"

  The question broke her. Not dramatically—just a single, wordless crack through whatever brittle courage she'd been holding up like a shield.

  Her cup trembled against the rim of her knee.

  "I'm fine," she tried.

  "Seraphine."

  She swallowed. Looked down. And the truth seeped out the way corruption does—slow, subtle, filling the spaces pain leaves behind.

  "It's getting worse," she whispered. "Every day. Every hour, really. I can still fight it. But I'm losing ground."

  My throat closed. She said it lightly, as if it were just a stubborn fever. But I could see it now—the faint gray threading through the veins at her colrbone, the dull cast beneath her skin, the tremor she kept suppressing in her right hand.

  But the thing that had shaken the riverbank yesterday—the crushing, feral aura that had rolled off her like a storm—was gone. Not suppressed. Not buried. Just... absent. As if whatever force had surged through her had burned itself out and left nothing but exhaustion behind.

  I set the cup aside before my hands betrayed how afraid I was.

  "You need to stop using it," I whispered.

  Seraphine blinked, as if she had misheard me. "Cire—"

  "Seraphine," I said, my voice sharper than I intended. "Look at me."

  She did. Slowly.

  "You cannot use demonic magic again," I said. "Not once. Not for anything."

  A frustrated breath escaped her. "Cire, if you get cornered again—"

  "I will handle it." I pushed through the pain in my ribs. "Or Rocher will. Or anyone else. But you will not touch that magic again. It's killing you."

  Seraphine's jaw clenched. She stared at her hands as if they were already foreign to her.

  "Swear to me," I said. "Swear you won't use it again."

  "Cire—"

  "Swear it."

  The force in my voice startled me. It startled her even more.

  It was cruel, asking for a promise I knew she couldn't keep forever. But if it kept her alive long enough to reach the Matron—long enough for us to be ready—then cruelty was a kindness I could live with for now.

  Slowly, she bowed her head.

  "I swear," she whispered. "I won't use it again."

  I finally let out a breath.

  "We need the Coven's help," I said. "The Matron. She'll know what to do."

  Seraphine huffed a humorless ugh.

  "She's not exactly the sort of person you can just visit. The Coven wanders. They keep no roads, no markers. They're solitary by nature."

  "That's true." I sipped the tea to hide my rising dread. "But they do meet."

  Her brow lifted.

  "Every full moon. For tea."

  Seraphine stared at me, a line forming between her brows.

  "You're not seriously going to use your old excuse again, are you? You read it in a book? Cire, you know as well as I do they don't write books about witches."

  Heat prickled at the back of my neck. I lowered the cup.

  "I just know," I said quietly. "Some things... I just know."

  She exhaled, frustrated but no longer pretending she was alright.

  "It'll be a full moon in roughly a week," she said. "We'll move as soon as possible. Before this gets any worse."

  I tried to smile. It came out shaky.

  "Then in the meantime, I'll trouble you to accompany me somewhere first."

  She tilted her head.

  I had one breadcrumb left for Rocher. I prayed that he had received the first one properly.

  Seraphine's time was short, and she needed his strength for the upcoming trial.

  The door smmed behind him on its own weight.

  Rocher stood in the stable yard, the st of the morning mist curling around the hooves of horses already saddled and restless.

  Fritz's tracks were still fresh—Lumiere and Evelyn had left before dawn, bound for the Aurelian Duchy. Their side of the impossible pn. They would reach Duke Aurelio, and with luck convince him the Tower could not be allowed to move unchecked.

  Rocher tightened the strap on Friedrich's saddle. The bck stallion tossed his head once, sensing the tension threading through his rider's hands.

  He reached into his coat.

  The scrap of parchment was creased and smudged from being read too many times.

  His fingers brushed the familiar strokes—and memory pulled him backward.

  They'd dragged Rocher into the briefing chamber as soon as he woke, the torches guttering low in their sconces. The White Warden waited at the map table, armor sheening, his white cloak immacute despite yesterday's chaos.

  The Warden didn't waste time.

  "Sir Rocher." His voice was cool stone. "While we were asleep, the temprs found this."

  He lifted a folded square of Tower stationery between two fingers, and passed it over.

  "It seems she left a note in the injured guard's overcoat. Addressed to you."

  Rocher unfolded it with steady hands, and read it aloud:

  "We are strong where we're strong. Come find me where I'm weakest. Cire."

  Her handwriting. Steady even when she was terrified. He could almost hear her voice in it—wry, resigned, brave in the way she rarely admitted to herself.

  That message wasn't meant for the Warden.

  It was a trick meant for him. And she trusted him to follow through.

  Rocher kept his breathing even.

  The Warden's pale eyes fixed on him. "Expin what it means."

  He didn't look at the message. Didn't look at Lumiere and Evelyn, who stood tense in the corner. He kept his gaze level with the Warden's—calm, slow, controlled.

  "Answer me, Sir Hero," the Warden commanded. A halo of light flickered around his pupils, subtle as a heat shimmer. "Do not attempt to lie."

  Rocher grit his teeth.

  "The Forbidden Forest."

  The Warden watched him carefully.

  Rocher was not lying. But he wasn't telling the whole truth either.

  The words were technically correct: the pce Cire meant was on the Forest's edge.

  The clearing where they'd enjoyed a meal together, where he'd offered her quiet words of support:

  'We're strong where we're strong.And where we're not, we cover each other's weakness.'

  Her weakest pce—imprinted between them alone. A pce no map marked.

  The truth-sense didn't stir.

  The Warden leaned back, satisfied.

  "So she flees to witch territory." He folded the note sharply. "Then she has chosen exile. The matter removes itself from our jurisdiction."

  Lumiere inhaled sharply—but Rocher shot her a warning gnce. Stay silent.

  The Warden continued, tone almost clinical: "The Forest will destroy her or cim her. Either is preferable to harboring a corrupted apostate. Thank you for your cooperation, Sir Hero."

  Cooperation. Rocher's jaw tightened.

  Of all the words the Warden could have chosen, that one cut deepest.

  He dipped his head in a gesture that could be respect or dismissal.

  "You know my duty," he said evenly. "I will honor your decision."

  The truth-sense fred faintly——and cooled.

  Because Rocher meant it. He would honor the Warden's decision.

  You cast her beyond your reach. So whatever I do next is beyond it too.

  The Warden released him with a nod, already turning to draft the writ of formal exile.

  Rocher stepped out into the rising light.

  His hand slipped into his coat pocket, brushing the note.

  He saw the clearing in his mind: the gnarled stump, the fall of moonlight through bare branches, the faint line where the forest shade began.

  The pce she knew only he would remember.

  Rocher mounted Friedrich in one practiced motion. The reins tightened in his grip.

  A pouch containing the Bell of Castle Greymane swung from his belt—and beside it, the small cloth-wrapped charm Cire had made for him, tied securely to the leather strap. The faintest wisp of chestnut caught the light where the fabric split.

  "Hold on," he murmured. "I'm coming."

  He kicked off, and the stallion lunged forward, hooves pounding the dirt road as they tore toward the Forbidden Forest.

  Toward Cire.

  Toward whatever fate waited there.