Page 56

Outside, the wind had picked up, tugging at the hem of her skirt, at the pieces of her unraveling. No matter what she said, what happened between them, Jace apparently would always feel that she was the wrong choice. Her or the pack, that’s how he would only see it.

She didn’t head toward home.

Didn’t think at all.

Just followed the wooded path behind the Keep that wound toward the base of the hills. Where the wildflowers grew in tangled bursts and the whisper root swayed without sound. Where the trees didn’t judge and the air didn’t lie.

She was halfway to the stream before she realized how far she’d gone.

Too far.

The town was no longer visible through the trees. The breeze had gone still. Too still.

Something shifted, too quiet, too wrong.

She reached for her magic instinctively, but it flared strange. Sluggish. Her pulse spiked.

“Not exactly the reunion you were hoping for, I bet.”

The voice slithered through the trees.

Lyra spun and froze.

Three figures stepped out from the brush, cloaked in black, each wearing a shimmer-cast mask that blurred their features. But their scent—faintly wrong, acrid under layers of glamour—curled in her nose like rot.

Wolfe pack.

Ezra’s men.

She lifted her hand, a spell already forming.

The one in front flicked their wrist.

Pain seared through her limbs as golden light wrapped tight around her wrists and ankles, slamming her to her knees.

Her breath whooshed out.

Magical bonds.

No,Ezra’smagic. She could feel it, the twisted threads of compulsion, the bite of control laced through the shimmer.

“Get off me!” she snarled, struggling, trying to summon fire,anything.

But her power sputtered.

One of the others stepped behind her, yanking her upright. She twisted, bit, kicked.

It didn’t matter. The magic held.

“Ezra sends his regards,” the leader said smoothly. “He’s been ever so patient. But now? He’s done waiting.”

“Tell him—” she gasped, still fighting. “—that he picked the wrong witch to screw with.”

The leader chuckled. “Funny. He said you’d say that.”

They dragged her into the trees, deeper, faster.

And Lyra Ravenshade—chaos witch, storm-hearted, too wild for her own good—vanished beneath the veil of shadow and leaves.