The attack came at dusk, three days after Harold’s defiance.

They expected silence. They got war.

The first wave hit the cottage wards like a tidal wave of green fire (Agnetha’s last contingency, triggered from her cell by a single drop of blood on a prison mirror). The sky above the frozen pond turned the color of old bruises.

Eliza felt it first. She was in the kitchen, flipping pancakes, when the grimoire on the counter slammed open to a blank page and began ...