“But the weapons—” Brianna started.
“Weapons later. Apocalypse prep with magic now,” Rayna snapped.
Joell was already digging through her pouch of emergency crystals. “We need a containment field. If those markings activate again, they could ping that thing like a magical GPS.”
Katie stepped closer to Eli and gently touched his shoulder. “You’re not the enemy here.”
He looked up at her, eyes glassy with fear. “No. But I might be the delivery system.”
Bubbles burped a tiny shimmer. “Then let us rewrite the message.”
The witches paused.
Joell blinked. “If we candothat, it might buy us precious time.”
Sahara rubbed her temples. “Technically, if the markings are magically reactive, we could overwrite them with a counterspell. But we’d need to know what language they’re written in.”
Bubbles swirled once in midair. “I’ve forgotten it. But I can hum the alphabet.”
“Oh no,” Victoria groaned. “It’s going to sing.”
And sure enough, the fish began warbling what sounded like an off-key lullaby in a language no one recognized but somehow still understood, deep in their bones. Eli closed his eyes, and every mark on his arms shimmered sequentially in time with the tune.
Katie’s vision swam. For a second, the entire world twisted. And in the middle of it all, the phrase from her familiar surfaced again:The moon is hungry.
When her vision cleared, Eli was sitting on the ground, shivering, arms wrapped around his knees.
Rayna exhaled hard. “Okay. Someone get a blanket. And maybe a snack. He’s in shock.”
Joell looked up at the sky. “The moon’s still rising. We’ve got an hour left of this ritual window. Let’s finish strong and hope the mountain doesn’t explode.”
“Ilikethis mountain,” Brianna added, grabbing the uncorked pinot. “Anyone else need some of this?”
The other witches shook their heads, so Brianna tipped the bottle up and finished it.
Katie sat beside Eli, letting Bubbles float quietly above them. The goldfish had gone silent. Tail drifting, eyes distant.
“Bubbles?” she whispered.
The fish blinked slowly. “If the mimic comes through, he’ll wear what you love. So, looktwice, Katie. Always look twice.”
“I guess I’ll have to be on the lookout for someone wearing an ironic hoodie or a t-shirt with some pithy saying.
Back in Brooklyn,the brownstone’s protective wards hummed with tension.
Michael and Daniel were in the kitchen, sorting through spell-tagged gear while Payne double-checked the ward glyphs at every window.
“Feels like we’re being watched,” Daniel muttered.
“You are,” Payne said. “We all are. It’s getting closer.”
He felt it like a pressure behind his eyes, a hum beneath his skin. Not just magic, but intent. Something out there was hunting, and it had finally picked a door to knock on.
A crash shattered the silence. The front door exploded inward. A ripple of shadow poured into the hallway, dark and fast.
“MOVE!” Payne shouted, grabbing the enchanted axe from the kitchen counter.
Daniel triggered the trip sigil embedded in the rug. The creature stumbled, just enough.