For a long second, no one moved.

  Evelyn just stood at the tree line, brushing dirt off her gloves like she'd merely stepped out for air.

  Ysel's face drained of color.

  "Oh, that's interesting," Ferric murmured—his voice low, almost delighted. His aura cracked open like a furnace door. The air fshed white with heat, and every firefly in the clearing fell stone-dead mid-flight.

  "Ferric—" I said.

  He was already gone.

  Not running. Not lunging.

  Just gone—a scorch-mark where his boots had been, the moss still curling from heat.

  Heat smmed across the clearing. Evelyn barely got her weight under her before he dropped out of the canopy above her, trailing a spiraling helix of red-white fire that howled like something caged.

  She twisted aside. Barely.

  The impact punched a crater into the moss. Half the clearing lit up. A shockwave shredded low branches. Rocher swore and shielded his eyes.

  Ferric came out of the bst, eyes crazed, heat warping the air around his face.

  "You must be something special," he said. "Most creatures would already be dead now."

  A chain of glowing sigils coiled up his arm like living runes. His second spell wasn't fire at all—it was force, raw and condensed, enough to crater stone.

  Evelyn ducked under it, slid across the moss, and kicked his knee sideways hard enough that a normal person would've screamed. Ferric only ughed, pivoted with the blow, and backhanded a slice of compressed mana toward her. It sheared a tree in half.

  "Ferric!" Rocher barked.

  Ferric ignored him completely, pupils blown wide with battle-high.

  Evelyn flicked a knife from her sleeve—Ferric gnced at it, and the metal sagged into molten droplets before it hit the ground.

  He started to raise both hands—which was worse, far worse—because Ferric with two hands meant he was about to stop holding back and unleash something that would turn the clearing into a ke of ash—

  "Rocher!"

  Rocher moved.

  Even then, Ferric tracked him, eyes bright with anticipation.

  Rocher barely caught Ferric's wrist—and hissed through his teeth as the heat rolling off it blistered his palm.

  "Enough," Rocher ground out. "She's one of us."

  Ferric tilted his head, amused. "Oh? The Hero wants to py too? Showing your true colors now that you know what we are."

  He twisted his arm, and for one horrible instant, Rocher's boots slid half an inch through burned moss. Ferric was winning that leverage contest. Ferric had more raw power than Rocher had muscle.

  Rocher's jaw clenched.

  The runes etched into his bracers fred. Not bright. Not clean. A staggered ignition, gold bleeding unevenly through the channels as if the magic were forcing its way out rather than being invited.

  Heat nced up his arms. His breath hitched. He leaned into the strain anyway, shoulders shaking as the magic fed strength where his body had none left to give.

  Ferric's grin sharpened. Just a fraction. "Let your old master see how far you've come on your own, then."

  Across the clearing, Evelyn went very still.

  "Rocher…"

  The word was not admiration. It was arm.

  "Ferric! Still yourself," Ysel snapped.

  Ferric didn't.

  He inhaled—and the temperature spiked again, the air shimmering hard enough to blur vision.

  Ysel smmed her staff into the ground.

  Roots tore upward like vipers.

  This time Ferric's eyes widened as half a dozen ancient roots punched through his guard and wrapped him. He erupted fire instinctively, trying to burn them off, and the roots smoldered but did not break. Ysel reinforced them with a guttural witch-word that made the air vibrate.

  Ferric thrashed once, hard enough to make the tree behind him crack.

  "Matron—!" he barked, furious. "I almost had her!"

  "You almost had the entire forest burning," Ysel snapped. Her voice was iron. "Stand down, Ferric."

  Ferric spat a curse and yanked again. Bark splintered. The roots groaned.

  He was still fighting—not petuntly, but with actual strength, enough that Nyxara raised a hand toward her golems.

  He finally went sck at the sound of their thunderous footsteps.

  Only then did everyone breathe again.

  Evelyn dusted ash off her sleeve. "Huh," she said mildly. "I see why you all keep that one on a leash."

  Ferric snarled like something feral. "Let me go and I'll show you exactly why."

  The smell of scorched bark lingered, sharp and bitter.

  Ysel tightened the roots another inch.

  "Evelyn," I said, heart pounding with a mix of relief and fear. "What happened? Why are you here? How did you—"

  She lifted a hand. "It's a long story."

  Her smile faltered.

  A golem carrying Nyxara thudded closer, stone dust fking off its shoulders.

  "Speak quickly," she warned. "If you're a danger to us, our Warlock comes off the leash. And it won't be only him you contend with."

  Evelyn's eyes flicked my way—almost apologetic. A rare look.

  "...Alright," she said. "Let me start from the beginning."

  She adjusted her satchel strap, exhaled once, and her voice settled into something steady.

  "After I dropped Lumi off with the Duke, I returned to the capital."

  She paused, eyes flicking past all of us—as if deciding where to begin.

  "That's when things went sideways."

  When Evelyn returned to the capital, she didn't even make it past the outer gates before two royal guards intercepted her. They fell into step on either side of her, with all the subtlety of a parade formation, and informed her that the Crown Prince had summoned her.

  She considered slipping away into the crowd. Briefly.

  But these were the loud kind of guards—the type who would shout "Stop, thief!" before she'd taken two steps—so she let them escort her through the pace.

  The Crown Prince was waiting in a sunroom with too much gss and too little warmth. He stood with his back to the light, posture straight, expression unreadable.

  "Guildmaster Evelyn," he greeted, as if he hadn't spent the st few months treating her like an administrative nuisance. "It's been a while."

  She bowed just enough to be polite.

  As Guildmaster, she'd only met her benefactor twice: once to receive his congratutions when she was sworn in, and once more to brief him on Seraphine's disappearance.

  The only other time they'd met was when Rocher first hired her on for the party. He'd looked her over then, appraising her with that same chilling smirk.

  He gestured for her to rise. "Your mission went smoothly, I trust."

  "It did," she said quickly. "The Saintess has reached the Aurelian Duchy without issue. Per the Hero's st command."

  "Good. I'm sure by now Her Holiness and my uncle are raising havoc about overreach and misuse of the Church's resources."

  He hummed, pleased, then walked around the table, studying her.

  Evelyn felt her hairs raise, but swallowed it down before he could notice.

  "But that's... not the reason you summoned me here today."

  "Very perceptive, Guildmaster," he said. "As much as I'd like to watch Her Holiness and Bishop Halbrecht duke it out on the podium, I'm afraid time is short."

  His hand came to rest beneath his chin.

  "I'd like to go over arrangements for my upcoming expedition. The one the White Warden calls 'crusade'."

  "Your expedition?" She blinked. "Your Highness, forgive me for speaking out of turn. But you don't command a formal military force outside the Hero party—over half of whom are wanted by that very same crusade."

  He ughed and clicked his tongue. "I'm not nearly so toothless as you think. I still have you."

  "Me?" Her eyebrows lifted. First in surprise, then recognition. "The Thieves. But sire, Thieves are hardly famed for front-line capability."

  His smile sharpened. "I'm afraid you're mistaken."

  He folded his hands behind his back and peered out the window.

  "I intend to use Mercenaries," he said. "My Mercenaries. While you were away, my father ceded responsibility over the Guild's affairs to me. It seems the recent fiasco has given His Majesty quite the headache—he intends to wash his hands of the matter. And it made little sense to divide sponsorship among us when you were now leading both."

  Evelyn's eyes went wide.

  Both Guilds. Meaning the power of the Thieves' Guild and the Mercenary Guild were now at his disposal—through her.

  "And as of this morning," he continued, "I've consolidated both charters. The Thieves' intelligence network. The Mercenaries' discipline and training. All into one structure. One purpose."

  He turned to give her a wry smirk. "Call it... the Night Wardens. Working name."

  She grimaced.

  A sly jab against the Tower's White Warden. A shadow to his light, sanctioned by the Crown.

  "I didn't agree to this," Evelyn said carefully.

  "And you don't have to." He smiled, faint and almost indulgent. "The contracts will be honored either way."

  She kept her face as neutral as possible, though the Crown Prince caught the shadow in her eyes.

  "You were already having them share and py nice, were you not?" He rapped his fingers against the desk lightly. "Now you have my official blessing."

  "I—" Evelyn pressed her lips together. The Crown Prince seemed to savor the silence, before smoothing his expression once more.

  "Assemble five squads," he said. "Deploy them alongside the crusaders. I'll have your contract sent shortly."

  Five squads. A hundred men. Practically a personal army.

  It expined the sudden tension she'd sensed in the capital—the mobilization orders, the restless movement through barracks and supply lines, the air of something too rge to be contained.

  Evelyn went down on one knee. "If it pleases Your Highness, I can offer my personal services as a forward scout," she said, adopting the crisp, obedient tone she saved for people she pnned to betray in short order. "I'll provide intelligence. Act discreetly."

  The Crown Prince nodded, satisfied. "Excellent. You continue to justify my confidence, Guildmaster."

  That ended the meeting.

  Evelyn walked out of the pace, down the marble steps, through the bustling Royal Road—and the moment she was out of sight of the guards, she headed straight for the Mercenary Guild headquarters.

  She skimmed the mobilization rosters. She forged the signatures she needed.She pocketed the maps and shredded the copies.And vanished before the ink dried.

  By dusk, she and Fritz were already halfway to the Forbidden Forest.

  "And that's just the short version," she said. "The crusade is about to get bigger, smarter—and a lot less predictable. Bright side is, they're taking a while to form up, since I tore up all our intelligence on the way out."

  Silence hung for a moment.

  A low rumbling growl vibrated through Nyxara's golem.

  "You expect us to believe this?" Nyxara asked, voice ft and ancient. "You stroll through a barrier that predates your entire lineage, bring news of a reinforcement we are ill-prepared for, and we're meant to accept you as ally rather than saboteur?"

  Evelyn blinked. "I mean, I'd prefer it if you did."

  Ferric snarled from where Ysel's roots pinned him. "Just let me go. One bout and we'll know exactly what she's pying at."

  "You won't find anything I didn't already disclose," Evelyn said defensively.

  "She's lying," Ferric said. "Or hiding something. Or both. Let me at her."

  Ysel tightened the roots around his shoulders. "You are seeing blood where there is none. Still yourself."

  Ferric strained again, teeth bared. "You're all fools if you think she came alone. She probably marched a whole cadre right through the wards."

  Evelyn scoffed. "If I brought a ptoon with me, you'd already have heard them. Mercenaries aren't famed for stealth."

  Rocher stepped forward. "His Highness won't take betrayal lying down," he said. "You know this. And you still defected. Why?"

  Evelyn offered him a look that was half boredom, half sincerity. "Because you idiots are my idiots. And because Lumi would cry if any of you died. His Highness is pnning something big enough to ftten the eastern half of the forest. Sorry if I thought it was fair I should warn you first."

  Nyxara didn't soften. Not even an inch.

  Ysel didn't either.

  Their suspicion pressed like a physical weight.

  Ferric strained again, practically frothing, heat crawling back into the air.

  And Evelyn—Goddess bless her—just stood with her thumbs hooked in her belt, looking mildly annoyed that no one had offered her a drink yet.

  I stepped forward before the tension could snap.

  "We should trust her."

  Silence hit the clearing like a held breath.