The echo of the moon's voice still lingered in the air like a fading spell.
Prepare for the Second Trial… in the Shadow Realm.
Floraison de Minuit felt wrong.
Too still.
Too watchful.
As if the shadows between the flower shelves had grown eyes.
Lysandra stood in the middle of her shop with Evander on one side and the Shadow Heir on the other, and for the first time, the little place that had always been her sanctuary felt like a threshold.
Her wolf paced under her skin, restless, head lifted as though it scented a storm rolling in from another world.
Evander was the first to move.
"This is insane," he muttered, fingers raking through his hair as he turned in a tight circle. "Shadow Realm? Now? After what just happened to you? You almost shifted in front of half the town—Lysandra, you're not ready for this."
His voice shook on the last word.
The Heir didn't flinch. He simply watched her, violet eyes reflecting the dim lantern light.
"She is ready," he said quietly. "If she weren't, the Realm would not have answered her name."
Lysandra's gaze snapped to him. "It… answered me?"
His shadows stirred around his boots, like smoke listening.
"It felt you," he said. "It recognized your wolf. It called for you. The Shadow Realm does not waste attention on the unworthy."
Evander let out a bitter breath. "Is that supposed to be comforting?"
"It is supposed to be true," the Heir replied.
Lysandra lifted a hand to her chest, feeling the frantic beat of her heart thudding against her ribs. Her wolf pressed there too—uneasy, but not with the mindless panic from earlier.
This was a different kind of tension.
Not fear.
Readiness.
"If I don't go," she said slowly, "do the trials stop?"
"No," the Heir answered. "They follow you. Into your shop. Into your town. Into your dreams."
"So either I walk into the Shadow Realm," she murmured, "or the Shadow Realm comes for me."
Evander stepped closer and took her hand, his grip tight, warm. "Then I'll go with you. You're not walking into that place alone."
"And I am already bound to it," the Heir said. "I walk whether you ask me to or not."
Lysandra looked between them—Evander's storm-grey eyes, the Heir's violet ones, both fixed on her.
The moon's words echoed again at the back of her mind.
Bridge. Two bonds. One fate.
"I need both of you," she whispered.
Evander's fingers tightened around hers. The Heir's shadows eased, as though some part of him relaxed at hearing it out loud.
Her wolf lifted its head, satisfied.
The Heir took a step forward, his gaze never leaving her face. "If you are to survive my world, you must understand its rules."
"Rules?" Evander echoed. "Since when does your nightmare realm have rules?"
"Since long before you were born, mortal." The Heir's voice sharpened, then softened again when he looked back at Lysandra. "Listen carefully. Once we cross, you do not forget them."
She nodded once. "Tell me."
"First," he said, "do not run."
Lysandra frowned. "Why?"
"Because running smells like fear," he replied. "Here, fear is a feeling. There, it is a scent. If you run, everything in the Realm will know you are prey."
Her wolf bristled at the word.
Prey.
Evander grimaced. "And if we stand still?"
"Then it wonders if you are predator," the Heir said. "Wondering is better than deciding."
Lysandra swallowed. "What's next?"
He held out his hand, palm up, closest to the scar on her wrist where the moonlight had burned her once.
"Second," he said, "you do not let go of either of us. Not for a heartbeat. Your bonds are your only anchors. If one slips, even for a moment, the shadows will search the crack."
Evander took her hand tighter. "And if both slip?"
"Then you will never find your way back," the Heir said simply.
Lysandra felt the floor tilt beneath her for a second, even though she hadn't moved. She blinked the dizziness away.
"And the third rule?" she asked.
Silence stretched a moment too long.
When he spoke again, his voice was low. "Do not answer the whispers."
The back of her neck prickled. "What whispers?"
"The Realm will speak to you," he said. "It will sound like those you love. It will sound like those you hate. It will sound like your own thoughts. It will say your name in your mother's voice, your father's voice, mine, Evander's, your wolf's." His jaw tightened. "Whatever it says, you do not speak back. Not a word. Not even in your mind."
Evander's thumb brushed her knuckles. "And if she does?"
The Heir's eyes darkened. "Then it will know exactly how to break her."
Lysandra's wolf growled quietly at that, pressing against her ribs.
We do not break.
Her breath trembled, but she nodded. "Don't run. Don't let go. Don't answer."
"Good." He straightened, raising his hand.
The lantern light flickered. Every moonblossom in the shop shifted, petals quivering as though a breeze had touched them—though the air was still.
Then the floor cracked.
A thin line of glowing violet split the wooden boards from the door to the back wall. The crack pulsed, once, twice, like a heartbeat pounding from somewhere deep below.
Evander flinched. "Nope. Don't like that. Really don't like that."
The crack widened.
Lysandra felt something beneath it.
Not emptiness.
Presence.
Old and deep and strangely… curious.
Her wolf's ears pricked forward.
The Heir glanced at her. "It feels you."
The line of light burst open.
Shadows exploded upward like black flame, swirling into a vortex at their feet. Cold air rushed around them, carrying a scent like rain on stone and something metallic underneath.
Evander staggered, then found his balance, squeezing her hand so tightly it almost hurt. "Lysandra—"
"I'm here," she said, just as tightly.
The Heir stepped closer, his other hand closing lightly around her wrist, cool and steady. "I have you."
The shop around them blurred, colors bleeding into darkness. The shelves, flowers, lanterns—all smeared, stretched, and vanished as if pulled through ink.
Shadows lashed around their legs, coiling up to their knees. Her skirt whipped around her calves. Her hair flew around her face, caught in a wind that didn't seem to come from anywhere.
"Don't let go," Evander gasped, voice swallowed almost instantly by the roaring silence.
Lysandra pressed her fingers into his palm until they ached. She clung to the Heir's wrist with her other hand.
Her wolf was no longer pacing.
It was standing.
Still.
Alert.
Waiting.
The last traces of her shop dissolved.
Nothing remained but the crack of violet light beneath them and the suffocating dark above.
"Lysandra," the Heir's voice brushed her ear, calm in a way that made her heart steady even as everything else fell away, "remember—"
"I know," she whispered. "The dark fears me."
A ghost of a smile touched his mouth.
The crack flared white.
The ground vanished.
For a breathless, endless heartbeat, she was nowhere—
not falling,
not flying,
just suspended in a space that felt like the Realm was inhaling her.
Then she felt it.
Not a wall.
Not a floor.
A presence.
The Shadow Realm noticed her.
It felt like walking into a room and realizing everyone inside had turned to look at her, even though she couldn't see a single face.
Her wolf stiffened.
It's watching.
Something cold brushed against her ankle, like a fingertip made of fog. Not hurting. Testing.
Evander jerked. "Something touched me."
"The Realm is curious," the Heir murmured. "Do not give it fear."
Lysandra swallowed down the instinct to flinch.
"I'm not afraid," she whispered.
She was.
But she was also done running.
The darkness around them shifted, thickening, taking on weight and shape.
Somewhere far ahead, a faint line of deeper black appeared, edged in violet.
A door. Not made of wood or stone.
A door made of shadow.
The Heir's grip tightened.
"This is the threshold," he said. "Once we cross, the trial begins. There is no turning back until the Realm decides it is finished with us."
Evander's breath hitched beside her, but he didn't loosen his grip.
"Then we finish it together."
Lysandra drew in a slow, shaking breath.
Her wolf lifted its head.
We walk.
We face it.
We do not bow.
She set her jaw. "Open it."
The Heir stretched out his free hand and pressed his palm to the door of darkness.
It shuddered.
Then, with a sound like the moon exhaling, the Shadow Realm opened its eyes.