CHAPTER 41
The walk back to the cabin was steeped in silence, thick with things left unsaid.
Clara's glare burned into Isabella's back like a curse that hadn't finished forming, sharp and venomous in its restraint.
Isabella felt it anyway and smiled to herself, small and private, the kind of victory that didn't need witnesses.
Lucian led the way through the trees, his presence a solid, unyielding force ahead of them.
His stride never faltered, never slowed, but beneath the calm exterior, awareness pulsed through the bond.
He felt Isabella's flicker of triumph. Felt Clara's simmering fury. And ignored them both. He had more pressing matters to get to.
His mind was a storm of cold calculations.
Why did it fail? The question looped in his head, mocking his supposed brilliance. Clara was a master, yet the ritual hadn't just stalled—it had inverted into something else.
Instead of unpicking the threads of the bond, it had fused them with the force of an explosion
