They felt Obsidian move at midnight.

Marina was at the boundary stones running the final frequency check when the outer perimeter shifted, not the gradual tightening she had been monitoring for days but a sudden compression, all the careful patient distance collapsing inward at once like something that had been held back and released simultaneously.

She had her hand on the centermost stone before the movement finished.

The Grove's old magic surged upward in response, the boundary snapping to full alert, the seven stones blazing gold-white in the dark without Marina doing anything to activate them.

They activated themselves.

She had not known they could do that.

She pressed both...