Chapter 75

Aria's POV

Spring arrived in Shadow Peak the way it always did — not gradually, but all at once, like a decision finally made.

One morning the trees were bare and the ground was hard and grey, and the next the air smelled of something green and insistent pushing through the cold. Kira noticed before I did. She stood at the kitchen window with her palms flat against the glass and announced it with the authority of someone delivering important intelligence.

"It's spring now, Mama."

"Is it?"

"The mud is back."

She was not wrong.

The seasonal shift brought with it the kind of restless energy that made...