*~~~~*
She freed us, and then she let us outside.
But it turns out… the place was not it.
The longer we stayed there, the more wrong it felt—not in the way danger announces itself, but in the way emptiness does. No pull. No echo. No trace of Aurora's presence. Just silence pretending to mean something.
Alice was the first to say it.
"This isn't it."
The words fell heavy.
"But it feels hidden," Caspian argued.
"Yes," she replied, slowly folding the map, "but it feels empty. Aurora leaves marks. Even when she hides."
My chest tightened. I knew she was right.
We were about to turn back when the fog shifted.
And then we saw her.
An old, crooked woman stood at the edge of the trees, bent over a wooden staff. Her back was hunched unnaturally, her hair long and gray, dragging almost to the ground. Her eyes—cloudy, pale—locked onto us the moment we noticed her.
"Well," she croaked, lips splitting into a toothless smile, "travelers."
None of us moved.
