Lysantia's cottage wasn't built so much as grown.
It sat at the base of a rotting ash tree whose trunk split like a mouth swallowing sky. Moss-draped bones hung from the limbs above, clinking with the wind like ritual chimes. Inside, light flickered from no fire, and shadows moved without cause. Lucas stepped over a circle of salt and ash at the threshold—his instincts screamed trap, but his need was greater than fear.
The witch watched him with those hollow, luminous eyes as she crushed red moss into a mortar.
"You don't want to close the breach," she said. "Not really."
Lucas crossed his arms. "You think I summoned a memory-eater on purpose?"
"You summoned Malgros. And he is bound to the space between. Opening the wound invited more than him. Ephraal is just the first to answer."
Lucas stiffened. "I'm not a gate."
Lysantia smiled, baring teeth filed to thorns. "No. You're the key."
She dragged a clawed finger down the length of her table, revealing a living root system beneath the wood. It pulsed with faint red light.
"The Ashen Veil were children playing with matches. What you did was older. Deeper. You called true fire. A soul-branding pact. It leaves something behind."
"A scar?" Lucas asked.
"A signature," she corrected. "And those who hunt power? They read it like scripture."
Lucas paced the room, his boots creaking across floorboards that shifted like flesh. He looked up at her, exhaustion and defiance warring in his eyes. "Then teach me how to unwrite it."
Lysantia's smile faded.
"I can teach you. But power demands payment."
Lucas nodded grimly. "Name it."
She reached into a jar of black feathers and pulled out a seed no larger than a tear. It pulsed like a heartbeat.
"Plant this in your heart."
Lucas didn't flinch. "Will it kill me?"
"It will change you," she whispered. "More than Malgros ever did."
He took the seed.
And swallowed it whole.