SERAPHINA’S POV
By the time I made it back home, exhaustion had sunk deep into my bones, and my body ached in all the familiar places.
But my heart felt light, and the excitement bubbling inside me refused to let me collapse straight into bed.
For a long moment, I lay staring at the dark ceiling, replaying the day like a reel I couldn’t stop.
The first rush of dread as we stepped into the Misty Woods. The icy spike of fear when we stumbled on Roxy, half-drowned in the marsh. The taut thread of tension with William’s team.
And then—finally—the dizzying relief of clutching that last moonstone in my hands, of realizing we had actually passed.
Not even the brief stint with Jessica could dull my happiness.
My hands instinctively reached for my phone, but a pang went through me when I realized that I could neither tell Maya nor Lucian about it.
Ugh.
So, instead, I dug out my encrypted phone and called the one other person I wanted to talk to that I actually could.
