Third Person POV
The city felt off. Fake, almost. Not like Evershade. Evershade was quiet, careful. Here, everything happened too fast—cars cutting you off, people brushing past without a word, lights buzzing so loud you could feel them in your teeth. The air practically vibrated.
Averyn felt it deep down. She didn't even need to pull out the Codex to know it was awake. It stayed hidden in her bag, wrapped up tight, but she could feel it anyway—like an extra heartbeat she never asked for. It kept pulsing, steady and stubborn.
Ever since the forest, it wouldn't stay still. The shadows hadn't broken; they'd just slipped away. She muttered, "We shouldn't stay here."
Jade shot her a look. "You've said that three times already."
"And every time, it's felt true."
They stood just outside a little café, its lights flickering, windows fogged up from the inside. All around them, crowds surged—people laughing, arguing, glued to their phones, just living their lives. No one noticed the knot of tension twisting between the five girls.
Vynessa's gaze drifted. "It's packed," she said, almost to herself.
"With what?" Gianna asked.
"Echoes."
Ruelle clenched her jaw. "The air's weird."
The Codex in her bag pulsed, stronger now.
Averyn stopped, staring.
Shadows stretched across the street—too sharp, too long, wrong somehow. Even with all that light, they clung to the corners of buildings and pooled under empty benches.
Nobody seemed to care. People just kept walking, eyes glazed, missing everything.
Carmira leaned in, voice low. "Tell me I'm not seeing this."
Jade felt heat spark across her knuckles. "You're not," she said, swallowing it back down.
The pressure hit all at once. Not an explosion—more like the world squeezing tight. Noise dropped off, muffled and distant, like someone had thrown a glass dome over the city. The air thickened around Averyn, every breath harder than the last. Heat pressed against her side where the Codex smoldered through her clothes.
No twisted shapes in the shadows tonight. Instead, the shadows watched. They narrowed in, closing the gap.
Vynessa drew a sharp breath. "They're testing."
Averyn felt it before she understood—water, swelling just under her skin. Her body braced for danger, too fast for her mind to keep up.
She tried to hold it back. Didn't work. Too late.
A glow slipped around all five of them, a thin blue shimmer—fragile, quick, almost lost under the streetlights.
But it held. That was all they needed.
The shadows pulled back. Not in a rush, not with panic—just on purpose. Like they'd found what they were looking for.
Gianna's breath caught. "Averyn—"
"I didn't mean to," Averyn blurted.
The weight in the room didn't let up. It just changed. It climbed, got colder. Something out there had stopped watching and started... taking notes.
Jade's voice sounded strained. "We're making it worse."
"That wasn't by chance," Ruelle said.
Averyn's reply was barely above a whisper. "It knows who we are."
The word hit her, heavy and cold. This whole thing—it hadn't been wild or out of control. It was careful. Intentional.
The Codex flashed again, a sharp pulse that almost hurt.
Then—nothing.
Noise rushed back in. A car horn outside. The café's door chiming. Footsteps. People. Life.
The shadows slipped away, just plain darkness again.
But the air still felt wrong. Like it hadn't cleared. Not really.
Averyn said, "Let's go. Before we do something even dumber."
They headed down the sidewalk side by side. They didn't touch, but you could feel something in the air between them, almost electric. Halfway down the block, Averyn slowed, eyes distant.
The Codex had stopped reacting on the outside. Now, it hummed somewhere inside her.
Jade leaned in, her voice barely above a whisper. "What?"
Averyn stopped walking. The city around them seemed to dim—not to the eyes, but in some deeper, stranger way. Like someone pulled a thick curtain over everything, muffling it. Hidden beneath all the city noise, she caught something else—a rupture, a pause, far off.
They were connected, somehow.
Her stomach dropped. She whispered, "That wasn't here."
Ruelle stiffened. "Then where?"
Another tremor shivered through the air, sharp and distant. It sounded like glass cracking under weight.
Vynessa's voice dropped to a whisper. "It showed something."
The streetlights blinked—just once.
Averyn gripped her bag tighter. Whatever had been pressing in on them, it wasn't acting alone.
And out there, beyond the city, past the streets and Evershade—something answered back.