Chapter 72 Strategies

Chapter 72 Strategies
The circle hadn’t dispersed. After the candles burned down and the salt circle was swept away, they gathered around Roman’s long dining table. Maps and grimoires spread across the surface, the polished wood now a battlefield of parchment and ink.
Lorraine sat with Rhyan at her side, Shanta and Despoina opposite them. Roman loomed at the head of the table, leaning forward with one hand braced on the maps. His coven clustered along the flanks, faces intent, flames from the sconces gilding their features in gold and shadow.
The air was still buzzing from their earlier ritual. Lorraine could feel Jadis’s gift humming inside her like a heartbeat. It steadied her, but it also frightened her. She hadn’t yet grasped what her power could do—or what it might cost.
“We can’t keep patching holes,” Roman said finally. His voice was low but commanding, cutting through the quiet. “Every time Dwade lashes out, we scramble. He chooses the battlefield. He dictates the terms. That ends now.”
Shanta drummed her nails lightly against the table. “So you’re proposing we take the fight to him?”
Roman nodded. “Yes.”
Anari unrolled a fresh piece of parchment, sharp lines already drawn across it like veins. “If we want to succeed, we need structure. Chaos won’t win against chaos—it will only feed it.”
Felix leaned in, tapping at one of the marks. “We need cloaking on the next shipment. That’s priority one. We know Dwade is tracking us—whether by magic, spies, or both. If he can’t see us, he can’t strike.”
Despoina added, “Cloaking, yes—but it must be layered. A single spell will flare too brightly in the dark. He will notice. But if we braid our magics—light, ritual, ancestral, moon-bond—it will not be a cloak, but a skin. Seamless. Natural. Unseen.”
Rhyan’s eyes gleamed. “We can try distance channeling again, like at the bayou. If Lorraine and I feed into the circle from afar, we can strengthen it without being there physically. That makes us harder to target.”
Roman’s coven murmured among themselves. Colette, smirking as always, spoke up. “I don’t like the idea of leaving you two out of the line. But…fine. If you can keep us strong from a distance, we’ll take the front.”
Lorraine swallowed, nerves tightening in her chest. “And when Dwade comes? Because he will.”
“Then we strike back,” Dray said simply, tattoos glinting in the candlelight. “Fire to burn his shadows.”
“Light to scatter them,” Felix added.
“Bindings to hold him,” Shanta said.
“Ancestral chains to weigh him down,” Despoina finished.
Roman looked around the table, his eyes sharp and calculating, but when they landed on Lorraine, his face softened. “And you, little moon. You will be our blade. When the moment comes, you will cut through what binds him.”
Her breath caught. She wanted to ask what that meant, but deep down she already knew. Jadis hadn’t given her power for nothing.
By the time the night waned, the plan had taken shape:
Roman’s coven would lead the physical defense, cloaking the shipments and shielding the drivers.
Shanta and Despoina would anchor the rituals, weaving ancestral and ritual power into the cloak.
Rhyan and Lorraine would stand apart, channeling the moon-sister bond into the circle, bolstering it and waiting for the prophecy’s thread to call them into action.
Roman himself would be the spearhead, not just leading but drawing Dwade’s fury onto himself to give the others a chance.
The table went quiet, the last of the candles flickering low.
“Then it’s decided,” Roman said. “We meet Dwade on our terms. For the first time.”
Lorraine reached for Rhyan’s hand beneath the table. Her friend squeezed tightly, and Lorraine realized her palms were slick with sweat. She wasn’t the only one afraid. But she wasn’t the only one strong, either.

The storm gathered at his command, though he hardly needed to raise a hand anymore. It came to him like an obedient hound, black clouds curling above the plantation house, lightning crawling through them like veins of fire.
Dwade stood at the window, glass of bourbon in hand. The liquor trembled with each rumble of thunder, but he didn’t care. Power made the glass heavy, and power made the night his.
Betsy perched on the velvet chaise behind him, watching him with wide eyes. She tried to mask her fear with a smile, but he could smell it on her—the sour-sweet tang of doubt.
“Impressive, isn’t it?” he said without turning. “Once I had to beg the winds to answer. Now they come before I even call.”
A shiver cut through Betsy. “How…how is that possible?”
Dwade laughed, the sound dark and sharp. “Because I’m no witch, girl. I’m worse.”
The shadows in the corners shifted at his words, stretching, writhing. One slithered up the wall, taking the shape of something not quite human. Its eyes glowed faintly red.
Betsy swallowed, her knuckles white against the fabric of the chaise.
The whispers came first, curling into Dwade’s ears, threading through his skull like smoke.
Take what he guards…
Strike where his shield is thinnest…
Break the moonlight…break the sisters…
Dwade closed his eyes, savoring it. “Yes. Yes, I hear you.”
The shadows thickened, spilling across the floor like oil. In the reflection of the glass, their shapes were monstrous—horns, claws, wings. Not fully here, not fully gone. They needed him as their vessel, and he needed them as his teeth.
“Roman thinks his little coven can outsmart me,” Dwade snarled. “He forgets I own this city. I own its streets, its whispers, its blood.”
One of the shadows hissed, its form flickering. The bayou girl. The one who touched the door. She is the crack in your wall. Destroy her.
Dwade’s jaw clenched. Lorraine. Always Lorraine.
He turned, finally meeting Betsy’s eyes. She flinched.
“You want revenge, don’t you?” Dwade asked her. “You want her ruined, humiliated. Well, you’ll get your chance. Stay close. Watch. When I crush Roman, she’ll break right alongside him.”
Betsy nodded quickly, though her lips trembled.
Dwade smirked and raised his glass. Lightning lit the room in violent white.
“Let the moon sisters come. Let Roman bring his little army. I have the storm, and I have the dark. They’ll see soon enough—” He drank deep, bourbon burning down his throat.
“—that the devil always collects.”