Chapter 77: Cross the Threshold

Despoina's voice rang through the courtyard, "She didn't get the chance to show us the way by leading us there hand-in-hand, but these symbols will lead us straight to the bridge. She did her part."

The storm had passed, but the silence it left behind felt heavier than thunder. It pressed against her chest as though the air itself wanted to keep her in bed, keep her from moving toward the inevitable.

But there was no hiding from it.

The courtyard was alive with preparation. Roman’s coven moved like a tide: gathering satchels of iron dust, flasks of blessed water, bundles of sage and bay leaves bound in red thread. Roxy sharpened iron stakes until they gleamed with a light that wasn’t wholly natural. Felix polished mirrors small enough to be strapped to wrists or belts, muttering under his breath that light itself could be a blade if angled properly.

Shanta crouched near the fountain, mixing chalk and ground bone into a powder that shimmered faintly in the sun. Despoina whispered to her niece as she worked, her voice a steady river, carrying names that Lorraine didn’t recognize but felt thrumming in her bones.

Lorraine stood in the archway, watching it all with a dread that rose like bile. The scrap of paper Betsy had shoved into her hand—crumpled, damp, stained with salt—burned in her pocket like a brand. Every time she thought of Betsy’s last words, of the way the shadows had taken her, something inside her pulled taut.

“You don’t have to go,” Roman said quietly at her shoulder.

She hadn’t heard him approach. His presence was like that: silent until it wanted to be known, heavy enough to anchor but never forced.

Lorraine swallowed. “Yes, I do. This… door, this pact, whatever it is—Jadis has been pointing me to it since the cemetery. I’m part of it whether I like it or not.”

His gaze softened. “That doesn’t mean you need to walk into his teeth.”

She turned then, meeting his eyes, and though her hands trembled she made her voice steady. “You told me once you carry burdens so heavy they might look like darkness from the outside. Well, I carry this one. Rhyan carries it too. We’re moon sisters. If I back down now, we lose everything we’ve fought to build.”

For a moment, something cracked in his expression—fear, maybe, or love so raw it hurt to wear. He reached out and brushed his thumb along her jaw. “Then we go together.”

In the library-turned-staging room, Rhyan was already readying her things. She wore a dark shirt tucked into jeans, boots laced tight, a satchel slung across her shoulder. When she saw Lorraine, she smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes.

“You look like you didn’t sleep,” she said.

“I didn’t.” Lorraine tried to smile back. It faltered. “You?”

“Barely.” Rhyan’s gaze flicked toward the window, where the bayou stretched beyond the tree line, calm for now but hiding everything they feared. “I kept thinking about Mara.”

The name lodged like a thorn. Lorraine forced herself to nod. “Me too.”

They stood in silence for a beat, letting the weight of that memory settle. Then Rhyan reached for her hand. “We’re going to do this. You and me. We’ve been thrown into something bigger than we imagined, but it’s ours now. We’ll see it through.”

The silver thread of their bond pulsed between their palms. Lorraine felt the hum of it travel through her arm, up her chest, into her heart. The fear dulled a little. “Together,” she whispered.

Rhyan squeezed. “Always.”

The courtyard was filled with the smell of sage smoke and the scrape of chalk. Roman’s coven formed the outer circle, their voices raised in a low chant. Despoina and Shanta wove the inner ring, knotting cords in deliberate patterns, each tie a wordless promise of protection.

Lorraine and Rhyan stood at the center, holding a silver bowl between them. Water rippled in it though no wind touched the courtyard. When they lowered their hands together, the bowl caught the sunlight and split it into two beams, one striking each of their chests.

“It recognizes you,” Despoina murmured, eyes gleaming. “Moon sisters indeed.”

Roman stepped forward then, placing a hand on Lorraine’s shoulder. The heat of his touch steadied her even as the dread tried to claw higher. “When we cross that bridge, no one hesitates. No one looks back. Whatever you see, whatever you hear—keep moving forward.”

His eyes cut across the gathered witches, each nodding in turn. “This is not just about breaking his pact. It’s about breaking his hold on this city. We do this clean, we do it fast, and we do it together.”

Lorraine drew a shaky breath and nodded. “Let’s finish it.”

The drive to the bayou was hushed. Roman drove at the head, the hum of the engine the only sound beneath the low chant Shanta whispered in the back seat. Lorraine sat between Rhyan and Despoina, her hands folded tight in her lap.

As the city fell away, the road narrowed, winding through trees that pressed close on either side. Spanish moss draped like tattered curtains, swaying though no breeze stirred. The smell of brine and rot thickened, and the water of the bayou flashed between trunks, dark and still.

By the time the caravan pulled onto the muddy shoulder of a dirt track, Lorraine’s pulse was a steady drum in her ears. Ahead, the bridge stretched across the water—a long, swaying skeleton of wood and rope.

It was exactly as Betsy had described.

The planks looked half-rotted, the ropes dark with age and moisture. It creaked even without weight, groaning like an animal in pain. The far side disappeared into shadow beneath cypress boughs.

Lorraine’s breath hitched. She knew this bridge. She had seen it in visions, walked it in dreams that ended in darkness. And now she was here.

The group gathered at the foot of the bridge. Roman’s coven spread out, placing wards in the mud, iron spikes hammered into the earth. Shanta knelt, sprinkling salt and murmuring prayers in a language older than any of them.

Lorraine stared at the first plank, her body locked between dread and determination.

Rhyan touched her arm. “You okay?”

“No.” Lorraine gave a thin smile. “But I’m going anyway.”

Roman stepped beside them, his hand brushing hers for the briefest second. “We walk it together,” he said softly.

Lorraine nodded.

She stepped forward.

The plank groaned under her weight, but it held. Behind her, Rhyan followed, then Roman, then the rest of the coven one by one. The bridge swayed, ropes creaking, water gurgling below.

Every step felt heavier than it should have, as though the wood remembered the bargain Dwade had made here and wanted to drag them into the same doom.

Lorraine clenched her jaw. “Not today,” she muttered under her breath.

The air grew colder the further they walked. Whispers curled at the edges of her hearing, familiar and venomous. Little mouse. Wrong side of the trap.

She stumbled. Roman’s hand caught her elbow. His grip was warm, grounding. “Ignore him,” he murmured.

“I’m trying.”

“Try harder,” he said, and though the words were harsh, the look in his eyes was pure fear—for her.

It took longer than it should have to cross. Every sway of the bridge felt like a threat, every whisper like a blade poised at her neck. But finally, the planks met soil again.

Lorraine stepped onto the far bank, knees trembling. She turned to see Rhyan pale but steady, Shanta’s lips moving in constant prayer, Roman’s shoulders tight as stone. One by one, the coven set foot on solid ground, the circle reforming instinctively.

They had crossed the threshold.

Ahead, through the trees, the faint outline of a house rose against the swampy gloom. Its roof sagged, its windows black hollows. Even from here, Lorraine could feel the wrongness radiating from it—the echo of a deal struck, a promise that still bled into the world.

Her dread flared sharp, but she straightened, drawing on the heat of Roman’s hand brushing hers again, on the silver bond thrumming between her and Rhyan.

This was where Dwade lost himself.

The place where everything would change.