Abby clutched her stomach. “Something’s wrong.”

  She stumbled, and Rowan caught her before she hit the ground.

  “What is it?” Nadia reached out and placed a soothing hand on Abby’s back.

  Nadia and Abby were using crystal artifacts crafted by Nadia that allowed her to appear to be here, even though she was still trapped in her own reality. Each had mounted those magic crystals on silver chains, like pendants, always against their skin.

  Abby clutched her stomach, doubling over. “Something’s wrong.”

  Her breath came in short, ragged gasps. Rowan grabbed her before she collapsed.

  “Somebody has—” she groaned. “My… soul.”

  “What?” Rowan blinked. “Aren’t immortals basically all soul? You’re right here.”

  Abby fell to one knee.

  “Not all of her,” Nadia said. “She gave part of her soul to Gretta.”

  Rowan’s eyes widened. “Did something happen to Gretta?”

  Abby shook her head. “I… can’t…” She started to pant. “Under… attack.”

  “The necklace was bound to Gretta when she put it on,” Nadia said. “There’s no way for anybody to touch it while Gretta still wears it.”

  “Somebody took it off her?” Rowan asked.

  “It’s bound to her,” Nadia repeated. “Nobody could take it from her without immortal-tier magic, and Gretta chose to let it go.”

  Abby sank to the ground, breathing hard. Nadia knelt by her side and looked up to Rowan.

  “You need to find out who is attacking Abby and stop them,” Nadia said. “We’re already starved for magic after months of nothing.”

  “I’ll help Gretta and get your soul safe.” He clenched his jaw. Walking away felt wrong, but standing here wouldn’t help.

  Nadia’s glare cut through the hesitation. “Go.”

  “You’re not a fighter,” Abby managed to say through gritted teeth. “Gretta was.”

  “Gretta is a fighter.” Rowan smirked and waved a finger toward Abby. “What I love most about you is your ability to wrap optimism in a warm layer of encouragement. Don’t worry. I got you.”

  He pulled his raven shape from the Astral and shot into the sky.

  The moment Rowan stepped into Gretta’s office, the air thickened, like walking into a space where reality had clenched its teeth. A wrongness pressed against his skin, the kind that made his magic itch.

  He knew this feeling. Backlash.

  When he pushed fate too far, the universe pushed back. The pressure would build, twisting probability into a knot, until it snapped.

  But this time, it wasn’t aimed at him. Someone else had forced a change. Fate hated it. The weight in the air wasn’t just pressure—it was friction, like unseen hands pulling against reality’s seams.

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  Rowan clenched his jaw, rolling his shoulders as if he could shake it off. He couldn’t. Fate didn’t let things go easily.

  He shoved the discomfort aside. Gretta. Abby. Focus.

  Rowan might have called if he had a phone or if landlines still existed. Unfortunately, neither of these things was true. He needed to take action, but first, he needed to know where to go.

  He wasn’t a detective, so he asked himself: What would Gretta do?

  There was no time for swearing or coffee, so he looked around.

  A business card sat on her desk—Dorian Voss, bookseller. Gold-embossed, too fancy for Tucson.

  Gretta wasn’t careless, but she wasn’t immune to distractions either. Maybe she meant to file it later. Maybe she got interrupted.

  Didn’t matter why it was here. His gut said follow it.

  He ran a thumb over the raised letters. Ever After Books.

  “Well, that’s a lead,” he muttered, tucking it into his pocket.

  He glanced at the address and then tucked the card in his pocket. He’d need to get a phone, which meant he’d need to figure out where he left his. He’d try the apartment next.

  It was night, and nobody else was in the office as he strolled by glass offices to the window. He could feel magic was already starting to weaken again since the little boost he had given it, but there was still enough for him to pull himself into the astral and walk straight out the glass window.

  He shifted to his raven form again. In the Astral, he found that shifting forms was effortless—after all, he wasn’t moving anything around, just shaping his ethereal body. Even as a human, he could fly in the Astral, but like in the Void, it simply felt more natural to be a bird. So, he flew, and he flew at speeds no raven could achieve while in reality—the beauty of being completely weightless in a frictionless environment.

  He shot through the night sky over Tucson, flying over or through buildings in the most direct route to the apartment. Every moment was another moment that he knew Abby was in pain, and that Gretta was in danger. Whatever could attack a god’s soul and deal with Gretta was a force to be reckoned with, but it also had a motive. You don’t piss off the goddess of the wild by hurting her niece, and then have the guts to attack her soul—not unless you were trying to accomplish something and you were confident you’d get away with it, or didn’t mind having a zoo’s worth of wild animals rearranging your organs.

  He pulled himself back to reality from the Astral and landed in the familiar living room, still pondering who would have that much guts. Maybe somebody who didn’t know better. A thug with a gun who caught Gretta off guard? That would have hurt Gretta, but wouldn’t have hurt Abby’s soul. No, the person who did this had magic. Maybe they were a god. Marcus? He ruled out Thadius. Rowan knew Thadius was not in this reality. He had felt Thadius in that other place.

  He flipped open Gretta’s laptop and typed her password: N4ncyDr3w. She’d set up a phone-tracking app for him after the third time he lost his.

  As the page loaded, he rummaged through the fridge, pulling out a carton of takeout fried rice. The dishes were dirty, so he grabbed a clean-enough fork from the sink. One bite in, the screen flashed: Device Not Found.

  "Oh, fantastic," Rowan muttered, setting the rice down with unnecessary force. He tried Gretta’s phone next—same result.

  He exhaled through his nose and glanced at the business card again. Dorian Voss. Ever After Books. Catalina Foothills. Nice area.

  "Guess that’s where I’m going." He tossed the fork back into the sink with the other dishes.

  He pulled up a map website and entered the address for Ever After Books.

  He did a quick search on Dorian Voss and found nothing interesting. No pictures, but he spotted a small article about his bookstore and a donation of children’s books he had made to a local school.

  Rowan wasn’t a detective like Gretta, and he had nothing left to go on—just a business card that may or may not have been a case. Maybe she was out book shopping and picked up the card. Maybe she’d left it behind by accident.

  But if there was one thing he’d learned, coincidences were a luxury he couldn’t afford.

  He moved into the Astral, and the walking stick snapped into existence in his grip. Rowan sighed. "Alright, stick, don’t be useless."

  He focused on Gretta—nothing. The feather stayed limp.

  Rowan shifted his thoughts to Abby.

  The feather twitched. Once. Twice. Then jerked sideways, writhing as if caught in unseen currents. Not a steady pull—erratic, restless. The path was obscured. Fate had been tampered with. And someone was about to regret it.

  He scowled.

  Rowan reshaped his Astral self into a raven and shot out toward the bookstore, flying straight through Gretta’s apartment wall and into the night sky.