The ambulance doors slammed shut, drowning out the storm outside. Spencer lay strapped to the stretcher, chest burning, breath shallow.Every bump in the road vibrated through him like a heartbeat he didn’t fully control. He hated that feeling. The medic sitting beside him checked the monitor. “Your vitals are unstable again. You’re”“I’m fine,” Spencer whispered.“No, you’re not. You went into cardiac arrest. You were struck by a vehicle. You”“I said I’m fine.”The medic froze. Spencer’s voice wasn’t aggressive… but something in it was sharper, heavier, almost commanding. The medic swallowed. “O–okay. Just don’t move.”Spencer didn’t respond. His gaze drifted to his trembling fingers. They moved unconsciously in small patterns, circles, arcs, angles, like they were practicing something without his permission.“What are you doing?” the medic asked.“I don’t know.”His fingers twisted again, forming a shape like a blade, then a fist, then something far more complex, movements so fluid

Rain hammered the windshield as Lira sped through the city. Headlights smeared into white streaks across the glass. Spencer gripped the seat so hard his knuckles turned pale.“Lira, he was watching us. Who was that?”“Someone who should’ve been dead,” she muttered. “Someone who has no business being here.”“That’s not an answer.”“No,” she said. “It’s a warning.”The tires screeched as the car swerved around a corner. “Slow down!” Spencer shouted.“Can’t,” Lira said. “He marked you.”Spencer blinked. “Marked, what does that even”A deafening BOOM shook the air. A streetlamp exploded behind them, showering sparks across the road. Spencer ducked instinctively. “What was that?!”“Proof,” Lira hissed, “that he can reach you from anywhere.”The rear window blackened like smoke spreading across glass. But it wasn’t smoke, not from the outside. It was spreading from within. Spencer whispered, “Lira… the window… something’s wrong with it.”She didn’t look back. “Don’t make eye contact with it

The shadow at the end of the ruined road didn’t move. It didn’t breathe. It didn’t even sway in the wind. But Spencer felt it, in his bones, in the back of his skull, in the thing pulsing inside his chest.Lira whispered, “Spencer… don’t blink.”“I’m not even breathing,” Spencer whispered back.“Good. Don’t. Any movement might”The warlock’s voice suddenly slid between their thoughts: “Move. Don’t move. It makes no difference.”Spencer flinched. “Lira, he’s inside my head again”“He’s not,” she said.“Then what is he doing?”“He’s inside your remnant.”Spencer’s throat tightened. “Is… is it talking back?”Lira’s silence answered for her. The warlock lifted one hand, slowly, precisely, as if raising a curtain. All the fog around them tightened inward, spiraling like a slow-turning whirlpool.Lira stepped in front of Spencer. “Don’t respond,” she hissed.“I’m not!”“I meant the remnant.”Spencer swallowed. “Can you stop it?”“No. I can only delay it.”“How long?”“Minutes,” she said. “M

Darkness wasn’t absence. It was presence. It pressed against Spencer’s skin, cold, aware, predatory. A voice echoed in the void: “Breathe, vessel.”Spencer flinched. “Stop calling me that!”“Then stop behaving like one.”Light ripped open the darkness, He stumbled backward into a half-collapsed rooftop, heart hammering.Lira stood across from him, blade drawn, panting, eyes wild with panic. “Spencer, DON’T MOVE!”He froze. “What, what happened? Where’s the warlock?”“Forget him!” She pointed past Spencer.“Look behind you.”Slowly, dreading it, Spencer turned. His shadow was still there. Standing upright. Detached from his feet. Breathing in slow, unnatural rises. “Spencer,” Lira whispered, “it followed you through the shift.”Spencer backed away. “How?! Shadows don’t teleport!”“That’s not your shadow. That’s your remnant’s… shape.”The shadow tilted its head, perfectly matching the motion Spencer had just made. Except… slower. More deliberate. Hungrier. “Stop copying me!” Spencer sn

Spencer slammed back into his body like someone dropped him from the stratosphere. He gasped, air stabbing into his lungs, vision spinning, Concrete above him.Moonlight. The cold loading dock. He was back. But something was wrong. “…Lira?” he croaked.Silence. He blinked hard. The world was unfocused, edges bending like heatwaves. He pushed himself up, trembling.His hands shook violently, silver light flickering under his skin like trapped lightning. “Lira… where are you?”Still nothing. His stomach dropped. She wasn’t here. “LIRA!” he shouted, louder, desperate.A faint echo responded, like his voice bounced off the wrong angles of the building. But no Lira. No shadow. No warlock. Just silence.Spencer whispered, “No. No, nononono, she wouldn’t leave me.”A cold voice answered from behind him: “You’re half-right.”Spencer spun, Lira stumbled out of the darkness. But she didn’t look like herself. Her face was pale. Eyes unfocused. Breaths shallow. Like she’d run for miles through ni