Nate felt it before he saw it.
A strange, featherlight sensation against his arms.
It took him half a second to realize what it was—Sera.
Or rather, her absence.
His grip, which had been firm around her, suddenly met nothing but air. His arms tensed instinctively, but the weight had already vanished. For a brief moment, panic shot through him, his heart slamming against his ribs. But then, as he looked down, he saw it—her form dissolving into the shifting darkness below him, merging seamlessly with the elongated shadow stretching from his own body.
Not just her.
Cleo too.
They were inside his shadow.
Gone from his grasp, but not from his presence.
The realization struck him hard and fast, but before he could even begin to process it, another feeling followed—relief.
Pure, unfiltered relief.
It didn't matter how she did it, it didn't matter why it worked. All that mattered was the immediate reality—Sera and Cleo were no longer a weight on his shoulders.
And that meant—
