Senna woke before dawn and knew her circle was close.
Nobody told her. No alarm, no footsteps, nothing. She just opened her eyes into the grey pre-light, lying on her bedroll in the cold shadow of the stone pillar, and she knew the way witches who’ve lived three hundred years know things that members of her circle were within a mile of her for the first time since before any of these young people were born.
She sat up.
Her bones made their feelings known about that. The road had taken more from her than she’d shown Kael. She pushed herself up anyway, stone cold against her back, pulled her robe tight across her shoulders, and faced the eastern ridge.
She waited.
They came down through the broken stones when the light was barely there.
Three of them. An old man out front gold eyes, a
