Third Person POV
The dark queen had been waiting.
Time did not move the same way where she was bound, but irritation did, and it had been building steadily for what felt like far too long. The passage trembled faintly under her awareness, a thin wound between worlds that pulsed and receded like a struggling heartbeat, never quite strong enough to open fully, never quite weak enough to disappear.
Pathetic.
Her presence pressed against the edges of the breach, vast and cold, tasting the mortal world through scraps of stolen magic and blood-soaked intention. She could feel Edinburgh above it—stone, rain, old wards eroded by arrogance and neglect, generations of humans convinced they understood what they were standing on.
They never did.
“You are slow,” she said.
Her voice did not trave
