The ground was colder than Levi expected. Damp earth clung to her back, and overhead, a canopy of unfamiliar stars blinked in eerie stillness. For a heartbeat, she lay motionless, disoriented—then the scent hit her. Not smoke or magic, but horse sweat, pine sap, and the faint metallic tang of an age far behind her.
She sat up, gasping. Her clothes were caked in soil, but intact. The air was thinner, heavier. There were no city lights. No hum of cars or buzz of neon.
Just wind. And the distant call of a whippoorwill.
Beside her, Rue groaned softly. He rose to one knee, his crimson coat smudged with dirt. "We made it," he muttered, brushing his long fingers against the tree bark. "The spell held."
Levi's breath caught as she turned. The trees surrounding them were old, gnarled, wild—nothing like the carefully tended park groves of the modern world. In the distance, she spotted the faint outline of cabins—wooden, hand-hewn, and smoking from stone chimneys.
Rue stood fully now, gaze sharp. "We're in the Wychwood. A forest near Salem. The year feels…" He inhaled, tasting time on his tongue. "Late summer. 1781."
Levi stumbled forward, the grimoire in her satchel pulsing softly like a sleeping heart. Her boots cracked old twigs beneath them. "So we're… here. In the time before Eloria died?"
Rue nodded slowly, then paused—his eyes narrowing. A distant howl echoed through the woods.
Not a wolf. Not a dog.
Something else.
They weren't alone in this century.
"We need shelter," he said. "Before the sun rises. And before the wrong eyes see you."
Levi nodded and looked up once more.
Through the tangled canopy, the moon glared down—blood-red again, just like the dream.
The Burning Moon had followed them back.
The trees parted as Levi and Rue followed a narrow, winding trail deeper into the forest. The distant sounds of civilization faded behind them—no torches, no wagons, no soldiers. Only the rustling of leaves and the whisper of old magic in the wind.
Suddenly, Rue stopped, his eyes glowing faintly. "We're being watched."
Levi froze. Her fingers brushed the edge of the grimoire in her satchel, but before she could reach for it, a circle of women stepped silently out from the trees. They wore dark wool cloaks and bone pendants. One of them held a staff carved with moon phases. Another bore a blade etched with the sigil Levi had seen in her dreams—the spiraled eye surrounded by ivy thorns.
The leader stepped forward, her face illuminated by the moonlight. She was middle-aged, weatherworn, and her silver-threaded braid glimmered like starlight. Her eyes fixed on Levi with stunned awe.
"It's her," the woman whispered. "The Crimson Thread returns."
Levi tensed. "Who are you?"
The woman lowered her hood. "I am Mara of Hollowmere, High Matron of the Hidden Grove. We are the daughters of Eloria's legacy. We have waited nearly a hundred years for her soul to return."
Rue stepped between them. "She's not Eloria," he said sharply. "She's—"
"She carries the mark," another witch interrupted, pointing to Levi's wrist where the sigil had burned itself weeks ago.
"She carries the grimoire," a younger one whispered reverently.
"She carries the flame."
Levi's mouth went dry.
The witches began to chant—softly, rhythmically. The trees around them shimmered faintly, revealing illusions being lifted—sigils hidden in bark, runes carved into stones, and a cottage half-swallowed by ivy that had been completely invisible moments ago.
Mara gestured to the door. "Come. You've crossed the veil of time for a reason. You are not here by accident, witch of the crimson moon."
Levi exchanged a glance with Rue, whose jaw was tight but unreadable. Then she nodded.
And they stepped across the threshold into the heart of the Hidden Grove.
From beyond the ring of trees, past the wards that cloaked the sanctuary of the Hidden Grove, a presence lingered.
He stood at the edge of the forest—a figure draped in a long black coat, untouched by mud or dew, as though the very world bent around his steps. His hair was the color of winter cinders, and his eyes… they shimmered with something unearthly, like fractured hourglasses filled with stardust and ash. He did not blink. He did not breathe.
His name was unknown to the witches of the present or past, but time itself called him Eryx Vale, a Chrono Warden—a guardian of the fractures between timelines. Or at least, that's what he had once been.
Now, he was something else.
As Levi and Rue disappeared behind the veil of magic, Eryx touched the bark of an ancient pine and the entire trunk froze solid in an instant, ice racing across its rings. His lips barely moved, but his voice drifted like wind down the ridge.
"She's torn the Hour Thread."
He looked down at a silver pocket watch, hanging open and ticking backward.
"And if she awakens what sleeps beneath Hollowmere…"
He shut the watch with a snap. The sound echoed unnaturally across the trees.
A raven cawed above, circling. Its wings glowed faintly with runes.
"Then I will have no choice."
Eryx turned from the clearing and vanished into shadow. The earth where he had stood withered, and the wind stilled.
Unseen by the coven, unknown to Levi, time had taken interest in her.
And it was watching.