Moonlight filtered through the branches above the coven's sacred glade. The wind had fallen silent, as if nature itself was holding its breath. Levi Rose sat cross-legged inside a rune-carved circle of salt and bloodroot. The ancient grimoire hovered in front of her, pages turning slowly, as though guided by an unseen hand.
Her fingers trembled as they hovered above the vellum. The once-familiar pages had changed again. Where there were previously fire rituals and death spells, now there was a single blank page glowing faintly gold.
Then, ink began to bloom.
Not written, but breathed—like something alive was writing it from beyond the veil.
"You are the hour."
The words twisted and pulsed like a heartbeat. Levi stared at them, unable to blink. Her breath hitched. The world around her felt thinner, like parchment stretched too far.
"You're not just the gate," she whispered to herself. "I'm the hour. The moment it all collapses…"
As if to answer, the grimoire shuddered and closed itself sharply with a pulse of magic. The runes on the ground flared, and the circle around her cracked. A wave of dizziness struck her. Something had just shifted—something in the air, in the threads of time.
Rue appeared in the doorway of the glade, bloodied from another battle with the demon shadows that had started to hunt them in this time. His eyes met hers, and he froze.
"You felt that," Levi said.
He nodded slowly. "Something just moved. Something ancient."
Levi rose, the weight of the prophecy pressing down on her shoulders. The book pulsed once more in her hands, and a whisper passed through the glade like a sigh.
Time is not a line. It is a circle waiting to be broken.
Levi's fingers brushed the spine of the closed grimoire as Rue stepped closer, his cloak torn, eyes dark with knowledge and fear. The firelight from the glade's edge caught the curve of his horns, barely visible now, as though the time magic itself tried to conceal his true form.
"There's something you're not telling me," Levi murmured, watching him. "What just happened?"
Rue didn't answer at first. He looked around, scanning the trees as if something might emerge—an echo from the future, or worse, the past itself recoiling at their presence.
Then he met her eyes.
"I spoke to the Oracle before we left," he said quietly. "The spell you used—it's forbidden. It creates a tear, not a thread. We didn't travel through time, Levi. We tore through it."
She stepped back slightly, the weight of his words sinking in.
"How do we get back?" she asked, voice low.
"We have one chance," Rue replied, eyes fixed on the dark horizon. "The grimoire carries the counter-spell—but only once. It's tied to your bloodline, to Eloria's magic. If we fail to retrieve it in time... we'll remain here. And history will reshape itself around our presence."
Levi felt the words slice through her like a cold wind. Her heart thundered, not with fear—but urgency.
"What do you mean reshape?"
Rue's jaw tightened. "Every step we take here echoes. People we meet, spells we cast—they ripple. If the wrong person learns who you are—what you are—they'll come for you. From both ends of time."
Levi clenched her fists. "Then we don't fail. We find the spell. We go home."
Rue reached into his coat and pulled out a small obsidian pendant—glowing faintly red. "This will light the path when the time comes. But it only burns once."
He pressed it into her hand. Warm. Alive.
She looked down at it, then back up at him. His eyes held a softness now. A hint of something older, maybe sadder.
"We can't leave anyone behind, Rue."
"I know," he said, stepping closer. "That's what scares me."
The trees groaned overhead as if warning them of what lay ahead.
Back in the present, far from Levi's journey through time, the city braced itself for a storm unlike any other. The sky grew heavy with clouds, dark and churning as though the very air was thick with anticipation. The streets buzzed with an unsettling energy, a tension lingering in the atmosphere, like a heartbeat slowing before a final strike.
In the heart of the chaos, Selene Graves stood atop a high-rise rooftop, her silhouette sharp against the storm's brewing fury. She had been waiting for this moment—for the return of the witch, Levi Rose, who had torn through the fabric of time itself.
Selene's long black coat flared out like the wings of a raven, her silver-bladed staff gleaming under the flickering lights of the city. Her eyes, sharp and cold, locked onto the horizon where the winds were beginning to twist, spinning into an unnatural vortex. The storm mirrored her thoughts—violent, destructive, inevitable.
"They think she can undo it," Selene muttered to herself, her voice barely audible against the growing wind. "But they don't know what's coming. What I've prepared for."
She raised her staff high, the metal gleaming like lightning, as thunder cracked above. Beneath her feet, the ground hummed, resonating with the dark magic she had been cultivating for months—perhaps even longer. She'd sacrificed too much for this, honed her strength, gathered the Council's scattered forces, all in preparation for the one moment that would unravel everything Levi Rose had set in motion.
"Let the storm come," Selene whispered, her lips curling into a cold smile. "When she returns... I will end her. And take back everything."
As if to answer her, a bolt of lightning sliced the sky in two, illuminating the city in stark contrast—light and darkness clashing as the storm began to unfurl, just as Levi's destiny was set to.
Selene's heart raced with a mix of fear and excitement, knowing the clock was ticking for both Levi and herself.
Back in the 18th century, Levi and Rue had no idea what storm awaited them in the present. The battle for the future—and for time itself—was about to reach its peak.