For several seconds, Harper could not move.

Evelyn stood beside the collapsing extraction apparatus with her pale hair loose around her shoulders. Dark veins crossed one side of her face, glowing purple beneath the skin.

She looked older than the woman who had

Morning entered the Shadow Lands for the first time in generations.

As the laboratory collapsed beneath the ancient castle, the purple runes covering the ruins faded into black stone. Fog lifted from the dead forest in long silver ribbons, revealing a pale