Chapter 937

Jude followed the gesture, glancing toward the mountaintop. A column of blue smoke was rising again, thinner than before, spiraling tightly into the air like a snake uncoiling. He looked back, and the figures were gone.

He stayed in the clearing until the first hints of dawn touched the horizon. Then he returned to the house, slipping inside to find Grace awake and waiting for him at the window.

"I heard you leave," she said. "What did you see?"

He shook his head. "The watchers were near. Or something like them. But the pillars, " He broke off, running a hand through his hair. "They've been emptied. And the ribbons were cut. Deliberately."

Grace stood and joined him. "Was it them?"

"I don't know. They didn't feel the same. They didn't pulse. They didn't glow."

She frowned. "You think something else is mimicking them?"

"I think something darker is watching us now."