Chapter 66
She took a long breath, steadying herself, and slowly sat up, pulling the blanket to her chest. Morning light filtered through the branches, dappling his hair in silver.
Mingxi rose smoothly, watching her intently, in what came across as quiet concern.
“Poppy?”
She inhaled sharply. “We need to get ready.” He nodded, but she raised a hand, stopping him.
“I know what the elders told us,” she said, firming her voice into something steady and brave.
“The Traveler tampered with the ritual. Lysandra took the impact meant for me. And tomorrow—the reversal—it might try to take me instead.”
Mingxi’s jaw tightened, eyes burning with protective fury.
“But fear isn’t a reason to stop,” she continued. “Lysandra is still in there. She saved me once. I’m not letting fear stop me from saving her.”
He stood fully then, solemn and resolute, and lifted her hand to his lips again—slowly, like a vow.
“You walk toward danger not with recklessness, but with purpose,” he murmured. “And I will walk beside you. Always.”
She swallowed hard. “Then let’s get ready.”
He helped her to her feet—not assuming, not overbearing—and together they stepped out into the brisk morning light, the moonwell’s distant shimmer waiting through the trees. Then, before emotion could strangle her, she lifted her pack.
“We should eat before we go,” she said briskly. “If I faint, it won’t be because of hunger.”
He huffed a quiet laugh. “Minghua packed enough buns to feed an army.”
“Good,” Poppy said. “Then we’ll eat like one.”
She felt him watching her as she tied her boots, braided her hair, and secured her weapons. Not with worry. Not with fear. With pride. With the reverence of someone who had seen her broken and refusing to stay that way.
When she hoisted her pack onto her shoulders, he was already waiting at the edge of the clearing, his hand extended—as if not to guide, but to walk beside.
She hesitated only a heartbeat. Then she slid her fingers into his. His thumb brushed her knuckles, gentle, grounding.
“Ready?” he asked.
“No,” she said honestly. Then she lifted her chin. “But willing.”
He smiled softly. “Then we go.”
Together, they stepped past the last ward-line and into the thin, silver morning, toward the moonwell—the place that would either save her sister or destroy everything trying to claim her.
Fear followed her, but so did resolve. And Mingxi. Who hadn’t slept in centuries but would when she was safe. When they were whole. Nothing would take that future from them.
The forest changed as they walked. The morning light seemed thinner here, as if filtered through layers of ancient memory. The trees grew taller, straighter, their bark etched with faint, silvery lines that pulsed like veins beneath skin.
The path narrowed into a ribbon of stone half swallowed by moss.
Poppy’s breath hitched as the air grew… clean. Not fresh. Not cold. Clean. Like every impurity had been burned away. Mingxi’s ears flicked, not visibly but in the subtle way his posture shifted—hyperaware, deliberate, tense.
“This is the outer boundary,” he murmured.
Poppy swallowed, her fingers tightening on her pack strap. “Does it feel strange to you?”
“It feels…” He exhaled slowly. “Old. Very old. Older than any shrine or fox path.”
The silence around them wasn’t empty. It was listening. Birdsong softened. Even their footsteps felt muted. Poppy kept close to him as mist curled between the trees, faintly luminescent. The path dipped and widened, and then the forest parted.
It wasn’t a well, not in the human sense.
A wide clearing opened before them. A gentle stream, shimmering silver, wound toward the center where a ring of pale stone rose from the earth, half covered in climbing silver moss.
At its heart lay a pool of water so still it looked like polished glass.
There were no ripples, no insects, and no leaves dared touch its surface.
The water glowed faintly, as though moonlight held its breath beneath. Above it, even though it was barely past noon, the light thinned into a soft, silver haze. Poppy stepped forward as if drawn.
“It’s…” Her voice failed.
Mingxi stopped at her shoulder, quiet awe softening the line of his features.
“The heart of an ancestral dragon vein,” he murmured. “Moonlight settles here even in daylight.”
Poppy realized it didn’t feel dangerous. It felt honest, like a truth laid bare. A soft hum vibrated beneath her feet, echoing the mark under her ribs.
“It knows you,” Mingxi murmured.
Poppy swallowed. “Mingxi… how do we guarantee Lysandra will come? What if the entity doesn’t allow her? What if—”
“That,” he said softly, “is the question the elders feared.”
She turned to him, dread curling cold in her belly. “So we can’t guarantee it?”
“No,” he said honestly. “Not yet.”
The moonwell shimmered, its surface reflecting the two of them standing at its edge, except in the reflection, Poppy glowed faintly, soft lunar light trailing from her shoulders like a veil.
A tear burned behind her eyes.
She whispered, “I need her to come.”
“You need her tethered,” Mingxi corrected gently. “The entity must be drawn to you—not to replace you, but to be pulled into the Grimoire.”
She pressed a fist against her sternum. “Then how do I strengthen my resonance without strengthening its pull on me?”
Mingxi hesitated, and that scared her.
“What?” she asked. “Tell me.”
He gestured toward the water. “There is one way,” he said quietly. “The moonwell amplifies moonlight. All of it. Bloodline. Mark. Magic. If you were to… bathe in its waters under actual moonlight…”
Her breath caught. “Would it make me stronger?”
“It would make you radiant,” he said. “A conduit of lunar power. Your resonance would call to the entity across realms. It would feel you.” His voice lowered. “But it would also struggle to seize you.”
“Because the moonwell weakens it.”
“Yes.”
Poppy stared at the pool. “And it strengthens me.”
“Yes.”
She forced herself to ask the real question: “Would bathing in it give me more control?”
He inhaled. “Yes. More than you have ever had.”
“And would it make the reversal safer?”
He looked at her then—truly looked—and for a heartbeat his expression cracked with reverence and fear and pride all at once.
“It would make you the one thing the entity fears most,” Mingxi whispered. “Untouchable.”
Poppy’s pulse thundered.
“But,” he added, “moonlight purification is intense. It will draw the entity’s gaze. It will feel you like a beacon.”
Poppy squared her shoulders and then said, “That’s what we want, right? We want it to notice. We want it to come. And if I can control my magic better after… then I stand a better chance of keeping it out.”
Mingxi exhaled, slow and ragged. “You shine so fiercely when you choose courage,” he murmured. “It frightens me.”
She reached for his hand. “It frightens me too,” she said. “But fear isn’t a reason to stop. Not now.”
They stood side by side, looking down at the glowing water of the moonwell. The next day would be the ritual reversal, but until then, she would bathe under moonlight. From the moment she stepped into the water, her power would not be the same. Neither would the entity’s tether.
Neither would Penelope “Poppy” Sinclair.