The forest behind Cabin 13 was supposed to be empty after curfew. No campers. No counselors. Just the low hum of cicadas and the faint shimmer of mist from the barrier. But Nyssa knew better — the air was stirring. The kind of restless that meant spirits had been disturbed. She stepped quietly through the trees, hood up, her boots soundless in the moss. Her lantern flickered green with witchlight, the sigil of her mother glowing faintly against her wrist. And then she saw her — a blonde girl kneeling in the clearing, whispering to the air like it could listen. It could. Three shades hovered before her, translucent and trembling. Nyssa recognized the look on their faces: the dazed gratitude of the newly summoned. The girl’s voice was gentle but firm, guiding them back toward the veil like someone who’d done this too many times to still be seventeen. “Your circle’s incomplete,” Nyssa said, stepping into the moonlight. Her tone was soft, not accusatory — a statement, not a threat. “You’re lucky I came instead of something else,” Nyssa murmured, crouching to draw a rune in the soil with her fingertip. The wind shifted, sealing the breach with a pulse of violet flame. “You shouldn’t summon without protection.” “I can see everything that hides,” Nyssa replied. The ghost-light made her eyes gleam silver-green, unearthly and calm. “You’re a child of Hades.” “Nyssa,” she said simply. “Hecate’s blood.” “You weren’t calling them for power,” Nyssa observed quietly. “You were helping them move on.” For the first time, Nyssa smiled — small, startled, as if she wasn’t used to it. “Then maybe,” she said, “you shouldn’t be either.”