Isabelle had faced down demons with less awareness than she felt now, standing at the edge of the clearing where the wind carried salt and pine and something unmistakably alive. Aurora Quinn was warmth incarnate—young, powerful, Icelandic bone structure cut from glaciers and fire—and Isabelle felt the instinct to step closer not out of conquest, but reverence. She kept her hands visible, posture open, dark hair shifting against her bare collarbone as she studied the werewolf without threat in her gaze. There was something spiritual in Aurora’s stillness, something that didn’t bend for Shadowhunter authority or pack hierarchy. Isabelle didn’t speak; she simply watched, breath slow, heart steady, as Aurora lowered herself to the earth, pressed her palm into the soil, and began whispering to her ancestors, and for once Isabelle felt like the one standing in someone else’s sacred space.