The Veilshimmered like fractured moonlight tonight.
Lirael Voss crouched on the crumbling rooftop of the old mortal watchtower, her breath fogging in the chill air. Below her, the boundary between worlds pulsed — a thin, invisible curtain of shadow and starlight that most humans would never notice.
But Lira had always seen it.
She tightened the strap of her satchel and glanced once toward the distant lights of the slums where her sister waited, fever burning hotter with every passing hour. Elara's time was running out. Shadow-plague didn't forgive delays.
"One last job," she whispered to the night.
With practiced ease, she reached out with her mind and pulled.
The Veil parted for her like silk tearing under a blade.
The world flipped.
One moment she was standing under a clouded mortal sky. The next, she stepped into the eternal twilight of Elyndor — where the air tasted of night-blooming roses and danger.
Obsidian spires rose in the distance, their surfaces veined with glowing violet runes. Velvet shadows slithered between marble columns like living things.
This was the outer edge of the Shadow Court. Dangerous. Beautiful. Forbidden to humans.
Lira moved like smoke, silent and swift, slipping between pillars and across moonlit courtyards. She had one target tonight: a small fragment of the legendary Shadow Crown, rumored to be kept in a lesser noble's vault. Just enough power to buy the medicine that could save Elara.
She never expected the vault to be so heavily guarded.
Or that the fragment would sing to her the moment her fingers brushed its surface.
The moment she touched the jagged piece of obsidian, a pulse of raw power shot up her arm. The shadows around her stirred, whispering secrets she couldn't understand.
Her crimson eyes widened.
Too late.
A deep, velvet voice cut through the darkness like a blade.
"Little thief."
Lira spun, heart slamming against her ribs.
He stood at the entrance of the vault — tall, imposing, wrapped in living shadows that clung to his broad shoulders like a second skin. Long black hair framed a face carved from night itself.
Glowing violet eyes locked onto hers with predatory intensity.
Prince Thorne Veyl.
Heir to the Shadow Throne.
And he was looking at her like she was either the most interesting thing he'd seen in centuries… or the biggest mistake of her short life.
Lira's fingers tightened around the Crown fragment, its power still humming against her palm.
The Prince took one slow step forward, shadows curling around his boots like loyal hounds.
"You have something that belongs to me, mortal."
Lira lifted her chin, forcing a defiant smirk even as fear coiled in her stomach.
"Finders keepers."
Thorne's lips curved into something dangerously close to a smile — cold, sharp, and utterly without mercy.
"Then I suppose I'll have to take it back."
The Veil behind her began to close.
And for the first time in her life, Lirael Voss realized she might not be fast enough to run.