The two moons of Athelas hung low over Thornwick.
Together they cast the city in a sickly light that made shadows pool in corners and turned ordinary streets into something from a nightmare. The family home across from Kael and Sage's position glowed warm behind curtains—father, mother, two children, visible through gaps in the fabric, living their last normal hours without knowing it.
Sage shifted against the wall for the twenty-seventh time.
"Kael."
No response.
"Kaaeeel."
He didn't look away from the window.
"Kael, I swear to every god that exists—"
"What's will you and swearing?" he murmured.
"What?"
"That's the twenty-eighth time you've tried to complain since we started waiting."
Sage's jaw clenched. Her tails bristled behind her, curling and uncurling with restless energy. Two hours. Two hours of crouching in a dark alley that stinks while watching a house where nothing was happening.
"If they're not coming, we should just—"
"Wait."
Sage's mouth snapped shut.
