<h4>Chapter 1096: Chapter 1096</h4>


    Sophie stepped forward, her body tense. "We never agreed to this."


    Rose smiled wider. "That’s because you haven’t seen how beautiful it is yet."


    Her voice was like honey and smoke, soft but wrapping around their ears and sinking deep. Grace stepped forward, her feet moving slowly, like in a dream. Her eyes fluttered.


    "Grace," Susan called, "stay where you are."


    But she didn’t stop. Not until she was inside the circle, hands brushing against La’s. Then her smile bloomed, and she turned toward the others with that same eerie tilt of the head.


    "No," Jude said quietly. "We’re losing them."


    Sophie grabbed his arm. "We need to do something."


    Susan stepped beside them and began to hum again, low, slow. The same song she’d used to pull Zoey and La out before. But this time, it didn’t seem to work. Grace merely smiled at her. Zoey opened her eyes andughed softly.


    "That doesn’t work anymore," she said. "You’re toote."


    Susan’s voice wavered and stopped.


    Emma, fists clenched, turned to Sophie. "We wait until they sleep. Then we try again. One by one, if we have to."


    That night, no one truly slept, though Rose, La, Zoey, and Grace drifted into dreams with eerie peace. Theyy near the shrine, their limbs tangled, whispers trailing between them in anguage no one else understood.


    Jude sat between Sophie and Natalie by the fire. Emma sat on a rock behind them, eyes never leaving the sleeping four. Susan, as always now, hummed softly beside the mes.


    "I want to talk to Lucy," Sophie whispered.


    "She hasn’te back," Jude said.


    "But maybe she’s out there because she’s fighting it."


    Emma nodded slowly. "If she is, she’s thest one who turned and hasn’t fullymitted yet."


    "Then maybe," Natalie added, "she can tell us how to stop it."


    They decided to search for her at dawn. Susan remained with the others to keep singing, even if it seemed futile now. As Jude, Sophie, Natalie, and Emma entered the forest at first light, the shadows seemed deeper, thicker.


    They called Lucy’s name softly as they walked, not wanting to draw other things.


    Hours passed with no sign.


    Then, just as they neared the ravine that cut across the ind’s edge, they found her.


    She stood barefoot at the cliffside, her back to them, arms outstretched like she was waiting to fly. Her hair swayed in the wind, wild and tangled. When she turned, her face was unreadable.


    "Lucy," Jude said carefully. "We came to bring you home."


    She didn’t speak at first. Then: "There is no home."


    "What happened to you?" Sophie asked. "You didn’t go into the circle. You weren’t taken."


    Lucy looked past them, eyes distant. "No. I was invited."


    Emma stepped forward. "Then why didn’t you go?"


    Lucy’s eyes shifted to hers, and for the first time, there was a glint of recognition, fear, even.


    "Because something told me not to. Not in words. In feeling. In sound."


    "What do you mean?" Natalie asked.


    "I followed Rose once," Lucy said. "Deep into the woods. To a ce where the trees bleed and the ground breathes."


    Jude’s skin prickled.


    "She spoke to something there," Lucy continued. "Not in words. In feeling. She called it the root."


    Sophie gasped. "The watchers?"


    "No," Lucy said. "Older. Hungrier. The watchers left. This... stayed behind."


    Lucy looked over her shoulder at the ravine. "It’s not just in the woods anymore. It’s in the water. The air. In us."


    Emma clenched her jaw. "How do we stop it?"


    Lucy finally looked at her fully. "I don’t know. But if you want to save them, you have to cut the root."


    She turned and walked away.


    Back at camp, Rose was awake.


    La’sughter drifted across the clearing like birdsong, light and yful, but there was a seductive edge to it that hadn’t always been there. She leaned against the trunk of a tree, hips tilted just enough to draw the eye, her fingers runningzily through her hair as she smiled at Rose, who stood nearby with that same too-sweet grin that had be her signature. Zoey was with them too, sitting cross-legged on the ground, her attention divided between the girls and the flickering light of the morning sun.


    Jude watched them from the other side of the fire pit, his chest tight. Something in him recognized the pattern now. Ever since Rose’s strange fall into the river weeks ago, she had be... more. More alluring. More physical. More confident in ways that didn’t seem entirely natural. He remembered how she used to curl against him at night, shy, with quiet affection and gentle words. Now she moved like every step was a dance, like her body carried secrets too deep to speak aloud.


    He wasn’t alone in noticing it, though no one else said a word.


    Because whatever was happening, it didn’t feel wrong in the moment. It felt addictive.


    Emma had been watching too. She stood beside Sophie near the garden beds, arms crossed over her chest, lips pressed into a thin line.


    "She’s changed," she whispered.


    Sophie nced toward her. "You feel it too?"


    Emma nodded. "It’s not just her. Look at La."


    La had drifted closer to Rose now, brushing their shoulders together in a touch that lingered. Zoey rose to join them, her expression unreadable.


    "I thought we got La back," Sophie said.


    "So did I," Emma replied. "But Rose is still pulling them in."


    Jude stepped closer to the trio, feigning casualness. "What’s the n for the day?" he asked, trying to cut through the haze.


    Rose turned to him with a slow, seductive smile that curled her lips like a question. "We thought we’d go bathing downriver. It’s hot today. The water will feel amazing."


    La giggled. "You shoulde. Let’s go."


    Zoey didn’tugh, didn’t speak. She just looked at Jude with a calm, unsettling focus, like she was listening to something far away.