<h4>Chapter 1108: Chapter 1108</h4>


    He rose slowly, reaching for the makeshift de by his side. Emma stood too, clutching her nket around her shoulders.


    They stepped onto the tform quietly. In the clearing below, Grace stood alone.


    "Grace?" Jude called softly.


    She looked up, smiled, but not the smile they feared. She looked... dazed.


    "I didn’t mean toe," she whispered. "I just... woke up here."


    Emma started down the steps. "Come inside."


    Grace’s eyes were wet. "I was dreaming of fire. Of voices. They were everywhere."


    Sophie reached her first, wrapping a shawl around her shoulders. Jude followed, cing a hand gently on her back.


    "They’re angry I left," Grace said. "I can feel them pulling. I don’t know how long I can stay."


    They brought her inside, wrapped her in warmth, fed her. She cried for hours. It was the first time Jude had seen emotion from any of the corrupted since the ritual began.


    And it gave them hope.


    Emma stayed with Grace all morning, whispering, holding her. Sophie collected roots and herbs, brewing a tea meant to calm the connection to whatever force hadtched onto her.


    But when Jude stepped outside to clear his head, he saw Rose and Zoey watching from the tree line.


    They didn’t approach. They just stood, side by side, perfectly still. Their eyes met his, unblinking.


    And then, slowly, they both smiled.


    A warning.


    That night, Grace screamed.


    Jude and Sophie rushed in to find her sitting up, eyes wide, hands clutched to her chest. "It’s inside me," she sobbed. "I can feel it moving."


    Emma held her face. "You’re safe. You’re with us."


    But Grace was shaking. "They’lle for me."


    "No one is taking you," Jude said. "We’ll fight."


    But deep down, he feared they were already toote.


    Sophie sat with Grace through the night, and by morning, Grace was quiet again. Smiling. The wrong kind of smile.


    "I’m sorry," she whispered to Emma. "I wanted to stay."


    Emma tried to hold her, but Grace slipped away before she could. She walked out the door barefoot, disappeared into the woods. They didn’t follow. They knew where she was going.


    Now only four remained.


    And the cracks were beginning to show.


    Emma was quieter. Sophie more rigid. Jude found himself staring into the fire for hours, trying to remember how the ind had once felt like paradise.


    That afternoon, Lucy came to the river. She didn’t speak at first. Just undressed, stepped into the water near Jude, and looked up at him with calm eyes.


    "You don’t have to be afraid," she said. "It’s not what you think. It’s love."


    Jude didn’t answer.


    She moved closer. "We’re still us. Just... freer."


    He stepped back.


    She smiled. "Soon."


    Then she left.


    Jude stared after her, body still trembling with the memory of her breath on his skin, the way she still knew exactly how to tempt him.


    That night, the three of themy together again, close and warm and afraid. Sophie’s head on his chest, Emma curled behind his back. They didn’t speak. They didn’t sleep.


    In the distance, the singing began again.


    Soft and slow and beckoning.


    And Jude knew.


    They wereing again.


    Tomorrow, they would try to take Emma. Or Sophie. Or him.


    He held both tighter.


    And prayed the night would end.


    The morning came without sunlight, cloaked instead in a dim haze that made the trees look like shadows of themselves. Jude woke between Sophie and Emma, both still curled into him as if the night hadn’t ended. The fire in the center of the room had burned down to cold ash, and the silence outside felt heavier than usual, thick with tension, with the memory of that slow, haunting song that had echoed through the forest hours before. He knew they were nning something. He could feel it in his chest like a storm on the horizon.


    He rose carefully, not waking either woman, and stepped out into the gray dawn. The clearing was empty, still. No sign of Rose, or Lucy, or Grace. No sign of Zoey or Susan or La. They had all vanished into the woods sometime before midnight, not returning even when the song had stopped. He didn’t know whether to feel relief or dread.


    Sophie joined him momentster, pulling her shawl tight around her shoulders. "They’re not here," she whispered.


    Jude nodded. "Which means they’re doing something."


    Sophie looked out into the trees. "I had a dream. Of them walking through water. A river of bones beneath the surface."


    Jude turned sharply. "You saw that too?"


    Her eyes widened. "You did?"


    "I think it wasn’t a dream," he murmured. "I think the ind’s showing us something."


    Emma came outside then, rubbing sleep from her eyes, her voice hoarse. "Grace is in my dream now. She keeps calling me toe home."


    Sophie and Jude exchanged a nce.


    "We need to go after them," Jude said. "We can’t just wait for them toe again."


    "We’ll be walking right into whatever they’re doing," Sophie warned. "We’re not ready."


    "If we wait, we’ll lose more," he said. "We’ll lose each other."


    They packed quickly, no weapons, only food, water, and a few watcherscript stones Sophie had carved. Jude carried the one shard of bone they had retrieved from the earlier ritual, still faintly warm, still humming when held close to the skin.


    They left as the mist began to clear, moving through the trees silently. The ind felt different, as if the terrain shifted beneath their feet, drawing them subtly in a direction they didn’t choose. The trees grew thicker, the leaves darker. Birds didn’t sing here. Even the wind avoided this part of the forest.


    Hours passed before they found the path.


    It wasn’t made of dirt but of petals, crimson, wet, soft beneath their feet. It wound through the trees like a living thing, undisturbed. No footprints. No sign of animals.


    "This is it," Sophie said, voice low. "This is where they went."