Stormfinch

Oro appears at Isla’s window, exhausted from flying across the world. Their bond still flickers despite her power-dampening bracelets. When the caged stormfinch begins to sing, Isla realizes Grim will arrive to take her into the storm. To protect Oro, she orders him to hide and teleports to Grim’s room, distracting him with a ruse about unbuttoning her clothes so he won’t enter her chambers.

Grim portals them onto Wraith to pursue the storm and Azul’s instructions for finding the portal to the otherworld. In the air, Grim confronts Isla about visiting the augur and begs her to reconsider using Lightlark’s portal to save her life; Isla refuses to doom thousands. As the storm intensifies, strange shademade metal pelts them, and Grim’s powers suddenly fail.

Following Isla’s insistence, Wraith climbs higher. Isla raises Azul’s ring to the tempest; lightning answers and charges the ring, braiding green and purple energy with the trapped shred of storm. The method works, hinting at how to locate the portal, but the metallic hail grows into blades that slice them as Grim shields Isla with his body.

During a violent drop, Isla loses her grip and the ring slips away into the clouds—her key to the portal gone. Before she can risk pursuing it, a new threat emerges: the sky reddens and a creature exhaling lightning descends through the storm. Grim, audibly afraid, orders a retreat, but a lightning strike hits Wraith’s neck. Wraith seizes, wings lock, and Isla and Grim plummet as Oro remains hidden back in Nightshade, at risk of discovery.