Chapter 2: Emory

Emory struggles to accept the reality of the Wychwood and life under the strict hospitality of Amberyl House. Though allowed to roam the estate, Emory and Romie are forbidden the woods until after a secretive ascension ritual. Curious and confined, they try to glean information from staff and encounter Aspen Amberyl, who hints at the ceremony’s stakes.

When Hazel Amberyl catches them near the kitchens, Emory uses Lightkeeper magic to eavesdrop. Hazel warns Aspen to avoid the outsiders and references a spreading rot and past demonic cunning. Emory’s use of magic summons haunting specters—most painfully Keiran’s—revealing that her power in this world is potent but perilous.

Back in their rooms, Romie connects Aspen to the prophetic song and insists fate is pulling them into Clover’s tale, while Emory yearns only to return home. Seeing witches slip into the woods at dusk, they decide to follow. Emory parts the barricading vines with Sower magic, and they reach a clearing where the coven exhumes a grave beneath an ancient yew.

Before the gathered witches, Bryony Amberyl rises alive from the earth, bearing a spiral scar—the Sculptress’s mark—akin to Emory’s and Romie’s. Elation turns to dread when Bryony’s eyes go black and she speaks in a deep, foreign tongue, then collapses into Aspen’s arms, restored.

The coven whispers “Hellwraith,” and the High Matriarch Hyacinth demands an exorcism, citing a new blight—rotting trees, blackened streams, festering roots—beginning with the outsiders’ arrival. Hazel defends her daughter’s blessing, but Hyacinth vows to purge evil on the coming black moon. Hidden, Emory and Romie grasp the peril: they are suspected interlopers in a dying wood with no clear escape.