“I can’t take this—you all can see things I can’t see, and it’s getting old.” She feels me staring, and doesn’t even look back at me when she argues. It’s decided in her mind, I can tell.

“May as well,” William murmurs in agreement, eyes back. “This is…”

Sel’s shaking his head, taking in the enormity of the structure, the reach of the transparent shield arcing across the sky. “Who is casting this?” Like mine, his eyes are darting around the woods, looking for aether users, but there are none.

Mariah steps back with a satisfied smile. “First, this barrier is always up. I just let it know that we were here so it could show itself. Second, no one here is casting it.”

“Well, then, who is?” William asks.

Mariah looks to me, and beckons me closer until we’re side by side next to the shield. “Can you feel them, Bree?”

As soon as she says something, and I stretch outward with my senses, the hair on the back of my neck lifts.

“Oh…”

I drop to my knees, press my hands into the earth, and listen. Gold mage flame encircles my arms, flowing up in a rush to my shoulders like hands seeking me out, searching over me. The light spreads into my chest. Sel is at my side, reaching down.

“Stop!” Mariah says. “Don’t touch her.”

“Excuse—”

“Don’t, Sel,” I whisper. The light is flooding up my neck and over my throat, into my mouth, my ears, covering me. “They’re reaching for me. It’s not… it’s not painful. They just want to know who I am. Why I’m here.”

His eyes search the ground around me. “Who?”

“The dead. Ancestors who died here.” I pitch forward, struck by the force of them. “Oh God, there are so many. The death, and the life. Dozens of them. Asking me…” I tilt my head. By instinct, I press my ear to the earth. I look up. “They want to know if they should let you in.”

Sel startles. “Me?”

I shift to my knees. “All of you.”

Mariah steps beside me, turning with a smug expression. “This site is reclaimed from our oppressors. Rootcrafters have cared for it for a hundred years, and spent the first half of that helping the ancestors who wanted to move on from their trauma go to rest. The spirits who remained control this place in death, because they never could in life. Which is why y’all need permission to come inside the barrier.”

Sel nods, looking at the ground with new eyes. “With respect, they don’t know Bree… do they?”

“Most were crafters in life, so they know enough.” Mariah turns to me. “So, Bree, you’ve got to let them know.”