They had gone perhaps forty feet beyond the place where Ashe had seen the shape disappear.
They moved slowly now, close enough that no one had to raise their voice and risk learning what the air would do with it. Vane found himself scanning the crooked trees by count.
Five steps. Left.
Five steps. Right.
It was the same rhythm Ryuken had beaten into him years before any of this: never let fear choose where you looked, never let instinct fixate, never give the dark more attention than it deserved.
Here, it did nothing.
Whatever had watched them before had already understood the pattern. It had simply chosen not to exist inside it.
The next thing came out of the trees before Vane reached three.
It did not pause to be seen.
