-Sebastian Lightwood:
I didn't even process what was happening until I was already pinned against the wall, unable to process what had happened.
There was no warning. No chant. No visible spell forming in his hands. Just a shift in the air — subtle at first — like the room had inhaled sharply and refused to breathe back out. The temperature dropped half a degree. The light seemed to bend wrong for a split second.
And then the plant in the corner of the room suddenly moved.
Not swayed.
Not rustled.
Moved.
The vines uncurled from the pot with a sound like wood bending under strain. Leaves trembled violently before the stems thickened, darkened, and shot outward with unnatural speed. They didn't look like houseplant vines anymore. They looked ancient. Reinforced. Veined with faint silver light that pulsed through them in steady waves — magic embedded so deeply it might as well have been blood.
One vine snapped around my right wrist.
