Page 58 of Roaring Spell

And on the wall, scrawled in what looks like charcoal but smells like burned magic:

LEAVE MISTVALE OR YOUR STORMS WILL BE THE LEAST OF YOUR PROBLEMS.

I don’t cry.

I don’t scream.

I stand in the wreckage of everything I’ve built, and a cold fury settles over me like frost. My magic, usually so chaotic, goes eerily still. Not calm—controlled. Focused.

They did this. They came into my space—my safe space—and they destroyed it.

They will regret this.

The weather outside doesn’t change. No thunder. No lightning. No dramatic storms to announce my feelings to the entire town.

Just silence. Just cold.

Just rage that has nowhere to go yet.

I pull out my phone. My fingers are steady as I type.

Me: Someone destroyed my studio.

Three seconds pass. Then my phone explodes with responses.

Torin: On my way.

Leire: What? Are you okay? Don’t touch anything⁠—

Zeph: I’m bringing alcohol and violence. Not necessarily in that order.

Anouk: Document everything. I’m contacting the Network.

I put the phone away. Look at the destruction around me.

They think this will scare me away.

They’re wrong.

Torin arrives in four minutes.

I know because I count. It’s a coping mechanism. Counting things when everything else feels out of control.

He fills the doorway—massive, solid, his expression carefully blank in a way I’ve learned to read. The blankness isn’t calm. It’s containment. A predator deciding how to respond.

His eyes sweep the room. Take in the shattered crystals. The destroyed plants. The message on the wall.

When they land on me, standing in the center of the wreckage, his expression shifts.

Not softer. Colder.

“Are you hurt?”

“No. I wasn’t here when it happened.”

“Good.” The word is clipped. Precise. “Who did this?”

“I don’t know.”