Page 63 of Panther in the Shadows
Everything. Losing Rafe. Failing Elspeth again. Watching Old Tom die because we're too slow or too weak or too late.
"What if I become like her?" The confession tears free before I can stop it. "Catalina. She was human once. Shifter, but close enough. She drowned herself and merged with darkness and became wrong. Lost everything that made her who she was." My hands clench in my lap. "What if using my full power does that to me? What if the ocean takes more than I'm willing to give?"
Eliza watches me for several heartbeats. Then she leans back in her chair. "Catalina drowned herself in rage and revenge. You're choosing power because people will die without it. Those aren't the same thing."
"How do you know?"
"Because you're sitting here worried about it." She shakes her head. "Catalina didn't care who she hurt. You care about everyone. See the difference?" She reaches across the table. "Look. Using your full power should scare you. But hiding from it because you're afraid means people die anyway. And you'd have to live with knowing you might have stopped it."
The weight of that truth settles in my chest.
"Also." Eliza's expression softens. "Rafe looks at you like you're the only thing keeping him standing. Whatever happens, you're not facing it alone."
"Thank you."
She stands, pulls me into a brief, fierce hug. "Now I'm going back to my mate before he worries himself into shifting. But Moira? Don't let fear make your decisions. You're stronger than you think."
She leaves as quietly as she came, the door closing soft behind her.
The common room feels larger in her absence. But the fear that was eating at me has dulled to worry I can carry without it crushing me.
Gran's grimoire sits where I left it when I brought it with me, pages marked with decades of use. The leather is soft from her hands, from mine, from every sea witch in our line who studied these spells.
The passage about sea-walkers is near the back, written in Gran's smallest, most careful script. Warning, not instruction.
I read it three times before the full meaning sinks in.
Sea-walkers must be killed in deep water where their power is strongest. Anywhere else and they'll simply flee into the depths and heal.
The spirits they've bound can be freed, but only with sea-witch magic cast at the moment of the sea-walker's death. The window is brief. Miss it, and the spirits remain trapped forever.
Sea-witch magic at the moment of death.
This is how we save Elspeth. How we free the others Catalina has bound. But it means being there when she dies. Being close enough to use my power at exactly the right moment. In deep water where Catalina is strongest and I'm most vulnerable.
It means risking everything on timing and precision and hope.
The door opens behind me. Rafe's scent reaches me before his voice does, shadow and night-blooming jasmine.
"You're came." I close the grimoire, turn to face him.
"The brotherhood will help." Exhaustion lines his face, but determination burns underneath. "Every shifter who can fight will be there. Declan, Finn, Grayson, Jax. The wolves, the tigers, the bears. We end this soon."
Soon. Hours at most before everything changes.
"I found a way to save Elspeth and the others. But it's complicated."
"Tell me."
So I do. Explain about the sea-walker's vulnerability in deep water. About the narrow window to free the bound spirits. About how I'll need to be there at the moment of Catalina's death, using magic while everything is chaos and violence around me.
His expression darkens with every word. "That's too dangerous."
"It's the only way."
"Then we find another way."
"There isn't one." I stand, cross to him, place my hands on his chest. "This is what I'm meant to do, Rafe. What Gran trained me for. Sea-witch magic is about more than storms and tides. It's about the balance between life and death, water and darkness. Catalina broke that balance. I'm the only one who can restore it."
