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The dome doubles its radius in a single beat. Every bee within range catches fire, their scorched, hissing bodies raining onto the wet grass. The ones farther from the column try to scatter, but my dome is already past them, and they go the same way, a second wave of sparks popping out of the dusk air.

Finally, the drone that’s been drilling into my skull since the column cuts out mid-note, and the silence that replaces it rings.

I hold the dome for three more seconds, scanning for stragglers. There are none. Only scattered heat signatures in the grass and residual warmth from the scorched remains.

Satisfied that the threat is gone, I let the dome collapse and drag in a breath that tastes like campfire and wet earth.

Kieran’s swords are at his sides, his knives hovering behind his shoulder. His temperature ticks upward—98, then 99—his heat rebuilding degree by degree inside the warmth of my shield. The welts on his skin are shrinking, his thermal output is climbing, and the amber flecks in his eyes are brighter than the green.

“They let you through.” His gaze moves from my face to the column and back. “The swarm parted for you and targeted me.”

“I noticed.”

He sheathes both swords, then glares at the wet grass littered with the charred remains of several hundred bees.

“Well.” He traces the hilt of his dagger with his thumb. “The temple clearly has a preference.”

Before I can reply, the column pulses with heat so intense that for a second, all I can see is white. I blink to get a sense of my surroundings, but the marshy grass beneath my feet hardens, and I grab Kieran’s arm as marble tiles spread outward from the base of the column in every direction. The column groans, and more columns rise from the ground around us, until twenty of them are punching upward through the marsh in eruptions of stone and displaced earth.

I freeze, looking around in awe and fear as walls climb between the columns. A roof stretches overhead, marble beams knitting together in real time. Gold leaf crawls across the tops of each column in branching patterns. Carved friezes spread across the walls, creating colorful displays of hunting scenes, women with bows, stags, hounds, and crescent moons.

This is the Temple of Artemis. The real one. the full, original Seven Wonders of the Ancient World version. It stretches hundreds of feet in every direction, and the exits keep multiplying as new corridors branch off the central hall, until an altar materializes at the center of the temple. It’s marble and gold, carved with crescent moons.

Three women step out from behind it. They’re tall and golden skinned, dressed in honey-colored robes… and every one of their eyes is locked on Kieran with the kind of hostility my heat sensing doesn’t need to quantify, because I can feel it from ten feet away.

My grip tightens around Kieran’s arm.

“A man,” the woman in the center says, managing to make the word sound like a deadly disease. “Knocking on the entrance of the temple of Artemis. Carrying the war-blood of Ares.”

Kieran’s stance shifts, his knives rising into tighter orbit behind his shoulder.

I release my hold on him and plant myself in front of him before he can do something stupid, like make three mystical women decide to murder him because they don’t approve of his gender.

“We’re here to see the Amazons.” I straighten my shoulders, sounding far more confident than I feel. “The Aldridge coven of New Orleans sent us.”

The hostility in the center woman’s face shifts when I say Aldridge, which is encouraging enough that I pull the sealed letter from my jacket and hold it up.

“I was told to deliver it to the queen personally.”

Her amber eyes sharpen. “You were told by whom?”

“Lenore Aldridge.”

All three women go still.

“Lenore Aldridge sent you.” The center woman’s tone has shifted. The contempt is still there when her gaze cuts to Kieran, but the dismissiveness aimed at me has been replaced by a careful attention that makes the hair on my arms lift. “And you carry her fire seal.”

“It will alert her if anyone other than the Amazon queen breaks it.” I hold the letter steady between us. “So, I’m sure you understand why I’d prefer to place it in the queen’s hands myself.”

The center woman exchanges a glance with the woman on her right. A conversation happens in that look, fast and silent, and the woman on the right gives a fractional nod.

“We will inspect the seal,” the center woman says. “The letter stays closed. If the magic authenticates, you will be permitted to deliver it to the queen.”

I want to refuse. But three golden women with the power to deny us entry to the mystical realm are standing between us and the Amazons, the column behind them is radiating heat at a level that should be structurally impossible, and we don’t have a backup plan.

The odds are definitely not in our favor.

So, I hand over the letter.