Tristan turned back toward the square, mind already cataloguing suspects and motives. Bram's hostility. Thomas Wells's gathering at the Silver Fang. The vandals who'd never been caught.
Someone in Hollow Oak wanted Maren gone badly enough to frame her for crimes she didn't commit. Tristan was going to find out who and maybe the even bigger question; why?
14
MAREN
Maren didn't go to her cottage.
The lie sat heavy on her tongue as she walked away from Tristan, but she couldn't bring herself to regret it. He needed to investigate without her shadow hanging over his every move, and she needed answers that wouldn't come from ransacking her own belongings.
She needed the Book Nook.
The shop sat tucked between the apothecary and a closed seamstress storefront, its windows glowing warm despite the cold. A painted sign creaked in the wind, and the door chimed softly as Maren pushed inside.
Books lined every wall from floor to ceiling, stacked on tables, piled in corners, organized by a system that probably made sense only to its owners. The smell of old paper and leather bindings wrapped around her like a familiar blanket, calming nerves that had been frayed since the fountain incident.
Lucien Vale appeared from behind a towering shelf, moving with the liquid grace of his panther heritage. Sharp green eyes assessed her from a face carved in angular shadows, dark hair falling in waves to his shoulders. He looked like he'd been carvedfrom oak and moonlight, beautiful in the way dangerous things often were.
"Maren." His voice carried no warmth, but no hostility either. "You're supposed to be at the safe house."
"I needed research. The kind I can't do from two miles outside town."
"Research on what?"
"On who could be framing me."
Lucien studied her for a moment, then stepped aside and gestured toward the back of the shop. "Moira's in the archives. Try not to disturb the organizational system."
Maren wound through the maze of bookshelves until she found the archival room, a cramped space lit by enchanted candles that never dripped or burned out. Moira Marsh sat surrounded by open volumes, her mahogany curls escaping from a loose bun, glasses perched on her nose as she traced lines of text with one finger.
"Maren!" Moira looked up with genuine warmth, a welcome change from the fear and suspicion that had greeted her in the square. "I heard about the incidents. Are you alright?"
"Physically, yes. Legally, that remains to be seen." Maren settled into the chair across from Moira, her shadows spreading cautiously across the floor. "I need your help."
"Anything. You know that."
"Someone's copying my magical signature. Using it to cause accidents and illusions that look like my work. The Council thinks I'm losing control, and the town thinks I'm attacking them deliberately." Maren leaned forward, urgency bleeding into her voice. "I need to know if there's any record of magic that could do that, specifically shadow magic that could mimic a bloodline signature well enough to fool wards and witnesses."
Moira's expression shifted to scholarly interest, the same look she got when presented with a particularly challengingtranslation. "Signature mimicry is rare. Most cases involve blood theft or possession, neither of which would produce the sustained effects you're describing."
"What about relics? Cursed objects tied to specific bloodlines?"
"That's more promising." Moira stood, moving to a shelf packed with leather-bound volumes so old their spines had worn smooth. "Shadow magic has a complicated history. Most of it was purged during the witch trials, but some artifacts survived. Let me check the Pitch lineage records."
Maren's heart stuttered. "You have records on my family?"
"The Book Nook has records on most magical bloodlines. Lucien's been collecting them for decades." Moira pulled down a massive tome, its cover stamped with symbols Maren vaguely recognized from her grandmother's journals. "The Pitch line is particularly well-documented because of the trials. Your ancestors were among the most powerful shadow witches in recorded history."
"And among the most persecuted."
"Often the same thing." Moira carried the book back to the table and began flipping through pages covered in dense script and faded illustrations. "Here we go. Pitch family artifacts, catalogued by the Council of Shadows before the purge."
Maren watched as Moira's finger traced down a list of names and descriptions. Rings that amplified shadow work. Mirrors that could trap reflections. Daggers that cut through wards like paper.
Then Moira stopped, her finger hovering over an entry near the bottom of the page.
"The Nightwell Locket," she read aloud, her voice dropping to barely above a whisper. "Created by Evangeline Pitch in the year 1623. A blood-bound artifact capable of storing shadowessence and, under certain conditions, birthing a shadow doppelgänger."
