“You are not old, Jeff. You are still in your prime.”
He chuckles and gives my arm a fatherly pat, warm through the fabric of my sleeve, then he finishes for the day and heads off with Frank trotting at his heels.
Hours later, the snack-thief raven returns and drops something at my feet.
It lands with a soft thud in the grass.
“What’s this?” I ask, crouching.
I pick it up carefully.
A wand.
Old willow, twisted into an unusual shape—more a gnarled root than an elegant rod, but far fromineffective. The wood feels alive under my fingers, dense with history. Strong. Generational.
“Is this for me?” I ask. “Did you steal it, Snack Thief? Is someone going to come looking for it?”
He cocks his head, unrepentant.
I close my eyes and send my magic into the wand. I feel along its length, searching for the telltale tug of ownership: a signature, a tracking spell, a warded bite of warning.
Nothing.
It is clean.
Well. That was an excellent return for a handful of seeds and fruit. My last wand was in my workbag, in another life, long gone. But this is a new life, and a new body calls for a new wand.
Wands can be peculiar, choosy little things, so I will have to try it out and see whether my magic suits it. Even so, it is a gift.
“Thank you,” I whisper, clutching it to my chest.
I take it inside and return with a couple of boiled eggs—a reward worthy of his efforts. He hops closer, chirps with delight, and then, clear as anything, utters the word, “Good.”
I freeze, then laugh—bright, disbelieving—feeling something inside me unknot for the first time all day. I clap my hands, delighted. I have heard ravens can mimic speech like parrots, but I have never experienced it myself.
“Amazing. Snack Thief, you are an incredible raven.”
Chapter Twenty-One
I spendthe next day practising my magic, preparing for their attack. I know the perfect place to test my compatibility with the wand: a former fortification bunker. A hidden underground storeroom, long forgotten by chapel records and isolated beneath the quiet grounds.
The bunker is beautifully—stubbornly—old. Built long before the chapel by craftsmen who prize legacy over recognition, it remains a hidden magic sanctum, sealed away beneath soil and time.
Its brick floor is laid in precise geometric patterns. Broad, hand-carved stone columns support the ceiling; each curves at the top, the arches sweeping inward in elegant lines that meet perfectly at the centre, drawing the eye to an engraved circle on the floor—a design feature, not merely a structural one. The air holds the cool damp of buried stone.
Behind me, in what is no longer a dusty alcove, rest my magical objects and prepared spells. Easily transferred from storage—another impossibility in my human form that I now take in stride. I should not be able to do that magic either.
I draw a containment ward around the main chamber, activate the permanent circle etched into the floor, and step inside, wand poised.
I close my eyes and thread my magic into the wood. Filaments peel from my fingertips and burrow into its core. I hold my breath, half expecting an explosion, but after a few seconds, nothing happens.
Relief washes through me. The wand is strong enough for me to use.
I decide to conjure a simple ball of light—nothing more dramatic than the kind Lander used in the woods. I channel my intention and flick my wrist.
A brilliant flash fills the bunker.
I am flung backwards, landing hard on my backside, blinded by the glare even behind my squeezed-shut eyes.
