seven
Icouldn’tbelievehowlong I’d stayed at Magic & Mixology, but the ambiance had made it hard to leave. The coffee had flowed, the sandwich had been delicious, and the books had been truly fascinating.
Lily had loaned me a bag to carry the books home, and I’d taken the long, slow route across the south part of The Isle back to the East side. I tensed as I stepped onto the rickety wood, glancing south to where the swimming hole shimmered. The southernmost point of The Isle, just before it spilled into Lake Superior. The place where the kraken had almost killed me.
I needed to face this area, this bridge, now. If I let the fear fester too long, it would grow and take root. My stomach twisted as I glanced toward the spot of deep, dark blue, the place where the kraken had waited, summoned by someone intent on hurting me. Ranger X had been right. It was too much to be coincidence, first the lycanthrope and then the kraken.
I stood on the bridge, the weight of the ancient Fae texts in the bag slung over my shoulder giving me a strange sense of comfort. The scratchy, hieroglyphic-type of scrawl was mostlyillegible to me, but maybe it wouldn’t be forever. And somehow, that made me feel less alone.
There had been centuries of Fae Queens before me. If the spirit worlds truly did exist, then maybe the Fae Queens still existed in some form too. If I was truly a full-blooded Fae, maybe as my powers grew, I’d be able to access some of that latent, ancient magic.
The Fae Courts had fallen, but The Isle still stood. There was still Fae magic in the world, in the wards, in the earth beneath my feet. Fae magic had neither started, nor would it end with me. I just had to learn how to tap into more of it.
I was startled when a warm hand touched my shoulder.
“You okay?” Silas asked gently.
“Yeah. I’m fine.”
Silas stood beside me, gazing out at the swimming hole. His eyes darkened, as if he could see what I remembered. He hadn’t been there, of course, but it wasn’t hard to imagine. The flailing tentacles. The pull beneath the surface. The terror of facing death.
I still had red marks on my neck. Scratches across my back from being dragged off the rocks. Visual reminders that someone had tried to kill me. I knew it bothered Silas to see the physical remnants of it.
As if on cue, Silas glanced toward my neck, then quickly looked away. “Where were you this morning?”
“Well, Seer Goddard wouldn’t see me, so I stopped by Lily’s bungalow for the majority of the time. Gus had some ancient Fae texts for me to start studying. Speaking of, what do you think about spirit worlds? Do you believe they exist?”
“Sure,” Silas said without hesitation. “I know they do.”
“Have you been there?”
“It doesn’t work like that. It’s just something I know for a fact.”
“Chuck said the gnomes still celebrate the full moon,” I said, changing the subject slightly. “He said the veil between the worlds is at its thinnest on those nights. I also learned that the Fae Queens have a stronger connection to the spirit world than most other magical beings.”
Silas looked at me, bowed his head slightly to show he was listening, agreeing.
“I was thinking of going to the celebration tonight,” I admitted. “The gnome one. Chuck invited me.”
“That’s a...” Silas looked like he had to force himself to stop from telling me what he really thought. He finally settled on, “That’s an idea.”
“I know you think it’s stupid. But it’s important to me.”
“Then we’ll go.”
“You don’t have to come,” I said. “I’m happy to go by myself.”
“I’ll go with you. I won’t interfere with what you need to do.”
“What about you?” I latched my hand on to his. “Did you find out anything from the Rangers this morning?”
“They confirmed what we thought, that the creature who attacked you was a smaller-sized kraken. They also confirmed it had been magically modified, similar in nature to the crimson lycanthrope.”
“Were they able to track where these creatures are coming from?”
“There wasn’t much left of either of them. The lycanthrope’s body disintegrated too fast to get anything useful, probably by design. Its creator didn’t want it traced. We didn’t recover much of the kraken, as you well know.”
“Are you worried?”
