Page 22 of Dragon Fires Everywhere (Witchlore #4)

The ball ends at eleven thirty, and even if humans were tempted to linger, something is in the air. It’s a magic prompt telling

them to go home. I look meaningfully at Azrael, and he nods, because Peter the London Boyfriend is meant to be human too.

He needs to make a show of leaving.

It would be embarrassing to admit how little I want him to leave, so I don’t. I don’t admit anything. Besides, it’s appropriate

for me to be nervous about the ceremony.

Azrael steps back from me, letting go of me and ending all that dancing I can’t even begin to think about right now with a spell hanging over my head.

You won’t see me. You won’t feel me. But I’ll be there adding my magic as well.

I don’t know if he says this only in my head, or in the full group channel. He’s looking at only me as he lifts my hand and

presses a kiss to it.

It should feel chaste. Fake. Even silly. A gesture in line with one of Sage’s bow ties.

It. Does. Not.

What it does instead is light me up and make me wonder what it would be like to truly feel a dragon’s fire—

But that, I tell myself sharply, is not helpful. I am about to lead a spell to open the archives I’ve been waiting my whole

life to see. It’s no time for fairy tales, no matter how real they might be.

Azrael’s eyes gleam, and then he slips away, threading in and out of the packs of humans until he’s no longer inside. The

witches are spilling out of the building as well, but the magic makes sure the humans don’t notice. They’re off to their homes

or whatever else they do at eleven thirty at night, but we’re all headed to the same place: St. Cyprian’s first capitol building.

It’s right on the river, an old-fashioned fort where the human archives have been housed for as long as history has been written

down in this area.

But we don’t go inside. We all come together outside along the riverbank.

Any human who had the wild thought to be outside by the river on a frozen December night would see nothing. Maybe they’d think

they saw a shadow, but on further inspection, all they’d really see was a murder or two of crows.

Where’s Azrael? Emerson asks in my head.

Proving that what he said earlier was, indeed, just for me.

Just for me seems to echo in my head like a portent.

He’s around , I assure everyone.

Witches are gathered in little clusters, murmuring to each other. Emerson, as always, steps happily into the unknown and starts

directing people where to stand. There are specific rules for this ceremony. Rituals often have extensive requirements—that’s

part of the price of magic. But no one remembers the last time this was done, so we all require a little guidance.

One more thing we lost, I think, gazing over at the Joywood as they too assemble here as the outgoing ruling coven. I’m certain

they know what to do, why we stopped doing it, and when. I’m equally certain they’re the why . I also know that, despite their strange appearances, they’re here to witness the failure of their successors. A failure

they set up a long time ago.

They stand here on the bank of the river they tried to use to flood the whole town last spring, looking incredibly smug. And

are still without Felix.

They’re also ignoring Emerson’s instructions. She rolls her eyes at me.

Let’s not belabor the point. Let them huddle at the river’s edge , Jacob says in our heads, clear and calm, as usual.

Maybe it’ll sweep up and take them under. Zander’s suggestion is dark.

A girl can dream , Ellowyn offers.

Rebekah laughs, out loud, as Emerson takes her place in front of us and addresses the crowd.

“Welcome,” Emerson begins, her politician smile in place. “We’re so glad to have you here, witnesses to the first Cold Moon

Ceremony in some time.”

Maeve titters at that, like Emerson offered some great joke, and the sound carries through the air and the trees. Some people

look at her, but Emerson doesn’t give her the satisfaction.

“It makes sense to us that the first step in our final ascension is acquiring knowledge,” Emerson says. “Knowledge that has

been difficult to come by for some years.”

She still doesn’t look pointedly at the Joywood, but others do.

“And since this is about knowledge, about facts, about our history and all that will inform our future, I will not be leading

this ceremony. It will be the Riverwood’s incomparable Historian, Georgie Pendell.”

She gives me a nod, and I smile at her, then the crowd. I’ve never minded public speaking. It’s another lecture, essentially,

and I’ve always been good at a lecture for academic purposes. If people get rowdy, I only need to smile blankly at everyone

like I don’t notice and it doesn’t faze me.

Ditzy Georgie has her uses.

But new sorts of nerves are thrumming through me tonight, and for so many different reasons. I don’t see Azrael, or feel him,

and I don’t like that.

I notice my father in the crowd, smiling up at me in that new, sad way. My mother is nowhere to be seen, which feels odd,

considering this should be a big moment for her. For the Pendells. Then again, it isn’t a major ceremony—because no one can

remember it ever happening before, thanks to our evil predecessors, and no one’s attendance is necessarily required.

Still, when I meet my father’s gaze, his words from earlier come back to me. Facts are not always the whole story.

For a moment, I forget everything I’ve practiced saying. What I’m supposed to do. My mind goes completely blank.

I might panic.

Just a little.

But then I see a little gleam of gold up in a tree.

Azrael.

He’s letting me know he’s here. He’s okay. And that means I’m okay too.

I pull in a breath and address the crowd. “As many of you know, I was tasked with gathering eight keys housed in some of the

most remote or bespelled archives in the world. By collecting these and completing the Cold Moon Ceremony, we will formally

transfer access to the full witchlore archives from the Joywood to the Riverwood.”

There are some more mutters from where the Joywood sit, but I don’t allow their words to penetrate. I focus on the crowd of

people I know support us. Ellowyn’s mother, Tanith, and her partner, Mina. Holly Bishop, who has the coffee shop on Main Street.

Corinne, who runs the Lunch House. Emerson and Rebekah’s mother, Elspeth, who I thought was still in Germany, on what I consider

my leather armchair.

“At every stop, I found a key. Eight in total,” I say to the crowd. I lift my hands, close my eyes. I picture what I need, whisper the words to bring it to me.

A large, ornate box where I’ve been keeping everything magicks its way into my hands.

I keep going, murmuring the spell to have the box hover there in front of me so I can pull out all the keys, one by one, and

keep the unicorn horn hidden until last. I know there’s the possibility that some people will feel that magic and wonder what’s going on, but they won’t be able to guess.

Except maybe the Joywood. But I ignore that thought too.

Because sometimes doing what needs to be done means knowing all the potential pitfalls and worrying about what might go dreadfully

wrong, then doing it anyway.

“The first key, made of amber, came from my stop in Sydney.” I pull it out of my box. Each member of my coven will wield a

key during the spell. This one has been assigned to Emerson.

I hand her the key, and she goes to stand at what will be the metaphorical head of our table, a slight adjustment from the

ceremonial instructions we originally found—no doubt left for us by the Joywood—but it’s right.

I know it.

Then I hand out the rest of the keys—black agate from Colombo to Jacob, peridot from Tokyo to Rebekah, opal from Juneau to

Zander, citrine from Buenos Aires to Ellowyn, sugilite from Accra to Frost—and, one by one, they each take their places in

the arrangement of a true coven.

I can see the Joywood exchanging looks of concern, and that brings me some joy.

Okay. A lot of joy.

“The seventh key is for me, an amethyst from London,” I tell the crowd, holding it up.

And I have to give credit to my neighbors and friends, and some vocal critics, in the crowd tonight. Maybe no one remembers this ceremony from before the Joywood—assuming there ever was a before the Joywood— but here in St. Cyprian, we take our ceremonies seriously.

They all applaud wildly, like they’ve been waiting for this moment none of us knew about for all their lives.

I don’t go to my spot at the metaphorical table with my amethyst key, not just yet.

“The thing is, there were eight keys,” I tell the crowd. And I want, more than anything, to look for that comforting gleam

of gold—but I don’t. It’s too risky now. “I spent some time trying to discern what this meant. What we should do with an eighth

key when there are, as we’ve all been taught, only seven members in a coven.” There are murmurs in the crowd, but they sound

more puzzled than anything else. I keep going. “And in my studies, my research, and my own personal fondness for tales of

the old magical creatures that used to roam this earth with us, I discovered something called... a true coven.”

The Joywood go dangerously still.

Along our private channel, there’s a kind of mental intake of breath. Like we’re all bracing for impact. Or schadenfreude.

I want to grin, but I don’t. I keep my ditzy, fairy-tale Georgie smile in place. “It’s possible it’s an old wives’ tale,”

I allow. “Or maybe something we’ve evolved away from simply because our magical creatures are all gone now. But I had eight

keys, and I knew that while there are no longer any magical creatures roaming our world—”

Is that so? Azrael shouldn’t be there in my head, sounding dark and lazy and too tempting. It’s asking for trouble, but it makes me want

to laugh all the same.

I don’t. I keep going.