Page 34 of Dragon Fires Everywhere (Witchlore #4)

“Thank you for this important information,” I say, addressing these archives, this body of knowledge, that knew enough to

protect the witchlore from me. And who can tell the difference now. I raise my hands and tip my head back, like I’m free-falling

into all that knowing . I connect with the magic that makes me a Historian, the magic that has always led me through my research. The magic that

is why I’m here. “Show me the Joywood’s black magic.”

The room shifts now, and I hold my breath—thinking, This is it . Finally. I freed myself from the cursed crystals, and now I’ll get my answers—

A large box appears on the table. I rush forward, ready to dig in. But it’s empty.

I frown at the box, then the golden magic around me. I don’t think it’s a trick, but I’m not sure what it is. It’s not the

information I wanted, I know that. I let out a long sigh.

“All right then,” I say, wondering how to shift tactics. On the night I opened the archives, they showed me the family tree

of their own accord. Maybe that’s the key. It’s not what I want. Maybe I need to ask the archives what they want to show me.

I reach inside myself and make that connection once again. “Show me what you will, if you will,” I say, giving myself over

to the bright magic that fills the room, and me.

The room shifts all around me once again. Light reflects off different surfaces, as if different parts of the archives are

talking to each other the way I have always believed books do, and then a book floats down from the ceiling onto the middle

of the table.

I peer down at the title. It doesn’t connect to anything I’ve asked for before. Nothing about the Joywood then or now, but

I know this is for me.

A Fabulae’s Guide to Past Life Regression.

My pulse picks up at past life . I immediately flip through the old pages, letting the book make a case for itself, and it doesn’t take me long to know what

I need to do.

Because no matter what Azrael says, no matter what he’s afraid of, the past does matter.

I tuck the book under my arm, but underneath it is the fairy tale, once again. Our story, but the cover has changed again. No more embracing. The dragon is in the background. I don’t like that at all, how

far away he is from the princess. How small he’s drawn, like he doesn’t matter.

You’re wrong , I want to shout at it. But in the foreground is the princess. She’s asleep in a deep, dark wood. A crow sits at the end

of her bed. It reminds me of Ellowyn’s dream that she told us about on All Souls’ Day. There was a crow at the end of it,

with violet eyes. And something about... crows being freed. Above the princess’s head, in a little dreamlike bubble, are

four versions of the princess in different kinds of dress.

Like she’s dreaming about different lives for herself. Or old lives , something in me whispers.

Just like the dreams I used to have. The ones that my mother said were dangerous delusions that needed to be nipped in the

bud.

This is confirmation that she was wrong. And that I’m on the right track.

When I leave the archives, I head to Zander and Ellowyn’s house on stilts next to the river, but I don’t risk walking. When

Ellowyn answers the door, there’s concern on her face as she beckons me inside and closes the door against the night.

“Everything okay?” she asks.

“You can reach into the past.”

“Sure,” she says, as Zander comes up behind her, sliding an arm around her waist and over their baby.

I hand her the book the archives gave me. “I want to do this.”

Ellowyn and Zander both look at the book. Then at me, with twin looks of concern on their faces. “Georgie...”

“Any risk is mine to take, not yours,” I say with certainty, because I know this is right. Not just right, but the only path.

“It says so in the book. You and the baby will be fine.”

Zander and Ellowyn exchange a glance, the kind of glance born out of their years. Their new, improved partnership and the

trust they’ve built along with the baby they’re growing.

And all that love.

It makes me ache all over again for this strange partition Azrael has put up between us. But I’m certain the answer lies in the past he doesn’t want me to find.

“You’re not a fabulae, Georgie,” Zander says, gently enough.

I smile, with only the faintest hint of ditz. “A minor technicality. I don’t think it matters.”

“It might,” Ellowyn says, but she’s flipped open the book to the first page.

“Azrael said that we need to focus on the future,” Zander argues, because he wants to protect literally everyone, always.

“Don’t you think we should listen to the dragon who knows all this stuff we don’t?”

“I think those who do not understand the past are doomed to repeat it.” I raise my brow at him. “As you should know very well.

Personally.”

Zander lets out a sound like I punched him in the stomach. Which I guess I did. “Ouch.”

Ellowyn closes the book. “This should be a full coven thing, Georgie.”

“Great. Let’s gather them.”

“A full, true coven, meaning Azrael too.”

I hesitate, then I shake my head. “No. We got this far with only the seven of us. We can do this with only the seven of us

too. And I think we have to do it. There’s something he doesn’t want me to find in the past.”

“Then maybe we shouldn’t find it,” Zander argues, but more carefully. “Particularly today . A day when you’ve been attacked .”

I keep my gaze on Ellowyn. Because I know she’s on my side, and if she is, Zander will be eventually. “Would you stop trying

to find what you knew you needed to find just because someone told you not to? Or, worse, if someone tried to stop you?”

She’s caught, because we all know telling Ellowyn what to do is a useless enterprise.

“Did you know,” she murmurs, “that when you put a certain number of men—”

“Wynnie,” I say, dropping that nickname she only allows rarely as a bomb.

She sighs. “Let’s head over to the North Farm,” she mutters instead of wowing us with misdirection in the form of facts about

men. “Get everyone to meet us there.”