Page 45 of Dragon Fires Everywhere (Witchlore #4)

I speed-read through the book, knowing I’ll read it again and again, slower and more carefully each time. But right now, I

need the gist before I take the information to my coven so we can put it to use immediately.

Every time I turn a page quickly, my father grunts from where he’s reading over my shoulder. But he doesn’t mount an argument.

It’s written a bit like an academic paper. There are sources cited—though they aren’t like any I’ve ever seen before, so I

can’t quite follow them. Some of the information is a repeat of what I just read. The events of the crow war, bringing the

dragons in, a king’s betrayal.

And then, as I get toward the end, some of the writer’s emotions slip in.

We were so close to success. So close to peace. I have spent my days since the moment the king chose black magic over the

peace we fought for going over what we could have changed, what we needed that we didn’t have.

I watched the king fail, again and again. I watched my son learn from the mistakes of his father and do better, but he shut the world out. There must be more to this world than the machinations of crows, and now it is someone else who wields black magic against us.

We must stop it, so that my grandchildren have a choice.

I have witnessed much, and I have learned. I have dreamed of times before and the intervention of well-meaning witches. My

son has dreamed of times to come.

And so I put pen to paper, hoping that the right beings will find my advice, my belief, my lessons, learned the hard way.

In order to beat black magic, once and for all, we must first have a group of leaders, not just one. No one leader can rule. Power is a dangerous drug that needs its counterbalances, or black magic will always filter into the cracks,

drowning out whatever good was meant to be done. We must be ever diligent to fight the urge of ego, to remember the good of

all.

If there is any hope that we defeat black magic, it cannot be done in factions. It cannot be done separated from one another.

I have seen it. It must be done through a group of powerful beings who embody the following:

A leader with unshakable belief and endless determination. Support from quiet, determined strength and power. Someone who

has dabbled in the worst that can be done and learned to do better. Someone who has lived apart and has returned with new

perspectives. Someone who has a foot in multiple worlds. A protective presence with unbendable loyalty. Someone with an unquenchable

thirst for knowledge and the creativity to apply it. And someone who has seen multiple lives and remembers them all.

Eight creatures, making infinity.

They will need to work together, love and live together, and then bring together all of us magical beings under one common

purpose.

No one can be left out. No one can be locked away.

This is our only hope.

But that’s exactly what the Joywood have done, I think. Separated us. Made us forget magical creatures even existed . Cursed the crows and the fabulae they couldn’t kill. I’m breathing a little fast, because this is an answer, but it isn’t the answer.

Togetherness and unity are an abstract, not a battle plan.

But it’s clear that the only way we move forward is with everyone uncursed. And Azrael must come to accept the crows are part

of it.

I reach out to my coven immediately, calling an emergency meeting at Wilde House, and only then do I read the rest.

I believe that this is possible. I believe that this is coming. If the good among us continue to raise our children to believe

in hope, love, and unity, we can dream of a day when black magic is no longer a threat.

I take a deep breath, let it slowly out. This might not feel like a concrete answer, but it’s an answer all the same. It’s forward movement, looping in the past. We have to find out how to uncurse the magical creatures. We have to bring us all together.

“I have to go, Dad,” I say, getting to my feet and hugging the book to my chest. I turn to face him, and he’s nodding at me.

“I’m very proud of you, Georgie,” he says, in that careful, serious way of his that makes me feel loved no matter what. Even

now. “I have all the faith in the world that you and your coven can make this right.”

I swallow at the lump in my throat. “If we win this, you were part of it.”

He smiles. “It sounds as if, should we win this, we must all be a part of it.”

I squeeze him tight and then don’t bother to walk. I magic myself right over to Wilde House, pausing in the foyer to glare at the makeshift newel post that isn’t Azrael, and to feel the quiet of the house all around me.

Everyone is coming, but it’ll take some time yet. Not everyone can drop everything at a moment’s notice for a meeting, not

even the meeting queen herself, Emerson.

I go to the kitchen and Octavius appears, weaving through my legs with a hearty purr.

Emerson is, unsurprisingly, the first to arrive despite likely having to rush out of her store without completing all her

preferred closing rituals. “What did you find?” she demands.

But I shake my head. “I want to say it one time, Em.”

She grunts in frustration and looks like she might argue until Jacob arrives—looking a little gray. Emerson instantly focuses

all her worry on him. “Is everything okay?”

“Jaqui was attacked on her way to her waitress shift at the Lunch House,” he says. “It was black magic. She’s doing well,

but it took a lot.” He looks at both of us. “She said the attacker kind of looked like Gil Redd, but only kind of.”

Gil, who has supposedly been missing. I don’t know how to make sense of that.

Rebekah appears with Frost then, and they exchange a look, as if deciding how to tell us something. I mutter a spell that

adds more frosting to the cupcakes before me.

“Apparently we can add Felicia to the missing Joywood members,” Rebekah says. “When I was at Holly’s coffee shop this morning,

I heard some of the teachers talking before their classes, and she hasn’t shown up for work in days. Not a good look for the

principal.” She catches the look on Jacob’s and Emerson’s faces. “Another attack?”

Jacob nods, and Rebekah curses softly, then looks at Frost again. For once I don’t need a translator—I can see how concerned

he is all by myself. Either he’s getting more mortal or I’m just getting used to him.

“I’m here, but I’m sitting on this couch and I’m not moving,” we hear Ellowyn yell from the living room.

Rebekah and Frost move for the living room. Then Jacob and Emerson do, arms around each other’s waists. Maybe Emerson’s arms

more around Jacob, given how grayed-out he looks after a long session of Healing.

As I finish the food, I magic it out to the living room. And once I hear Zander’s voice add a low rumble to the conversation

humming in the room, I head there myself.

Everyone’s in their usual spots and everyone’s eating, which brings me some comfort. Another black magic attack is bad, but

at least we have some kind of progress .

“All right, Georgie,” Emerson says— not in her usual place, because I’ve called this meeting, which means I’m leading this thing.

“If this is a coven meeting, shouldn’t we go to the cemetery and get Azrael involved?” Ellowyn asks, stretched out on the

couch, a plate balanced high on her belly.

I think of his ultimatums about crows, and how much this involves crows. “Eventually, yes,” I say. “But I think a lot of what

I’m going to tell you guys is not news to him, no matter how little he likes it.”

“So our magical creature has been holding out on us. How surprising,” Zander mutters. He’s sitting on the floor, leaning back

against the couch Ellowyn is sprawled out on.

“Not holding out, exactly,” I say, not sure why I’m defending the very dragon who stomped all over my heart with his giant

claws, but here we are. “Living through something makes it hard to see the forest through the trees, I think. It can take

a very wise creature, who understands all the different worlds at play, to show us the right path.”

I explain the time periods, my father’s books that he technically stole from Desmond—who technically stole them from Lillian.

Who was hiding them herself.

“It’s like Zachariah,” Ellowyn says, eyes wide. “His obsession with crows.”

I explain the charms and the first reading, and then the ripple on the back of the book. And all that wild magic once I revealed it. “Then the two books sort of melded together and became

one. One that has some suggestions on how to beat black magic for good.”

“You’re wrong, Georgie.”

I look at Ellowyn. Octavius is curled up on her chest now. She’s petting him while both of them look at me intently. And I

frown at her, because I’m just recounting what I read in a book. I can’t be wrong .

“We need Azrael for this,” Ellowyn says firmly.

“Not yet. I—”

Octavius hops off Ellowyn and trots over to me, weaving in and out of my legs.

“I’ll fill Azrael in when it’s... pertinent.” And when I don’t feel like he took a hammer to my heart.

So also maybe never.

“It’s pertinent. He told me so.” She points at Octavius, and I wonder if she’s having some sort of pregnancy hallucination.

“Wynnie, he doesn’t talk.”

“I know,” Ellowyn says, studying Octavius. “It came through me... all weird. I don’t know if it’s a Revelare thing or a

being pregnant thing. It wasn’t like how Ruth talks to me, how we talk to each other, but it was him. And he keeps saying

what sounds a lot like Azrael . Insistently.”

I open my mouth to argue with her. We don’t need an imprisoned dragon with absolutely no desire to help. We don’t need an

asshole more interested in holding old grudges rather than solving a problem.

But Ellowyn is in my head then, a channel between only the two of us. I don’t want to be a dick—

Don’t you? I interrupt, because she usually does.

She laughs inside my head, but it fades quickly. I think if I could stand hip to hip with Zander for ten years, you can do this.