Page 57 of Dragon Fires Everywhere (Witchlore #4)

St. Cyprian Times

Happy New Year!

By: Emerson Wilde-North

Magical beings of St. Cyprian, we have made it through another fantastic trip around the wheel!

I wanted to look back at all of our accomplishments—thanks to the tireless work of your representatives in the Riverwood coven

and, most importantly, the willingness of our community to see the hope in a new future of unity and connection.

Together, we are living up to the promise of this marvelous little town!

As the leader of the Riverwood, I know that we’re not perfect, and I want to remind you that we welcome all contributions to our monthly town hall meetings. No complaint, comment, or compliment will ever go unheard or unaddressed

on our watch. Public investment in what we do as a coven is how we do what we do as a coven. Teamwork makes the dream work!

We have done a great many things over the course of our first year, always with an eye toward improvements to the town and the wider magical world—as well as a great many things we can all be proud of as a community of witches, familiars, fabulae, and crows.

Mr. Stanford Pendell has finished his compendium of the true history of the witching world, sourced from his own lifelong research and full access to the witchlore archives. This will be the

textbook witches and magical creatures will use in their high school classes moving forward.

Speaking of books, the Riverwood fairy tale that played such a large role in the defeat of our predecessors has gone to print.

This fall we will host a celebration of the book, the statue, and its honorable writer, the late Lillian Wilde. Business owners—please

see me for ways you can participate in what I hope will be an exciting new addition to our annual festival lineup!

We have welcomed many new additions to our community this year—many more magical additions than the last ten years combined!—including

the Riverwood’s own Zelda Good-Rivers, born at Ostara on her late grandmother’s birthday. The happy parents thank everyone

for their well-wishes.

We are continuing to hammer out agreements with the crows to honor all the history involved. Crow Island remains closed to

witches without direct invitation, but we are happy with our progress toward a greater sharing between magical communities,

not without awareness of our complicated histories, but with hope for a brighter future.

The Free Archives initiative has been a great success. Our esteemed Historian Georgie Pendell has worked around the clock

to make the archives open for all. Thank you to the Historian workers and volunteers for getting us as far as we’ve come.

The Frost School for Fabulae has opened. Great strides have been made by our formerly cursed children catching up with their studies. As a bonus, Frost House no longer sits up on the bluff beneath its decrepit glamour, a great step forward for both the magical and human communities.

The fabulae wing of the witch hospital has also seen great success, though we are still seeking fabulae Healers to join the

Norths in this endeavor. Remember, ask not what your community can do for you, but what you can do for your community!

As another new year dawns, we wish the same for all of you that we wish for ourselves:

Love. Hope. Unity.

And the best way to step into these wishes and make them come true is involvement in the St. Cyprian community. Our next town

hall meeting will be at the end of January. Please join us and let your voices be heard!

Azrael puts the newsletter down on the nightstand next to him with a dramatic sigh. “And what, pray tell, do the humans read

when they pick up such nonsense?”

I am sitting at my table, cleansing my crystals, Octavius curled in my lap. He was the first student enrolled in Frost’s fabulae

school, and he comes home exhausted every day. But he is learning, and we’re finally communicating.

“Mostly just a recap of all the festivals, and Emerson had to assure them there was nothing satanic about including Yule decorations in the Christmas Around the World parade.”

I finish what I’m doing, lift Octavius and cradle him like the baby he is, then gently place my fairy cat on his bed on the

window seat.

Then I turn to my dragon. My love. He has healed up nicely from his injuries at last year’s winter solstice. He still gives

me his little gifts, only now I can thank him properly. I am, it turns out, very thankful.

But then, so is he.

We show each other all the time.

He surprised everyone, except perhaps me, with his committed involvement in coven business the past year. I think they all

expected him to be... well, mercurial is the word of choice, and Azrael is nothing if not that, but he is also a stalwart supporter in bringing together the different

factions the Joywood divided us into.

At last.

He has traveled the world searching out fabulae Healers for the witch hospital here in St. Cyprian. He has worked with a group

of fabulae and witches to search the far corners of the earth to ensure all fabulae were released from their curses. And he

has been an ever-vigilant caretaker of the dragon-princess statue that destroyed black magic once and for all, letting the

bricks of St. Cyprian be a refuge once more.

But most of all, he has been by my side. The partner of my dreams I once talked myself out of.

The love of all my lives.

Tonight, he flashes that mischievous dragon smile at me, holds out a hand. “My own, my Georgina. Let’s go for a ride.”

And so we do, soaring over St. Cyprian and the confluence, our friends and family, and the marvelous world full of the people

we saved. The unfiltered light and power of the confluence glows for us. A ghost waves from the cemetery.

Every day, our home looks more like the vision of this magical place that Ellowyn showed us at the ascension trials.

Higher we go, until I can see Crow Island winking in the river, revealed at last—until we are so far into the stars that we

see nothing at all but each other. It’s a real fairy tale, my dragon and me. It’s a dream made real. It’s something I thought

I couldn’t have just a year ago, and it didn’t require that I compromise who I am to get it.

I just had to be me. Books and all.

He remembers all the lives we’ve loved in, and then lost. I can’t remember the details, but I can feel the weight of them every time we touch.

And I know a secret.

This life is going to be the best one yet. Because this time, we’re going to do the hardest thing of all and live our way into an ever-after. We’re not going to die for love. We’re going to live it all the way through.

I can’t wait.

All those books have it right—we just have to be willing to fight our way to the good stuff. Because we’re all worthy of fairy-tale

endings, happy-ever-afters, and the love of a thousand lifetimes.

We’re all the princess in our own story. Don’t let anyone tell you different.

And it’s up to you to pick up that sword and fight for your own heart, no matter how dark it gets along the way to a life

full of light.

I’ll see you there.

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