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LYRA

T he GPS had been lying to Lyra for the past forty minutes.

"Recalculating route," the mechanical voice announced for the seventh time, its tone somehow managing to sound both apologetic and smugly unhelpful. The little blue dot on her phone screen spun in confused circles before settling on a road that definitely hadn't existed three seconds ago.

"Oh, for the love of sage and sulfur," Lyra muttered, looping a strand of copper hair around her finger as she squinted through her windshield.

The mountain road ahead curved into mist so thick it looked like someone had dumped cotton batting across the asphalt.

Her ancient Honda Civic, packed to the point where she could barely see through the rear window, chugged up the incline with all the enthusiasm of a dying lawnmower.

The fog parted like theater curtains as she drove through it, revealing glimpses of towering pines and moss-covered stone formations that seemed too perfectly arranged to be natural.

A wooden sign materialized from the gray: "Welcome to Mistwhisper Falls - Population 847 - Elevation 3,200 feet - Founded 1847.

" Someone had added graffiti beneath in elegant script: "Where magic meets reality and buys it coffee. "

Lyra snorted a laugh. "Well, at least they have a sense of humor."

Her phone chimed with a new message from her mother: "Sweetheart, are you sure about this?

It's not too late to come home. Your old job at the gallery is still—" Lyra swiped the notification away without reading the rest. She'd heard variations of that speech for the past month, ever since she'd announced her plans to renovate the inn her grandmother Vera had left her.

The same grandmother who'd died without speaking to her for eight years. The same grandmother whose final letter had been three sentences long: "The inn is yours now. Fix what I couldn't. The town needs you more than you know."

Cryptic old witch. Even in death, Vera couldn't resist being mysterious.

The road widened as Lyra entered what had to be the town proper, though "proper" seemed like a generous term.

Mistwhisper Falls looked like someone had taken a postcard from 1950 and dunked it in supernatural ambiance.

Victorian houses with gingerbread trim lined streets that curved with no apparent logic, their painted facades so vibrant they seemed to glow against the perpetual mist. Streetlamps flickered to life despite the fact that it was barely past noon, casting pools of warm amber light that made the fog dance.

A hand-painted sign pointed toward "Downtown District & Supernatural Services," which was either delightfully honest or the best tourist trap she'd ever seen.

Lyra parallel parked in front of Hartwell & Associates Law Office, a narrow building wedged between a crystal shop and a place called "Moondrip Market" that had produce stacked outside despite the mist. Her amber eyes lit up as she spotted the vegetables—tomatoes that gleamed like rubies, carrots so orange they practically hummed with color, and herbs that made her magic tingle just looking at them.

The law office door chimed when she entered, a sound like tiny silver bells that seemed to linger longer than physics should allow. The receptionist, a woman who looked to be in her sixties with steel-gray hair and knowing eyes, looked up from her computer.

"Lyra Whitaker, I presume?" The woman's smile was warm but assessing. "I'm Margaret Hartwell. We've been expecting you."

"Have you now?" Lyra set her oversized purse on the counter, accidentally knocking over a pen holder. Three pens rolled across the floor, but instead of scattering randomly, they formed a perfect triangle. "Sorry, I'm like a walking chaos magnet. Always have been."

Margaret's eyebrows rose slightly. "Chaos magic. How refreshing. We haven't had one of those in town since—well, since your grandmother."

"Vera was a chaos witch?" Lyra blinked. That explained a lot, actually. The woman had always seemed to exist in the eye of some invisible storm, surrounded by beautiful disasters that somehow always worked out in the end.

"Among other things." Margaret pulled out a manila envelope thick with papers.

"Here are the keys to the Mist & Mirth Inn, along with the deed, insurance papers, and a list of local contractors who specialize in supernatural-friendly renovations.

You'll want to call them sooner rather than later—the inn has been empty for two years, and old buildings with that much magical history tend to get. .. temperamental when neglected."

Lyra accepted the envelope, and the moment her fingers touched it, she felt a small shock of recognition. Magic recognized magic, and whatever was waiting for her at the inn had been calling to her long before she'd known she was coming.

"Is there anything I should know about the town? Any local customs or—" Lyra paused as a soft chiming filled the air. It wasn't coming from the door. Margaret was stirring her coffee with a spoon that glowed faintly blue.

"Just the usual small-town quirks," Margaret said, as if glowing cutlery was perfectly normal. "Most folks here are friendly enough, though we do value privacy. The supernatural community is well-integrated, but we prefer to keep our business... internal. I'm sure you understand."

Lyra nodded, though she wasn't entirely sure she did. Her magic had always been more instinct than education, much to Vera's frustration. "Is there somewhere I can grab lunch? I've been driving for hours, and my car's making sounds that suggest it might need a priest more than a mechanic."

"The Spellbound Sip is just down the street. Junie makes the best comfort food this side of the mountains, and her welcome muffins are legendary." Margaret's smile turned slightly mischievous. "Tell her I sent you. She'll take good care of you."

Twenty minutes later, Lyra pushed open the door to The Spellbound Sip and immediately felt like she'd stepped into someone's favorite dream.

The café was all mismatched furniture and hanging plants, with exposed brick walls covered in local art and enough candles to make a fire marshal weep.

The air smelled like cinnamon, coffee, and something indefinably magical—like the moment right before a thunderstorm, all potential and promise.

"You must be Vera's granddaughter."

Lyra turned to find a woman approaching with a coffee pot in one hand and a plate in the other.

She was maybe forty-five, with kind brown eyes and graying brown hair pulled back in a messy bun secured with what looked like knitting needles.

Her apron read "Blessed Be and Eat Your Vegetables" in cheerful script.

"Junie Matthews," the woman continued, setting the plate down at a corner table without being asked. "And before you say anything, yes, I knew you were coming. Word travels fast in a town this size, and Margaret called ahead. Sit, eat. You look like you haven't had a proper meal in days."

The muffin on the plate was enormous, studded with what looked like blueberries but sparkled slightly in the candlelight.

Lyra took a cautious bite and immediately felt tears prick her eyes.

The muffin tasted like her childhood kitchen on Sunday mornings, like her mother's laugh and the safety of being small enough to believe nothing bad could ever happen.

"What did you put in this?" Lyra managed, setting the muffin down before she started crying in earnest.

"Blueberries, lemon zest, and a touch of kitchen magic," Junie said matter-of-factly, pouring coffee into a mug that appeared to be handmade. "My welcome muffins always taste like what you need most. Looks like you've been carrying some homesickness around."

"I left Portland three days ago to drive cross-country to a town I've never been to, to fix up an inn I've never seen, left to me by a grandmother who didn't speak to me for eight years.

" Lyra took another bite, savoring the complex emotions the muffin somehow managed to convey. "Homesickness seems reasonable."

"Vera was a complicated woman," Junie said gently, settling into the chair across from Lyra. "Brilliant, powerful, and absolutely terrible at apologies. But she loved you, honey. She talked about you all the time."

"She had a funny way of showing it." Lyra's voice came out sharper than she intended. "She cut me off completely after I graduated college. No calls, no letters, nothing."

"She was protecting you." Junie's voice carried the certainty of someone who knew more than she was saying. "This town, this place—it has a way of claiming people. Vera wanted you to have a choice about whether to come back."

"And now?"

"Now you're here." Junie smiled, and for a moment her eyes seemed to gleam with an inner light. "Which means you're ready."

Ready for what, Lyra wanted to ask, but something in Junie's expression suggested she wouldn't get a straight answer. Instead, she finished her coffee and muffin, paid for both despite Junie's protests, and gathered her courage for the next stop.

The Mist & Mirth Inn sat at the end of Founder's Row like a dowager empress who'd seen better decades.

The Victorian structure rose three stories against the backdrop of pine-covered mountains, its once-elegant gingerbread trim now chipped and faded.

The wraparound porch sagged slightly on one side, and several shutters hung at drunken angles.

Ivy had claimed most of the front facade, though whether it was regular ivy or something more supernatural was anyone's guess.

"Well," Lyra said to herself, climbing out of her car and stretching muscles cramped from hours of driving. "It's definitely got character."

The front door was painted a deep forest green that had faded to something closer to sage, and the brass nameplate read "Mist & Mirth Inn - Est. 1847" in elegant script. The same year the town was founded, Lyra noted. Vera's family had been here from the beginning.

The key turned easily in the lock, which was either a good sign or meant the door hadn't been properly secured in two years.

The hinges creaked as Lyra pushed inside, and she was immediately hit with the smell of dust, old wood, and ssomething deeper, something that called to her magic, making it stir restlessly in her chest.

The entry hall was grand in the way of old buildings, with a sweeping staircase that curved up toward the second floor and hardwood floors that probably looked magnificent under all the dust. A reception desk sat to one side, its surface covered with a sheet that had once been white.

To her left, double doors opened into what was probably the main parlor.

To her right, a hallway disappeared toward what she assumed was the kitchen.

Lyra set her purse on the reception desk and pulled out her phone to take pictures for the insurance company.

The camera app opened, but instead of showing her the dusty entry hall, the screen displayed a view of the parlor—warm and welcoming, with a fire crackling in the hearth and fresh flowers on every surface.

She blinked, and the image returned to normal.

"Probably just tired," she muttered, though her magic was humming with increasing interest. Old buildings with strong magical histories sometimes retained impressions of their glory days. It wasn't unusual for sensitive people to catch glimpses of the past.

She wandered through the ground floor, taking mental notes.

The kitchen was surprisingly modern, probably updated within the last decade.

The parlor had good bones despite the dust and cobwebs.

A small library off the main hall made her heart skip—floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and a reading nook by the window that would be perfect on rainy days.

The dining room could seat twenty easily, and glass doors opened onto a back patio that overlooked the garden.

Or what had probably been a garden before two years of neglect turned it into a jungle.

Through the overgrowth, she could see the glimmer of water—the falls the town was named for, most likely.

Lyra was examining the built-in china cabinet when she heard it: the unmistakable sound of footsteps on the floor above.

She froze, listening. The footsteps moved across the ceiling with purpose, as if someone was walking from the front of the building toward the back. They paused directly overhead, then started up again, this time moving toward what sounded like the staircase.

"Hello?" Lyra called out, her voice echoing in the empty room. "Is someone up there?"

The footsteps stopped.

Lyra waited, her heart beating faster than it should. She was alone in the building. She'd unlocked the front door herself, and there hadn't been any cars in the overgrown driveway. But the footsteps had been too steady, too purposeful to be settling wood or pipes.

"Margaret sent me," she called up the stairs, feeling slightly ridiculous but unwilling to investigate alone. "I'm Vera's granddaughter. Lyra."

Silence.

She pulled out her phone to call Margaret, but the screen showed no signal bars. Not unusual in the mountains, but the timing felt significant. Everything in Mistwhisper Falls felt significant, like the town itself was watching and waiting to see what she'd do next.

The footsteps started again, this time descending the stairs.

Lyra backed toward the front door, her magic sparking involuntarily around her fingers. Whatever was upstairs was coming down to meet her, and she had the distinct feeling that this particular welcome committee wasn't going to offer her a muffin.