“Thank you,” she whispered back. “I should be here for this. I have to learn.”
“You sound like you’ve been doing this your whole life.”
“I’m as surprised as you are.”
“You were born to do this, Holly. Never forget that.”
As quietly as he approached, Johnny disappeared back into the crowd.
“The Maiden is right,” the pale-eyed shifter said. “We need to scare them so badly they won’t want to cross into our territory ever again. We will do it without bloodshed. We will not become the animals they are baiting.”
Keller took the floor once more.
“How soon can we have everything ready?” he asked.
“Some of my brothers and nephews are returning from a camping trip tomorrow. They will want to be involved,” someone said.
“I have some extra weapons I can bring over in the morning,” another man said.
Several others voiced that they could be prepared tonight or tomorrow morning.
The din grew louder until Holly couldn’t make anything out.
“All right.” Keller clapped his hands together once, commanding silence. “We regroup here tomorrow morning. Tomorrow night, we attack the mines.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE—Holly
After the shifters of Silver Spruce left, Holly walked out onto the balcony. She knew it was only a matter of time before one of her shifter males came to check on her. The question was, who would it be?
“Hey,” Garret’s voice came from behind her.
Holly smiled to herself. She should’ve been able to guess who it would be. “Hey.” She smiled over her shoulder.
“Are you all right?”
“If I had a dollar for every time one of you have asked me that, I could buy another house.” She chuckled.
“Can you blame any of us?” he replied, stepping up to the edge of the deck.
“No.” Holly shook her head. “But I’m more capable than I was before.”
“No kidding.” Garret chuckled. “I wasn’t in the dining room, but I heard everything you said. If I didn’t know your voice so well, I wouldn’t have recognized you.”
“Thanks, I think?” Holly chuckled.
“That was definitely meant to be a compliment.” Garret placed his hand on the small of her back. “I’ve never been prouder of anyone than I was of you when you addressed the shifters.”
“Really?” Holly couldn’t stop her blush now. “It felt good. Is that weird?”
“Not at all,” he assured her. “How much of that was the Maiden? Be honest.” He winked.
“None!” Holly laughed. “I didn’t hear her voice at all. I think she was testing me.”
“It’s safe to say you passed.”
“I sure hope so. If that didn’t please her, I don’t know what will.”
Silence settled between them.
Holly was content to stare into the cloudless night and listen to the sounds of the forest, but there were no sounds. Edwina was right. The animals had left the area.
“How do you feel about tomorrow?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she replied. “I can’t quite wrap my head around it. Even though I heard everything everyone said, I still can’t believe there’s actually going to be a war.”
“Not war.” Garret shook his head. “Not yet. Because of you, we’re making one last effort to prevent a war. I believe we can succeed.”
“Any shifter with half a brain should run for the hills if he saw you barreling after him.” Holly chuckled. “But what if it doesn’t work?”
“Then we will deal with that if it happens,” he said. “If. Not when. Remember that.”
“I’ll try.” Holly nodded. “You know, I keep going over everything in my head, and I still feel like I’m missing key pieces of the puzzle.”
“It doesn’t help that we can’t scry into Golden Oak to see what’s going on.” Garret nodded in agreement.
“Scry?”
“Think about looking through a window,” he explained, “but imagine you can look through a window and see whatever you want. It doesn’t have to be what’s on the other side of the glass. That’s what scrying is.”
“Can you do it?”
“Not well.” He shrugged. “I don’t have enough natural magic to pull it off. The witches could, though.”
“What about the veil between Golden Oak and Silver Spruce? Doesn’t it prevent someone from casting magic from one town to the next?”
Garret rubbed his beard in silence. “You’re right.” He nodded. “But there might be a way around it.”
Holly furrowed her brow. “What?”
“The veil was put up by witches, right?”
Holly nodded.
“So, it’s designed to block witch magic.”
“Yeah, I understand the concept,” Holly said, not understanding.
“We have something different.” Garret smiled. “Elise has magic, but she’s not a witch.”
Holly’s eyes went wide. “She might be able to sneak her magic through the veil!”
“Exactly. Where is she? Did she go to bed?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen her since before the shifters arrived. Did you see her?”
“I saw her for a little while,” Garret recalled. “She was standing near me right up until…”
“Until what?”
“Everyone started talking about Trevor.”
A stone of dread sunk to the pit of Holly’s stomach as she bolted from the deck. She hiked up the hem of her gown high enough so that she could run without getting tangled. She ran through the house, desperately trying to remember which room Elise was in.
“What’s going on?” Keller asked from the couch.
“Have you seen Elise?” Holly called over her shoulder as she hurried up the stairs.
“No, why?”
“Find her!”
Holly checked the guest rooms on the second level while Keller checked the rooms on the third.
“Elise?” Holly called out. No answer. “Elise!”
“Holly.” Keller hurried down the stairs to meet her. “She’s not here. Where is she?”
“I think she must’ve gone back to the silver mine.” Holly felt like she was going to be sick. If Elise warned Trevor, he might take this as a sign to continue what the Golden Oak shifters started fifteen years ago.
