“The first mage, born of lightning, lived beneath the first yew tree in these lands. As the mage’s power matured, so did the tree. They spoke to one another, the mage and the tree, in soft voices and in the spaces between thoughts.
“When the mage had lived one hundred years, a town of humans sprang up like beggar’s grass a stone’s throw from the yew. The humans began to mutter and curse the mage every time a crop died from drought or a baby was lost to the fever rashes. On the first night of the first month of the last quarter of the year, the mage asked the yew for a weapon. The mage feared her magic would not be enough. She had never used it for fighting, for the defense of her body.
“The yew consented to this plan and dropped one long stretch of fine wood, which the mage used to fashion a bow. The mage used not wood nor stone to craft the bow’s arrows, but magic, amethyst bright and drawn from the world’s veins.
“When the humans attacked, the mage fought back and defended the yew. Countless arrows shot into the dark hearts of men. Eyes shut forever, the taste of their fiery hate the last sensation of their short lives. The mage was victorious. But success bred a sadness so deep that the mage’s magic began to fade alongside the bodies of those humans who had seen fit to murder that which they didn’t understand.
“Death touched the mage, but before the end, the mage asked the yew to receive the bow and the magic. The mage begged the yew to keep the weapon protected until another mage, a mage who would wake the world from slumber, came to claim it. The tree asked the mage the name of this claimant. ‘I do not know the name,’ the mage said, ‘but that she will be drawn to your bow and given the title of Yew Queen.’”
No one knew anything beyond what Nora had told us, and there wasn’t a word about it in the spell book. One recipe in that magical tome claimed it would help a mage see a few moments into the future. I hadn’t managed to get that one to work yet, but I wasn’t giving up on the spell or giving up on learning to use the Yew Bow as a weapon. Especially now that I had a damn dragon to fight.
I pulled into a parking space at Pinkerton, and we slid off the bike. The white lines of the lot were nearly invisible in the fog that gathered along the ground. Trees, swings, and playground equipment peeked from the billowing, semi-transparent wisps of white like they were trying to see who would come to a park this early in the morning on a chilly October day so close to Halloween. Sunlight broke over tree branches and scattered into the fog. I led Lucus toward a cluster of oaks beyond the swings as another crazy park-goer pulled into the lot, their car loud in the eerie quiet. Why weren’t the birds singing?
“Does this work for you?” I asked Lucus, pointing to the trees. He hadn’t said a freaking word since we’d left, and I was beginning to worry.
He blinked like he was trying to wake up, then he rubbed a hand through his hair. It had continued to grow and now hung at his shoulders. He said good health was the cause of his longer hair. The limited feeding he’d had during his centuries trapped in the cursed castle had left his hair short as well as his skin pale and his soul suffering. Now he was whole with a warm shade to his skin, color on his high cheekbones, and his body filled out and fully glorious.
“This oak is almost two hundred years old.” He placed a hand on the uneven bark of the trunk and closed his eyes. “It has seen much,” he whispered.
I shivered, the fog curling around my boots. “I bet. What’s it telling you?” So weird. But also cool.
Lucus inhaled and exhaled like he was meditating, so I decided I’d keep my cake hole shut and let him do his thing.
“What a coincidence!” A chirpy voice made me jump.
“Shit! I mean, Nancy… Sorry. You just surprised me.” What the hell was Nancy Striffer doing here? I’d thought she’d be all over the investigation in the square.
Lucus’s eyes had flown open at her arrival. He left his tree pal and came closer.
“Oh, sorry, Coren.” Nancy adjusted the purse hanging from her arm. “Now.” She zeroed in on me and angled her body so that she blocked Lucus as best she could with her smaller body. “Can we talk? Privately?”
“Why?”
She set a hand on my wrist and glanced at Lucus. “I’m worried about you.”
“I’m worried about all of us considering downtown just freaking blew up.”
Nancy nodded. “Yes. Yes. Of course. But,” she said, gently pulling me away from Lucus.
“Coren?” Lucus packed a lot into my name—a warning that Nancy was not giving off friendly vibes and a question about whether or not I wanted him to step in to help me untangle myself from the situation.
I met his concerned gaze. “It’s fine. I’ll be right back.” I’d been dealing with Nancy’s idiosyncrasies for years. I just had to placate her curiosity about whatever she seemed to think I had going on, then she’d hurry away to the real story. She wasn’t stupid, not at all. I would have to play her a bit so that she didn’t take up my entire morning with questions. “What’s up?”
“It’s your new friends.” Her lips bunched. “They’re odd.”
She had no idea. “Yeah, they’re a little different. All Renaissance Faire people are a touch strange. But they’re good folks. They’ve been helping us a ton at the bakery.”
I’d told everyone who asked that they had traveled with the Faire but wanted to hang in Franklin for a
