I mean, I’ve seen that movie, the one where the fly gets in the— Never mind.

  “Observing,” she said brightly. “And maybe intervening. We’ve had two scorched sleeves, and someone’s hat is currently in orbit.” She pointed up at the sky, where a cone-shaped hat in Ministry of Witches blue drifted high above, flirting with a seagull.

  “I see festival safety is thriving.”

  Charity’s smile faltered a fraction. “Y’know … it was all going well until I got to the prize table this morning.” She waved me over. “Come and look.”

  She led me into a small tent, hot and stuffy. A variety of boxes containing miscellaneous items to use as prizes were stacked in one corner. The table in question was a long trestle draped with cloth printed in swirling leafy motifs. Atop it sat an array of strange objects: glass vials filled with colour-shifting sand, levitating chopsticks, a sunhat that made polite conversation, and a jar labelled In Case of Emergency, Open and Duck.

  All fine on the surface.

  But the arrangement—

  I stepped closer, narrowing my eyes.

  It wasn’t random. The pattern was too precise. Not symmetrical, but intentional. A shape formed across the table—curved edges, looping arcs, tight intersections of items—drawn in enchanted positioning, not ink. The sigil wasn’t complete, but it didn’t need to be.

  “Do you see it?” Charity asked. “Or am I imagining things?”

  “You’re not imagining things,” I said slowly. “That’s a binding glyph. Or very close to one.”

  Charity folded her arms. “I didn’t do it.”

  “I believe you.” I didn’t think for a moment she would be capable of doing this. A witch she might be, but her skills were as green as spring grass.

  “Could it have been a prank?”

  “Maybe.” I leaned in and tapped a vial near the centre. It glowed dimly at my touch.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Checking for a focus point. This is aligned with one.”

  “Pardon me?”

  “It’s like a magickal acupuncture point,” I told her. “Think of them like the ley line equivalent of acupuncture meridians. They’re natural or cultivated spots where energy tends to gather, shift or spark more easily. Spellcasters often use focus points to amplify enchantments or stabilise complex glyphs, especially for protective wards, illusions or summoning circles.”

  “Oh.” Charity grimaced.

  “This sigil is aligned with several focus points. Whoever did this knows their glyph work.”

  “Is it dangerous? These are the prizes children will win.”

  I straightened and glanced around. “Did it look like this yesterday?”

  “No. I laid everything out in rows. Rows, Alf. This morning? Glyph.”

  We exchanged a look.

  “I didn’t touch it,” she said again. “I didn’t move anything. I wanted you to see it.”

  “You were right to wait,” I said, voice low. “Don’t rearrange it yet. Let me show Gwyn.”

  I peered at the table once more. The air around it felt slightly sticky—not viscous, but dense, like breathing through steamed glass. Magick had moved through this space. Not violently, but not accidentally either. It had intended something.

  And intention, as always, is the most powerful kind of magick.

  Ill intent?

  Well, that’s bad news.

  ***

  I located Gwyn standing beyond an apothecary tent, where the ground sloped gently towards a small copse of birch and rowan. The festival was calmer here—no bells, no food carts, no shrieking-charm mishaps, only birdsong and the rustle of leaves.

  She stood stock-still, as though listening to something deep underground. Her posture was impeccable: back straight, one hand resting lightly on a cane, the other tucked behind her. Her Edwardian dress—cream lace, high collar, tightly cinched waist—fluttered in a breeze on her own spirit plane. Her hair was perfectly arranged, pinned into elegant coils on top of her head. She looked like she’d stepped out of time, which, in many ways, she had.

  “I was wondering when you’d appear,” I said as I approached.

  “Had to frighten a kelpie out of the WI tent,” she replied without looking at me. “They thought it was decorative. The fools.” She turned, fixing me with her bright, knowing gaze. “Well? What do you need to show me?”

  “A binding glyph,” I said. “Someone rearranged Charity’s prize table overnight. It’s subtle—but deliberate.”

  She didn’t ask for details. “Show me.”

  We made our way back across the grass. To our left, a group of wizards were attempting an illusion relay, their shapes flickering through false bodies—foxes, knights, butterflies. One collapsed into a puff of purple smoke mid-turn. I ignored it.

  Inside the billowing marquee, Charity’s prize table was still half abandoned, the games paused for repairs after an earlier incident involving beanbags and a referee with a nosebleed. The array of prizes—ribbons, rosettes, trinkets, peculiar jars—looked innocent enough at first glance.

  Gwyn regarded the table in silence. Then she moved, slowly, her cane ticking. She didn’t touch anything, but her fingers hovered over the arrangement, eyes scanning each item like puzzle pieces in a spellcraft manual.

  “There,” she said, pointing to a rusted bell and a loop of golden twine. “And there.” A small wooden disc and a cracked vial of something labelled Emergency Essence. “Anchor points.”

  “Which makes it a proper glyph,” I said.

  “A binding glyph,” she confirmed. “Hidden in plain sight. Messy enough to pass as careless. But the alignment is precise.”

  “To what end?”

  She didn’t answer immediately. Instead, she drifted to the tent’s opening and stepped outside before turning slowly in a wide arc, taking in the surrounding field. Then she floated towards the edge of the games’ quadrant, where the land dipped towards the tree line.

  I followed her through the illusion paddock and past a half-toppled tent, the air growing cooler as we moved away from the crowd. She stopped by a flat, moss-covered stone near a cluster of hawthorn.

  “Here,” she murmured. She knelt—not a movement of age, but of ritual—and brushed away soil with her gloved hand. Beneath the dirt, shallow grooves revealed themselves.

  Runes.

  I stooped beside her, my heart beginning to thrum. “Warding sigils?”

  She nodded. “Old ones.”

  “How old?”

  “Older than the inn. Older than the road that runs through Whittlecombe.” Her voice was low, almost reverent. “These were laid when the land was still wild. When the wood had no name.”

  I pressed my palm to the stone. The magick beneath was faltering—but not gone. Not inert.

  “They’re waking,” I said.

  “Stirring,” she corrected. “But yes. And I’d wager that the glyph on the prize table is part of it. A tether. A nudge.”

  “Someone’s trying to activate … something?” I queried.

  She stood, dusting her skirt, eyes scanning the fields again. “Or trying to allow it to activate itself.”

  Ooh. Oh dear. “But who would even know these runes are here?” I frowned. “I didn’t. Did you?”

  “No.” She met my worried stare. “It will be someone who’s studied old ley theory. Binding craft. Someone with a deep understanding of land magick.” She didn’t say the name. She didn’t have to.

  “Wizard Shadowmender.” I huffed.

  Her gaze met mine. She didn’t confirm, but her silence was answer enough.

  A lump formed in my chest. “You think he knew all this would happen?”

  “I think he’s always known,” she said. “And I think the festival was never merely a festival. He wanted all this …”

  The lump settled in my gut like a stone. “You think he meant to do this? To stir these old spells?”

  “I think our inn was built here for a reason. And now, something ancient is trying to use the festival’s joy and chaos to wake.” Her tone had altered—still calm, but laced with warning.

  I looked back towards the prize tent, the laughing guests, the flicker of floating flags and the dancing light. Everything looked the same.

  But I could feel it. The rhythm beneath it all. A hum under the earth, growing louder.

  “Why now?” I asked.

  Gwyn’s eyes were on the Heart Tree in the distance. “Because the tree is listening again. And the land remembers what it was promised.”

  Promised? I didn’t have a clue what she meant.

  We stood in silence, the breeze rustling the hawthorn. Behind us, music struck up again—something jolly and utterly misplaced.

  Gwyn stepped back towards the field. “Be watchful, Alfhild. The games have already begun.”

  ***

  I came across Finbarr kneeling behind the coconut shy, staring at the grass as if it had personally offended him. He had a copper stick in one hand and his wand in the other.

  He didn’t look up when I approached, only twitched his fingers towards the dirt and muttered in his strong Irish brogue, “There it is again. Left-leaning and tremulous. That’s not normal, so it’s not.”

  “Neither’s that sentence,” I said, folding my arms.

  He glanced up at me, eyes narrowed beneath his battered straw hat. “Do you feel it?”

  “I’ve felt a lot of things over the past few days, Finbarr. Including poltergeists in the custard and a wine barrel that prophesied doom. You’ll have to be more specific.”

  “The ley lines,” he said, standing and brushing his palms off on his grubby robes. “They’re twitching. That’s the only word for it. There’s an interference pattern overlaying the natural hum, and I swear the entire field’s tilted half a degree to the left.”

  I stared at him.

  He waved the copper stick at the sky and I realised it was a divining rod. “Whittle Inn’s lines are congested. Cross-fed. Overstimulated. I suggested that the maypole shouldn’t be located next to the scrying tent—too many vortices in proximity—”

  “Huh?”

  “Like boiling spuds in a leaking pot, so it is.”

  “Ah.” That made sense. “Have our ley lines drifted out of position?”

  “Yes and no. The lines themselves don’t move. But their tensions can be pulled, like threads through cloth. And someone’s yanking the tapestry.”

  “Oh.” I pursed my lips. “I was wondering whether you’d be able to cast light on any of the sigils we’ve discovered?”

  His expression darkened. “Sigils? Where?”

  “On the games field.”

  “Oh, rot and root salad,” he grumbled. “That would explain the flux bleed.”

  “The what?” My head was beginning to spin. This was way beyond any magick I understood.

  “Etheric discharge from too many magickal junctions overlapping. It’s like setting off fireworks in a library—eventually the books catch fire. And possibly come to life.”

  I sighed. “So this is bigger than wayward spirits and talking barrels.”

  “Much bigger, Alf, so it is. This is foundational. Something ancient is trying to manifest itself through the existing fabric of Whittle Inn and its land. It’s looking for anchors—old runes, old blood, old rituals.”

  “Old blood?” I repeated warily.

  Finbarr glanced at me, then pointed towards the Heart Tree with the tip of his rod. “There’s a resonance spike centred around that tree, so there is. That Lyra woman picked it up in her soil readings. She says it shouldn’t be possible in a mixed-growth habitat. But it’s there. Pulsing like a heartbeat.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that. Not at all.

  “Is it dangerous?” I asked.

  “Depends who’s listening,” Finbarr said. “And who’s inviting it in.”

  I thought about Wizard Shadowmender. About Gwyn’s cryptic words. About the muttering from the barrel and the names it had spoken—Daemonne names. My name.

  Finbarr turned to me, his expression unusually serious. “Something’s anchoring through this festival, Alf. And I don’t think it cares about cake judging or bunting.”

  From behind us came a sudden bang and a yelp. Someone had ignited a cauldron too soon. A wave of laughter followed.

  Festival joy, on the surface.

  But the ground beneath us was stirring.

  And the stitching that held this all together—ley, lore and legacy—was starting to fray.

  Chapter Nine

  I spotted Lyra Beechbottom at the base of the Heart Tree, hunched low with a small brass probe in one hand and a canvas-bound notebook in the other. She was utterly still, one eye pressed to the scope of a soil sensor, the other scanning a fluttering rune chart clipped to a folding easel.

  She looked, as ever, too clean for the festival. Not pristine—there was a smear of moss on her trousers—but somehow composed, curated. Like she’d selected her untidy bun and forest-toned scarf with mathematical precision.

  “What are you looking for?” I asked, stepping closer. Her instruments buzzed and vibrated, like they were irritated by my presence.

  “Volatile root resonance,” she said without taking her eyes from her work. “The soil here shouldn’t be carrying this much etheric echo. It’s not ancient enough. But my readouts are spiking as if we’re standing on the intersection of four barrow lines and an ogham gate.”

  I winced. What was it with everyone today? “In English?”

  She blinked at me. “The ground here is humming in three languages at once, and none of them should still be in use.”

  I watched her as she straightened, brushing soil off her hands. Her expression had the contained satisfaction of someone whose suspicions were being confirmed. “You’ve worked with ley lines before?” I asked.

  “I specialise in botanical-etheric interfaces,” she said. “Mostly habitat based. But this … this is different. The readings are behaving like a consecrated site. Resonance levels like this are usually reserved for ancient standing circles or groves that have been sealed for generations.”

  I peered up at the Heart Tree. Its gold-veined bark gleamed in the dappled sunlight. “Could the tree be the cause?”

  “It could be a conduit,” she said carefully. “Or a beacon.”

  She stared past me, and something in her expression made me glance over my shoulder.

  Silvan strolled towards us with his usual confident elegance, hands tucked into the sleeves of his robes, looking like he’d momentarily stepped from a painting of a thoughtful archwizard pondering moonlight.

  “Afternoon,” he said to both of us. His gaze passed briefly over Lyra, and though it lingered only a beat longer than politeness required, I saw the flicker of appreciation in her eyes.

  She straightened, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “Master Silvan,” she said warmly.

  Master? Grrrr!

  He inclined his head. “Are the readings behaving today?”

  “More than I am,” she said, and then laughed softly, as if surprised by herself.

  I watched them, tension I hadn’t been aware of building in my chest. There was nothing flirtatious in Silvan’s response. He was courteous. Dignified. Kind, as always. But Lyra clearly enjoyed being near him. She leaned in slightly as he asked about her data, her face brighter, her voice warmer.

  And I was suddenly, irrationally, annoyed.

  Not jealous—not exactly. But … misplaced. As if something that belonged to me had been borrowed without permission.

  I cleared my throat. “We were discussing the strange echoes beneath the Heart Tree,” I said. “Apparently, we’re sitting on something old.”

  Silvan turned to me with a gentle smile. “That would explain the headaches I’ve been getting.”

  Lyra tilted her head. “You too?”

  My jaw tightened. “Finbarr thinks something’s anchoring through the festival.”

  Silvan’s brow furrowed. “Does he?”

  I looked at Lyra. “Do you think the Ministry suspects?”

  She paused, then shook her head. “If they do, they haven’t told me. But I wasn’t briefed properly. This whole assignment was last-minute. A rush posting. Someone pushed it through. Honestly, I think I’m here to observe rather than intervene.”

  I caught that. Pushed through. By whom?

  “Let me know if anything changes,” I said coolly.

  She nodded. “Of course.”

  As Silvan and I turned to leave, I glanced back. Lyra had returned to her instruments, but her eyes followed Silvan a fraction of a moment longer than they needed to.

  He didn’t notice.

  But I did.

  And I didn’t like it.

  ***

  The illusion race was in full swing by the time we reached the main clearing.

  Charity had gone all out. A winding racecourse spiralled around enchanted hedges, glittering gates and floating hoops that changed position every few seconds. Competitors—mainly overexcited teenagers and one overly competitive pensioner with a fireproof cape—raced through it clutching glowing wands, trailing sparks and laughter. Every few minutes someone collided with a wall of fog or vanished momentarily into a pocket of mist, some reappearing with leaves in their ears, others soaking wet as though they’d run through a waterfall, and still more covered in a blanket of damp moss.

  I stood with a paper cup of warm honeysuckle fizz, trying to relax into the moment. The crowd buzzed with delight. Bunting flapped, music spilled from a nearby stage and the air simmered with low-level charmcraft.

  And then everything tilted.

  Just slightly. Like a breath sucked in but not released.

  From the far side of the racecourse, between two illusion arches—one of light, the other of refracted shadow—a mummer stepped into view. I knew him for what he was the moment I saw him, but something in the air shifted all the same. No colours. No badge. No sparkle. He was wrapped in layers of mottled grey and brown cloth, like patchwork robes stitched from old stories. His hood hid his face entirely, and his arms hung loose, as though he carried the weight of something unseen.

 

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