Saturday, September 27. Shrine. Grove. Whatever this is.

After dinner, I opened the flashlight I’d bought. I wished I’d had the foresight to take the packaging off what I could in the car. Guess I’d be packing trash out tomorrow.

Lusa hadn't said anything when I'd picked it out, but I'd caught a trace of disapproval through the bond. I didn’t see what the problem was. So what if she couldn't grant me whatever abilities she thought a proper warden ought to have?

I'd rather she save her strength.

The sooner she was strong enough not to need me...

...the sooner I could go home.

Lusa cleared a spot on the ground and laid a fire with material she’d collected earlier. She’d been very selective. It was all dead wood—limbs down but not rotten—from specific trees. I was reasonably confident there were hickory, walnut, and poplar in the mix.

“What about the trees we cut up?” I asked.

“We cannot burn the tainted tree. Not for this fire. It will need cleansed later, or the taint will spread.”

“And the other?”

“Too green. It is safe to leave for the woods to reclaim,” she said. “Flint?”

“Lighter,” I corrected, digging it out of my pocket and showing her how to ignite it.

It took her a few tries, but soon she had coaxed the small pile of tinder to life. 

As she fed the fire, I unpacked the rest of our haul—including a mortar and pestle I was surprised the store had stocked. It joined the herbs Lusa had already set out. 

The cast iron pans were the last, settling on the ground with a weighty thud.

“Copper would have been lighter,” Lusa said.

“Those bougie copper bowls were not in the budget,” I said.

“The iron will work.” She snapped branches into pieces, then added them to the fire. “But we must be very mindful what we burn.”

“Now what?” I asked.

“Grind the dandelion root.”

It sounded simple.

It was not. 

Even dried, the bits of root were almost chewy. I had to work them in small amounts before I could smash it into something she deemed acceptable. Meanwhile, Lusa bound bundles of sage and yarrow together with twine. These she attached with copper wire to smooth round river stones—each about the size of her hand. She paced the salt, placing the stones just inside the salt line at the cardinal points, then running more wire from the stones to the hickory tree she had chosen last night and pushing the wire deep into the ground among its roots.

“That is enough for now,” Lusa said, taking the mortar and handing me the spool of wire. “Break the circle. Anchor the wire at the ley line.”

She indicated a length about a foot long.

“Ley—?”

She pointed toward the marker stones from yesterday. 

“Do I put the wire through the pile of stones or under them?”

Lusa scooped fine ash from the fire, mixed it with the mashed roots, then drizzled in a little water. 

“Through. Then paint them with this.” She indicated the paste. “Once that is done, run the wire back to the tree. Close the circle. Seal the tree.”

“And then?”

“And then we wait.”

That didn’t sound terrible. 

I started at the tree. Fed wire as I walked until I came to the circle. Then stooped and carefully brushed salt to one side. 

I felt the circle break. The subtle pressure vanished so abruptly it caught me off guard.

Spooled more wire out until I reached the pile of rocks, then eyeballed how much I would need and cut the wire. Fished around in my pocket until I found a pen—any self-respecting accountant wouldn’t be caught dead without one—and marked a spot two feet up from where I’d cut. That should give me an idea of when I’d pushed enough wire into the ground.

Lusa had made feeding wire into the soil look easy. I was beginning to suspect she had used power to do so. If I pushed too hard, it bent. Trying to apply enough force to worm my way through the rocks and into the soil took patience and steady, slow pressure. 

Oh come on, couldn’t I catch a break? Stupid wire with its stupid flexibility just the icing on the cake to a week of—

A chill crawled across my shoulders. 

I looked up. 

And the wire finally sank into the ground. The mark lined up with the top of the stones.

“Ash. Hurry.” Lusa said. She sounded tense. 

I dashed back to the circle and she handed me one of the pans and a bundle of twigs. 

One by one, frog and insect songs fell silent—until the woods held its breath.  

I scooped wet ash with the bundle of twigs. As far as brushes went, it sucked, but I dabbed it on the rocks anyway. 

Lusa hovered near the break in the circle.

“Good enough,” she said. “Now blood.”

“Blood?”

Annoyance flared in my chest. Hers—at least I thought it was. 

“How much?”

“Enough. Life to bind life.”

I patted my pockets. Pen. Flashlight. Keys. No knife.

The tent was too far.

I grabbed a sharp rock. Gritted my teeth and slashed it across the inside of my arm.

Pain flared, but I hadn’t cut deep enough. No blood. 

Seriously?

I set my jaw and slashed the rock over the same spot again. First, magical contract and now I’m bleeding like some kind of prehistoric sacrifice. 

Skin gave way, and blood welled up. I sprinkled a few drops on the stone pile, then ran for the circle. 

Shadows moved at the corner of my vision. I glanced at it as I crossed into the circle—but it was hard to make anything out in the growing darkness. Even with my flashlight. Just movement. 

Lusa poured fresh salt over the break and I felt the circle close. 

She crossed to the tree, another pan of ash paste in hand.

I’d left the stupid twig brush and pan at the stone pile. 

I cradled my arm. It wasn’t bleeding too badly, but I didn’t want to get blood everywhere and potentially ruin the ritual. Or lure anything hungry. It would be just my luck if salt only worked on hollows and not mundane problems like bears.

Lusa fed the wire into the ground at the base of the tree where it met the trunk—much more easily than I had—and smeared ash paste in a sigil above the connection. She kept one eye where the shadows writhed. 

Was that miasma?

“Here,” Lusa said. “Blood over the sigil.”

I stooped to do so.

“Still stubborn, I see,” a voice said, sounding amused. It was that same wet, rotting one from last night. 

The corrupted.

Lusa faced him, but said nothing. I kept an eye on her as I traced the sigil, inking the character in with my blood. 

Something was building—far stronger than the quiet energy of the salt circle. 

Power hummed next to me. It took me a moment to realize it was flowing through the copper wire. 

That was a ley line?

Lusa crossed to the center of the circle. Stripped off her shirt. Boots, socks and pants followed.

I finished the sigil and joined her, carefully facing away in case she ditched anything else. 

She touched my arm.

I glanced back warily.

She held out yet another pan of ash paste. 

What now? 

Her face remained perfectly composed. The bond suggested otherwise. 

Blood? I guessed.

I held out my arm. She let more blood trickle in, then mixed it.

Calmly painted complicated lines of the paste on her skin. As if she had all night.

As if there wasn’t a villain of darkness standing just outside the circle with his minions, watching.

“The master will not wait forever. Will you join us?” the corrupted said.

Lusa’s answer was to sit on the ground and pick up the fifth and final stone wrapped with wire and herbs. 

She closed her eyes and hissed a word. That energy that had been building reached a crescendo, a wave of power crashing against me. I stumbled a step backward. 

It felt old and alive. 

The ash on Lusa’s skin seemed to sink beneath the surface, until it looked almost like tattoos—but then they began to glow—as if she was lit from within.

“I see you need more time,” the corrupted said. He waved a hand and two hollows stepped forward. 

They were significantly larger than the mutt—jackal—that had stayed last night.

“These will remain should you come to your senses. Though I must admit, I find your continued defiance…invigorating.”

Understanding settled like lead in my stomach. That bastard wanted Lusa to fight him. 

That’s why he was playing with her. 

He didn’t want a weak enemy. He wanted the thrill of conquest.

I opened my mouth to tell him exactly what I thought of his patience. 

A force like a punch slammed into me and the words died in my throat.

Had the bond done that? 

I looked at Lusa. Her eyes remained closed, as if the corrupted, the hollows, even I were unworthy of her attention. 

But she gave the slightest shake of her head.

I closed my mouth. We would have words later. 

I was not okay with her commanding me like that. Tell me—fine. 

But obeying should be my choice.

The corrupted laughed, a grating sound that set my teeth on edge. 

“Until we meet again, little Lusa’ta. Oh—“ He paused, as if something had just occurred to him. “I found them. The remnants of your people. They are west of here. They don’t remember you. They don’t remember the old ways. So if you were hoping they would learn of your awakening and return—“ He left the sentence unfinished. 

Anger and pain tore through the bond with a force I'd never felt before. 

It took me a moment to sort out what were my emotions and what were hers.

But Lusa still sat, nothing on her face or posture showing she had heard.

And then the corrupted was gone, like the darkness had simply swallowed him.

One by one the hollows vanished until only our two…guards remained.

These stood a head taller than the jackal had at least. They looked like an attempt at a panther or mountain lion—by someone who had never actually seen a cat of any kind. They had the same unfinished quality at the edges as the other hollows. No hard lines, more fading into mist.

The same eyes that were deep pools of sickly, glowing green.

Great. Night shift guards from hell. 

Just what we needed.

“Now what?” I murmured to Lusa.

“Tend your arm. Feed the fire. Then rest.”

“But what about—“

“I’ll keep watch for now. Later, I can safely break contact for a little while and rest.”

And then anchor herself again, I guessed. 

So I cleaned my arm as best I could, then sacrificed a shirt for a makeshift bandage. 

Fed the fire, then hauled my sleeping bag next to her.

I wanted to be close enough for her to touch if she needed me. Because clearly I was a sucker for a lady in distress.

There was a pulse of something warm in the bond. Gone before I could figure out what it meant.

I pulled off my boots and lay down, trying to get as comfortable as I could on the hard ground.

Today had been rough even before Captain Darkness showed up. And I’d had guard duty last night.

I was exhausted.

But I could feel those eyes on us. Waiting.

It would be another long night.

“Tomorrow, you can start on your staff,” Lusa said softly.

Staff?

I should ask her what that meant…

But sleep claimed me.

Lusa woke me halfway through the night to keep watch. Her color had visibly improved and she looked more solid somehow. 

But I could see she was tired. 

She placed the stone in my hands—which took me by surprise—and crawled into my sleeping bag still in nothing but her underwear. The glowing symbols on her skin faded. Not even the ash paste was visible.

She was snoring softly within moments.

Not that I would ever accuse a lady—especially one who happened to be a land god—of snoring. 

I wasn’t an idiot.

The woods were singing again, though much more timidly, as if afraid of angering our visitors.

The hollows in question still sat where they had earlier, eyes gleaming in the night. I couldn’t stare both of them down like I had jackal last night, so I settled for a point between them.

The night was cool and clear. I could see the occasional star between the leaves overhead.

Lusa’s clothes were still piled next to me. They’d probably be wet in the morning. 

I folded them the best I could one-handed, then looked around for somewhere to put them.

The tent was too far away.

I tucked them into the sleeping bag with her and draped a corner over her boots. 

A soft breeze blew, rustling leaves.

Only then did I realize I wasn’t cold.

I should have been. I had changed into a fresh tee before sleeping. But I didn’t have a jacket on.

So why?

I stared at the stone, noticing a subtle…pulse.

Energy. 

That was the only way to describe the sensation. It would have been easy to dismiss if I’d just picked up the rock and set it down. 

But to sit holding it? It flowed from the stone into me, pooling beneath my skin. 

Within moments I felt alert, as if I had a full night of the best sleep.

If this was a job perk, it was one I could get behind. So far, being tagged Lusa’ta’s warden had been nothing but bad news.

One set of eyes winked out. 

My heart climbed up my throat. Were they going to rush the circle? Try to break through?

Should I wake Lusa?

I forced myself to stare the second hollow down, then search—casually, though that was a lie—for the first. The hair on my arms rose. An instinct I'd never had before pulled my attention sideways. I turned my head.

There.

Sickly green eyes opened as my gaze swept where the hollow had moved—a quarter of the way around the circle—and sat, as if by finding him, the game was up.

But I couldn’t keep both in sight now.

Maybe that was the point.

Just as I was starting to breathe again, the second pair of eyes winked out.

A thought occurred to me. If I could sense them, why the heck was I so worried about keeping both in sight? 

I didn’t scan this time. 

I closed my eyes and waited. 

There. 

I cracked an eye open to check.

It sat across the circle from the first.

The first moved.

Then the second.

They were circling the boundary in opposite directions, testing it—or maybe just toying with me.

Or both.

Lusa, they seemed to hold some respect for. 

But me? I was just a human that was in the way.

My legs ached from sitting. Clouds drifted in, blanketing what little starlight had filtered through.

Both hollows’ eyes winked out, but the steady feeling in my chest, the slow pulsing power growing beneath my skin, said they hadn’t moved. 

I glanced skyward. 

Movement—close—sent a spike of fear through my chest. I glanced down, searching—and my heart caught in my throat.

Faint wisps of radiance trailed from under my tee. 

I hooked my shirt with a finger to take a closer look. 

Soft luminescence rose from the tattoo on my chest. The branches, no longer bare, bore tiny buds of green.

I shut down my panic. Forced myself to breathe—and kept holding the damn rock.

My rational brain wanted to scream that there were logical explanations to all this, to deny that anything existed beyond the mundane world. 

But here I was in the middle of a forest. 

Holding a rock bound with herbs and anchored to the soil. 

A woman who could command me to stop and I had no choice but obey slept beside me. 

Two shadow—things—kept watch in the night. 

And now I was glowing.

It was too much. I would drown if I thought too hard about it.

Games skipped the boring parts. No grinding herbs in real time. No sitting in the woods clutching a rock for hours. Funny—I’d spent years wishing magic were real.

So why was facing the real-life version so different? 

Why wasn’t I giving the equivalent of a nerdy squeal of delight that something—which I could only call magic—was real?

Maybe because real life had no do-overs.