Deadly Fairy Tales, Boxed Set

By Elizabeth Marx

The Deadly Fairy Tales is a paranormal young adult urban fantasy romance series set in Salem. The boxed set includes the first three books in the series:

The Seer Book 1

Fairy tales aren’t supposed to be deadly, but anything can happen on Halloween night in Salem ... even a human sacrifice.

When a supernatural beast murders a sixteen-year-old girl, her soul is reawakened as an OtherWorldly being. Now, as the Seer, she is destined to serve the Order, even as she craves retribution. Invisible, isolated, and confused, she rejects her calling and seeks solace in the one thing she believes is real: her connection to Locke ... only he can’t see her, or feel her presence.

Determined to find some way to warn Locke of the danger he’s in the Seer sets out to discover the truth behind the clandestine Order. Unfortunately, those who are like her fear her, and only one acknowledges her existence—Tristan, a Guardian sentenced to defend the Order at all costs.

Soon Tristan discovers something sinister, something that cannot only destroy the Seer, but every witch in the Order.

To protect the one she loves and regain the life she lost, the Seer must join forces with Tristan and save the thing responsible for taking her away from the world to which she desperately wants to return.

All's Fair in Vanity's War Book 2

A powerful vate and the last in her line, Keleigh denies the potent magic singing through her blood because she wants to be Ordinary.

Keleigh has the ability, but not the training, to save her parents from slaughter by beasts most only see in horror movies. But after they perish, her mother reaches out from the OtherWorld, freeing Keleigh from her oath never to practice magic and imploring her to find an ancient relic powerful enough to destroy this realm.

Keleigh, no longer able to deny her true calling, begrudgingly turns to her sworn enemy for help. Locke is a damaged druid whose family is entrusted with keeping witches cloaked in the Ordinary world in Salem. But Locke has a mission of his own, one that might not align with Keleigh’s.

Can the two come together to find the ancient artifact in time to save each other and the world from plunging into compete chaos?

This fairy tale is about to become deadly because all’s fair in vanity’s war.

Something Greedy This Way Comes Book 3

Hidden deep within this realm lays a magical object, one powerful enough to destroy the world. Charged with protecting the ancient artifact, the Sisters will manipulate anyone to keep it safe. Determined to claim the relic as their own, the ShiningOnes will stop at nothing to infiltrate our realm and retrieve it. The Elders, desperate to acquire the relic, will sacrifice anyone to declare it theirs.
Locke’s magical legacy wasn’t enough to save the girl he loved, but now even more is at risk. Now he must use all he’s learned since the Seer’s death to safeguard Keleigh and locate the ancient relic before the others.
Ignoring the warnings of other witches, Locke and Keleigh use clues within her mother’s messages to search for the object—because if they don’t find it first, the battle brewing between sacred knowledge and modern communication will destroy everything—even their love.
When fairy tales hold ancient secrets, many may have to be revealed because something greedy this way comes.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Elizabeth Marx
• Release date: Oct 11, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370267811

Elizabeth Marx

Windy City writer Elizabeth Marx writes deeply emotional romances that take her readers on a roller coaster ride through desire and despair. Elizabeth’s cosmopolitan flair for fiction makes her unafraid to push you over that first drop just when you think you know what’s going to happen next. Her writing is described as hilarious, heartbreaking, and heartwarming. Her characters achieve the ‘happily ever after’ through a journey of poignant and passionate moments.In her past incarnation she was an interior designer—not a decorator—which basically means she has a piece of paper to prove that she knows how to match and measure things and can miraculously make mundane pieces of furniture appear to be masterpieces.Elizabeth grew up in Illinois but has also lived in Texas and Florida. If she’s not pounding her head against the wall trying to get the words just right, you can find her in her garden. Elizabeth resides with her husband and an Aussie wigglebutt.Elizabeth has traveled extensively, but still says there’s no town like Chi-Town.You can contact the author at [e-mail] or visit her website www.elizabethmarxbooks.com

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DEADLY FAIR TALES

DEADLY FAIR TALES

Boxed Set Books 1-3

Elizabeth Marx

Elizabeth Marx Books

Contents

Deadly Fairy Tales

DEADLY FAIRY TALES

THE SEER Book 1

1. The Rules Of Fair Play

2. Do Not Apply To Love & War

3. Hellish Rehilibitation

4. Witches Of The East & West

5. Age Old Battles Tied Together With The String Of Fate

6. The Order’s Incognito Manifesto

7. The Devil You Know

8. Extraordinary Slap Down

9. At Last Sight

10. The Stolen Bride

11. What Nightmares May Come

12. Mirror, Mirror

13. Missing From the Wall

14. Final Words of Caution

REVIEW ME…

ALL’S FAIR IN VANITY’S WAR Book 2

All’s Fair in Vanity’s War

15. All’s Fair In Vanity’s War

16. Clancy The Cluricaune

17. Seriously, They Call Them The Wyrd Sisters For A Reason

18. Secrets Coming Home To Roost

19. Curfews, Capes & Cantrips

20. Hounds From Hell Come Calling

21. Extraordinary Magic Doesn’t Leave A Trace

22. Eggs Over Easy, Hold The Revelations

23. Eureka, Someone Can See Me

24. Hearing & Listening Are Two Different Skillsets

25. The Pieces Start Jumbling Together

26. Banshees, Liashee, All The Other Shes Around Town

27. Two Way Mirror, Highway Of Heartache

28. Who Doesn’t Like Field Trips?

29. Archer, Artist & Abracadabra

30. Date Night At The Museum

31. Cryptic Conversations

32. Puppy Love

33. Dating & Not Dating

34. Skewed Affections

35. Knowing What You’re Looking For

36. Druantia And Bel, Light And Dark

37. Gods And Goddesses Extraordinaire

38. Mirrored Reflections

39. The Hornless Sacred One

40. Words I’m Waiting For

SOMETHING GREEDY THIS WAY COMES BOOK 3

Something Greedy This Way Comes

41. All Hallows Eve

42. Secrets, Secrets Are No Fun

43. Blessings Or Curses

44. Prayers And Knowledge

45. Ceremony, Certainty & Sanity

46. Slugs & Sluaghs

47. Fairy Arrows Strike the Heart of the Matter

48. Tripping On Fairy Venom

49. Skewered Emotions Make For Misplaced Affections

50. Glorious Glover Relics

51. The Colloquy Of Elders

52. Jailhouse Confessions Lead To More Questions

53. Witch Without A Broom

A Lynx Never Reveals His True Spots

54. The Curses of Incarceration & Blessings of Education

55. The Sisters Three, The Cantrips See

56. Look in the Mirror & You’ll See the Truth

57. All The Thin Places

58. Secrets Revealed On Mystery Hill

59. Magic Legends Are Made Of

60. Under The Light of The Blue Moon

61. The Cave Of Wonders

62. Mirrored Reflections Bottled No More

63. Magnetic Energy Is Electrifying

64. Guardian’s Rescue

65. Battlefield Confrontations

66. Fallback

67. Incursions

68. Alphas, Toe to Toe

69. Something Deadly This Way Comes

70. What’s Mine Is Mine

71. To The Victors Go The Spoils

72. In This World Or The Next

DEADLY FAIRY TALES

About the Author

Also by Elizabeth Marx

DESCENT OF BLOOD

ASCENT OF BLOOD

CUTTERS VS. JOCKS

BINDING ARBITRATION

SIGNING BONUS

JUST IN CASE

JUST CLOSE ENOUGH

How You Can Support Indie Authors

Deadly Fairy Tales

Boxed Set

DEADLY FAIRY TALES

The Seer Book 1

All’s Fair in Vanity’s War Book 2

Something Greedy this Way Comes Book 3

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by

Elizabeth Marx

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Copyright 2012 Elizabeth Marx

1st Edition

Copyright 2016 Elizabeth Marx

2nd Edition

Ebook Edition License Notes:

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to the retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author by not participating in piracy.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever including Internet usage, without written permission of the author.

Digital edition by: Elizabeth Marx Books

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THE SEER Book 1

Deadly Fair Tales

Locke & Key fit together seamlessly.

This is the start of a fairy tale, and with it the knotted string of my fate, tied so closely with theirs.

The Seer

The Rules Of Fair Play

Seer: Ordinary human transformed by human sacrifice into an ethereal body; an OtherWorldly being able to travel the nine realms. A Seer watches and records ExtraOrdinary events, they are formidable and talented once they learn to control their sight, which is called second sight.

SEER

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HALLOWEEN NIGHT 2008

I feel like a pork-chop going to a bar mitzvah, I said, as my seatbelt trapped the pink chiffon dress I was encased in against the passenger’s seat. Without the restraint taming my costume, I might have tried to combust out of the ridiculous neon pink colored confection. My stomach churned again, I’d been queasy all day and my mother had tried to use it as a reason to keep me home, but I was going with Locke, no matter what her dire warnings were.

Locke and I left the mansions of Salem’s historic McIntyre District in our rearview mirror, speeding past bungalows and Halloween weirdoes as we made our way to the outskirts of town.

Have you considered tweeting the sarcastic one-liners? Locke’s dimple crested his cheekbone. Then his lingering examination of my mouth stole my breath. Relax. His eyes crinkled at the corners. It isn’t as if they’re going to perform a human sacrifice. It’s just a party.

He’s teasing, I thought as my lashes swept together. He knew I was apprehensive about officially meeting them.

Locke leaned into me and his peppermint-flavored lips brushed mine, sending brief images through my mind. The satiny softness of Locke’s breathing across the inside of my ear when he helped me into the car. His woodsy evergreen scent always enveloped me when he closed the car door. Tonight when he picked me up for the Halloween bash, his eyes danced with a mischievous brilliance and the thought of getting into mischief with Locke Cavanagh was exciting and enticing.

Deep trouble.

I shivered in anticipation as I glanced through the windshield to gauge how much longer we’d be alone on the deserted road. Out of nowhere there was another vehicle, about a single car length ahead of us with its blinding high beams headed right for us.

As we collided head on, my scream spiraled off the pavement with the car. Two three-hundred-and-sixty degree spins across the roadway before we broadsided the brick wall surrounding the old cemetery. Everything stalled to slow motion as my body cartwheeled through shattering glass and metal debris. I catapulted through the tops of the evergreen trees and over the brick wall where I landed with a bone-cracking crunch, before skidding across the damp grass. Every ounce of air was knocked out of me on landing, and my head throbbed as chaotic stars burst red and black against my corneas.

My arms felt like dead weight as I tried to shake the slimy leaves from my hands by brushing them across the pink chiffon dress. When I touched my skin I got shocked, not by the sight of blood, but by thousands of pinpricks of light racing through my limbs, electrifying every hair on my body as if I’d plugged the vacuum into the outlet that always overloaded and gave off a little jolt. I held up my trembling arm, trying to see if the blast of current had seared my skin, but a trail of blood raced a shower of sparks sprinkling the ground from my body. My body had conducted electricity and now my arms were 4th of July sparklers. What the hell?

I managed to get my tingling legs under me, but they were shaky as I searched for my ballet flats. I couldn’t locate them so I hobbled barefoot toward the brick wall I’d been tossed over. My head felt like I’d ridden a Tilt-a-Whirl a few too many times but I wanted to get back to Locke. When I reached out to lean against the wall to catch my breath, a sound roared off the crumbling bricks; it was so brain piercing I covered my ears. Then some unseen force pushed me away from the wall, forced me to about face, and pulled my body through the graveyard with such power I dropped the silvery wings of my getup between a Celtic cross and a crumbling obelisk. My costume’s halo was torn from my hair when I’d been hurled through the windshield. I pulled the last hairpin from my scalp, and my elbow-length hair danced around my shoulders like a black veil. Me being crowned with a corona on the night decadence and debauchery ruled Salem was about as likely as a red-horned demon dropping into the center of the Easter Day parade anyway.

This unseen energy maneuvered me through the minefield of monuments; something directed the course of my electrified body, as if searching the tombstones for one in particular. I came to an abrupt stop and my knees buckled, pulling me to the ground as my fizzling fingertips were forced to score the headstone. I felt like a marionette as I traced the letters of the epitaph. Death’s cradle straddles all our graves, lulling the elderly, while catapulting the young to their eternal rest. The first time I read this marker last summer, I knew you’d need more than tenth-grade honors English to understand it, but now I’d been cannonballed out of my own body, and Gram’s words raced through me as if they were adrenaline as understanding dawned.

I looked down at my puppet-like body: it was misty white, ethereal even, and my essence burned as if I’d stayed in the sun too long without enough SPF 30.

I am dead!

I gasped for air, and when I couldn’t get any oxygen I panic breathed.

For a brief moment my fuzzy mind wondered if I should be concerned about being spotted and I glanced around. It’s difficult to believe, but on Halloween night in this peculiar town stuff weirder than a specter prowling a cemetery is happening. Although, I do expect our accident to make the front page of the Salem Evening Journal. Last year, Buffy Stakes Elvira at Broomsticks Bistro was November first’s headline. Tomorrow’s caption will read: Homecoming Queen and Star Quarterback Eternally Separated in Horrific Crash.

The realization of my demise dawned on me like the headline shouting off the front page: I was no longer inside my physical body. I’m sparkly and burning and dead, but somehow still here, still alive. I ran my fingers over my electrified arms … well, sort of.

My brain throbbed in my cranium. I couldn’t be dead. I couldn’t be gone. I couldn’t lose Locke. I couldn’t breathe without Locke.

My chest constricted on a sharp pain so acute I doubled over. The thought of a final separation was too much to stomach, so I ignored the agony by pulling forth flickers of the past. Locke’s hand brushing sand off my hip at the beach last summer, the way he’d eyed me through his sunglasses in anticipation as his fingertips played with the strings of my bikini bottoms. The way he’d squeezed my hands when I’d snuck into his barn a couple of weeks later, refusing to let me unbutton my shirt as he whispered, Wait, on a husky breath between kisses, which made me think he really meant ‘go’. The way his body arched against mine in desperation as we moved in tandem just a few nights ago at the high school dance, only again for his deep voice to murmur, Soon, along my ear.

All these thoughts made me cry out in a sharp, silent pain. I collapsed against Gram’s headstone again, calling forth the image of her as she eyed Locke from her squeaking front porch rocker the first time she’d met him. That boy will lead you down the wrong road, she’d said.

We were only twelve and I had no understanding of what she could possibly mean, so I shrugged my shoulders. It wasn’t Locke’s fault his square jaw and angelic features were perfectly proportioned. His piercing violet eyes could burn almost obsidian in a moment of annoyance, and then turn to laugh at you with the sparkling majesty of purple robes. His mop of hair was as thick and rich as the sable collar of an imaginary robe. His face was the only one that stoppered the hole created in my heart at the loss of my own father. His heart was the only one—beyond those of my own immediate family—I had ever loved.

As if Gram could read my mind, she’d said, Mind me, granddaughter. Pretty is as pretty does. I loved her wrinkled face, mapped with both pleasure and loss, because it had always staunched the heartache before Locke came along. The steady movements of her gnarled hands spoke words most eyes could never comprehended. I worshiped slices of her buttermilk cornbread, slathered with sweet-churned butter. She’d been raised so deep in the South sushi is still called bait, and she never feared karate-chopping us Massachusetts Yankees with her Southern-style wasabi tongue.

As her worried face perused him I asked, You don’t think I’m pretty enough?

Pretty beautiful, and apt to stay that way, she scolded. You are eternally beautiful. Your hair as silky as blackbird’s wings, they’ll carry you on, where his road leaves off. Echoes of her Southern drawl rang through my mind in clear contrast to Locke’s upper-crust articulation screaming my name in the distance, his voice barely filtering through the hazy curtain of energy encircling me.

His call pierced through the veil as if summoning me to my finale.

I used Gram’s headstone to pull my body up, then dragged myself toward the sound of his voice as if it was a beacon in the blackest moment of my life. I struggled to pull my shimmery body over the brick wall. On the other side, I examined the lonely stretch of road; thick fumes of gasoline and fizzled wiring pulsated through the atmosphere, tickling the back of my throat. I coughed. The knock and hiss of Locke’s car scratched against my iridescent skin, hardened metal electrocuting satiny flesh. The cars stood hood-to-crumpled hood, each burning angry steam out its radiators’ nostrils. I expected the tires to paw the ground and tear out against his armored opponent, as if dueling to the death.

My death.

Tears saturated my lashes, the black sheen of my mascara dripping from my chin, as papers pirouetting though the air drew my attention to my shredded book bag hanging from a sapling. I watched in horror as my English book opened, the pages fluttered, and my term paper—Bronte vs. Austen: Battle of the English Heroines—floated through the air as easily as I had during my last dance recital. The paper was due tomorrow, it would never get turned it.

Which reminded me, I was out past curfew. My mother would be pissed. Whenever I came home late, which was always Locke’s fault, she would say, I was afraid you were lying in a ditch somewhere. If she thought I was lying somewhere, she wasn’t imagining a grassy knoll, but one of Locke’s reclining bucket seats.

The bright side is I no longer have a curfew. The downside is I think I’m almost invisible, motherless, and … oh yeah, dead! I couldn’t believe I wasn’t freaked out. I must be in shock or some sort of deep denial.

A sharp screech of metal on metal called me back to the cars where the spike-haired driver of the other vehicle shoved his door open wide as he climbed out. The biker dude raised his smoke-clogged voice to the heavens and twisted vile curse words together; they gave me head pains and wreaked havoc with my heartbeat. He pounded on his chest in conquest and the earth gave a slight tremble in reply. His bloodied hand went to his skull, pushing a piece of torn flesh back into place, but spiked scales rose in response to his darkening skin. He sluiced out of his leather vest and pants like a snake shedding his skin. I watched in horror, as his features grew ecstatic, his nose elongated, and his mouth chomped the smoky air exposing two rows of teeth. Talons formed from his fingertips, as his ears slid up the sides of his head, becoming a miter-shaped crest and frill.

Terrified, I screamed and backed away as I located Locke in the middle of the highway. Locke wasn’t looking at me; he hadn’t heard me shriek as biker dude had morphed into a lizard. No, the reptile is too huge to be called a lizard he’s a crocodile. Rather, a basilisk, king of serpents. I’d read about them in my myths and legends class. They’re not living, breathing entities. I looked down at my ethereal self.

Oh my God, I screamed, I’m a myth, too.

The basilisk cracked the vertebra in his neck, sliding to the pavement on all fours, snorting a noxious steam and laced the air with the scent of mildewed sludge. The tang was so potent I’d swear he’d been birthed from a biohazard-bog.

Locke’s upper lip furled, not the whole thing, just the center—as if his disdain was so focused on the monster he couldn’t be bothered to let it slip to the corners of his mouth. Words erupted from Locke’s contorted mouth, slithering and ebony, and beyond my comprehension.

The basilisk smiled and a nostril blast streamed from his snout, knocking Locke on his back. Locke’s outstretched fingertips glowed blue, and then blazed red as a globe of fire exploded from his hands toward the creature. The fireball just missed the crest of the basilisk’s head and hit the blacktop, rolling along the tar-smeared asphalt until it tickled the tire treads.

Locke winced, but started again. It reminded me of how he’d determinedly throw a long pass the next chance he had after an interception on the football field. The snarling beast bore down on him like a blitzing linebacker sniffing an easy sack, but Locke’s focus didn’t falter as he spiraled another fireball right at his target’s chomping jaws. The basilisk gagged, before the red flame sank into his gullet, and ‘boom’ he imploded into confetti-sized pieces of ash.

I offered a silent prayer; thankful the monster didn’t burst into chunks of filet-of-crocodile. I didn’t know if a ghost or apparition, or whatever I was, could hurl, but I didn’t want to barf on this darn pink chiffon dress. I’m vain enough to admit I didn’t want to wear my mom’s frilly twenty-five-year-old prom dress with sweet-and-sour vomit stains on it for an eternity.

The basilisk’s car exploded, and the blast knocked me to my knees as the blaze beckoned and mesmerized me. Even Locke screaming my name couldn’t call my attention away from the inferno leaping across the hood of Locke’s car and over the empty shell of my lifeless body still seat belted in Locke’s front seat.

Cremation didn’t bother me, but I didn’t expect to have to witness my flesh quiver and roll over my charred bones, and then disintegrate. The putrid scent brought me down on all fours on the tar covered blacktop, where I prayed it would be over soon, hoping the white light would come for me.

Tears rolled down Locke’s cheeks as he staggered toward the car. Ashes to ashes, he choked out, before he crumbled forward onto his hands and knees in agony. As if answering his call, an errant tissue of flame danced along the chilly breeze and landed on Locke’s shoulder. In an instant, it ignited the tar on the shoulder of his costume, a Roman emperor’s robe, and the greedy flame raced up the right side, burning his face. He remained alert long enough to emit one last shriek of my name, before he crumbled onto the pavement.

Do Not Apply To Love & War

Nine Worlds: The worlds of dreams, imagination, myth, magic, hope, love, music, art, and science.

SEER

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Something sinister hung heavy in the air along with the scent of twisted metal, smoldering flames, and fizzled wiring. Still on the cold pavement, I crawled over the shattered glass to Locke, feeling no pain other than the acute ache in my heart. I patted his fiery flesh and his unconscious form fizzled through my fingertips. His woodsy evergreen essence swirled around me as I tried in vain to extinguish the flames.

The squall of sirens startled me. I looked up to see flashing lights and firemen sending showers of water over the vehicles.

Weird. How did they get here so fast? I shook my head; something about my time space continuum was out of whack. Paramedics raced toward us. I stood up to greet them, forgetting I wasn’t me anymore, and the first man who arrived walked right through my iridescent spirit. The pain was so intense I screeched, but it didn’t draw any attention to me except for some birds rustling in the trees overhead. When I tried to reach out to the second paramedic, who inserted an IV in Locke’s arm, my fizzling, electrified flesh rose gooseflesh on his arm, but no other response.

I dropped to my knees again on the solid yellow lines in the center of the road and cried bitter tears as they loaded Locke into the ambulance. A white van pulled up on the shoulder alongside a squad car, and the police officer greeted a man as he exited the van, pulling on a windbreaker with CORONER emblazoned on the back.

Dr. Sliquest, she’s over there. The officer pointed toward Locke’s demolished car.

What caused the accident? Dr. Sliquest asked of the officer.

Tar on the roadway, he replied, looking up from his phone.

Dr. Sliquest bent down and touched the asphalt. It’s still warm. Where did it come from?

The officer shrugged his shoulders. Hell, as far as I can tell.

Dr. Sliquest frowned as if disappointed with the officer’s off-the-cuff observation. Her mother is going to be devastated.

She should have kept her daughter away from their kind.

Their kind? The skin at the back of my neck prickled.

Myrtle, you’ve got to let it go, Dr. Sliquest said sternly. Who was in the second vehicle?

That’s the thing, Doc, there’s not a trace of anyone else, Myrtle responded, leading the coroner toward the cars.

The finality of the removal of my charred remains from the car made me yearn for the serenity only Gram’s sentiments would offer me. I’d always gone to her with my troubles. Seeking her comfort hadn’t changed with my father’s death—or hers—or even, it seemed, with my own.

Sitting on the edge of the brick wall I watched the coroner load my body into his van before I slipped over the other side of the wall. Tiptoeing around tombstones, I skirted the edges of monuments making my way back to Gram’s grave, with a certainty I would find my rest between her and my dad for all eternity. As I approached their headstones, a woman in a long garnet-colored robe looked up from drawing a circle of white powder around their markers. She craned her head, giving me a thorough examination, as if she was expecting someone but wasn’t sure what to make of me. At her feet sat a black cauldron, spewing vapors and a trail of smoke reaching for the dark sky, which she billowed into the atmosphere with a sweep of the sleeves of her gown as if she were conducting a symphony.

The beautiful woman motioned me to come to her. I glanced around to make sure she meant me, as if there were other things like me prowling around the graveyard. It was Halloween night you know! When I stepped in front of her, she raised her arms again and wrapped a cloak of feathers around my shoulders, and the soft trace of roses coming off her skin enveloped me. The weight of the garment made me stagger back a step, but then the edges of the wrap seared into the sensitive skin between my shoulder blades and made my ethereal form jolt closer to her again.

Who are you? The words slipped through my confused mind as I examined the plumage at my back suspiciously. I’d seen this woman before but I couldn’t place her.

I am Ilithyia, the Mother. I am here to instruct you on your journey. She ran her fingers through the length of my hair, tossing small dried leaves away.

You can hear my thoughts?

Only those you choose to project.

Am I dead?

Yes, I’m afraid so.

How can you see me?

She pursed her lips in consideration. I can see much of the unseen world.

I need to get to the hospital so I can see my boyfriend.

No, Locke is intended for another, someone ExtraOrdinary.

I narrowed my eyes. I assure you, he thinks I’m extraordinary.

No, you are an Ordinary. I thought you were one hundred percent Ordinary until …

My unease was heightened as her words dropped away. What do you mean, ordinary?

A human with no extra sensory perception or magical skill. She tugged at my plumage and my breath hitched in my chest. "But you are not one of us and thereby unacceptable to the Order."

I brushed the last of my tears into my hair and tried to figure out what happened to me. Locke threw fireballs, what is he?

He is a human mortal who has magical gifts, an ExtraOrdinary. You were not born thus, even though you must have some traces of magic in your blood. But now, by some miracle, you have been reborn. She craned her head again. I’m as surprised as I imagine you are.

He’s a …

He’s a druid.

I’d ignored the whispers about my childhood sweetheart. The grudging fearfulness he was often shown, his Harry-Houdini appearances out of thin air, his barn cloaked in an air of mist and mystery, and the strange repetitive phrases he sometimes used. Locke is some sort of a magician. He never told me who he really was. I mourned the loss of truth between us along with the passing of my own body, as the ashy bitterness of a new reality clung to my tongue. What do you mean, ‘in my blood’?

All will be revealed. For now, all you need to know is you have been sacrificed as the ancient rites of the Order demanded.

Sacrificed? I don’t want to be sacrificed.

The Mother eyed the grave marker. The cradle has chosen you.

How can you see me when the paramedics didn’t?

Let’s just say, you’re on a different frequency now and I am able to see and hear the frequency when most others can’t. Even ExtraOrdinaries won’t be able to see you, only those of us with OtherWorldly abilities.

I can’t die. I’ve barely begun to live. I started to tear up again. I still have a curfew, I whined.

Through your sacrifice, you will help save our worlds.

Suddenly, my brain started working correctly and I remembered this woman, Ilithyia Wyrd, I’d seen her in town several times when I was a little girl, and Gram warned me to stay clear of her and the other Wyrd sisters. Since then I’d run into her from time to time with Locke and she always seemed displeased I was with him. In fact, Locke and I were headed to a party at her house when the accident happened. I’d had a bad feeling about attending since I sensed Ilithyia didn’t like me. I should have listened to the gooseflesh whispering in my ear when he begged me to go. I should have listened to my mom insisting she didn’t think it was a good idea to go to a party at the Wyrd Sisters’ house. I should have heeded Gram’s final warning etched in stone. Even my own logic failed: It isn’t as if they’re going to preform a human sacrifice.

As all these thoughts assaulted me, I sucked in deep breaths to steady my panic. Suddenly, some sort of flight response kicked in and the plumage at my back twitched in anticipation as I lifted off the ground a few inches. Ilithyia grabbed my wing and pulled me back to earth. I could fly? What the hell?

I thought through the conversation, knowing Ilithyia spoke in riddles I’d have to decipher later. What am I supposed to save our worlds from?

From our own vanity, I’d imagine, Ilithyia stated solemnly, turning away from the direction of the accident and walking toward the far brick wall which bordered her property just beyond.

My nails scored the velvet sleeve of her gown. Wait a cotton-picking minute, what exactly am I?

At the stroke of midnight, you became a Seer. Ilithyia’s voice slithered over the cemetery fence when she somehow managed to step through the bricks to the other side. An ethereal body able to travel the nine realms.

Why would I need nine realms? I can’t even keep the continents straight in this one! Running my fingers over the brick wall, I attempted to find a crack. I jumped up to catch the ledge to pull myself over, but the wings messed with my balance and I landed in a heap. I kicked the wall for good measure, stubbing my toe and ruining my pedicure.

I sighed as I got to my knees, which caused a sputtering of my wings before a single deep breath launched a misguided takeoff. I hovered. Holy crap, I can hover! My wings carried me to the height of the wall, and as I cleared it I looked down and hissed, holding my breath. I hate heights. My wings collapsed like a mosquito dropped by a four thousand watt black-light bug zapper. I nose dived headfirst into a pile of fall debris.

I need flight school.

Ilithyia leaned over me, helping me onto my bare feet. There is also youthful immortality in the nine worlds.

Immortality like this is about as useful as sunscreen on a submarine. It was rotten from the edge of my ebony wings, through the magic plasma I could feel pulsing through my quills, to the new pair of lungs I’d received the moment Ilithyia wrapped me in the plumage. I bent over, certain I would hurl. How come I feel like death sucking a sponge?

Your East Coast vernacular is ruined when you’re upset, your speech reverts to Southern-fried-chicken dialect. Ilithyia slipped between evergreen trees, as if she didn’t care for my conversation or complaints. I traipsed along behind her, mumbling protests until I came to a halt at the edge of the woods. No one I knew ever stepped into this clearing or ventured a hike through the ancient moss-covered oaks beyond.

You’re the first of your kind in generations. Ilithyia nodded me over the boundary line. You will be the keeper of secrets and the recorder of events.

I dug in my heels, refusing to cross. I’m good at divulging secrets, but I hate paperwork.

Ilithyia turned and a raised an eyebrow, much the way my own mother would … okay, so maybe I wasn’t completely motherless after all.

I’m at the top of the social ladder at Salem High, I whined, refusing to go farther. You know, the cool kids?

Your adolescent pecking-order is irrelevant now. Ilithyia reappeared, right in front of me, brushing twigs from the top of my wings.

I want my money back, a refund for reincarnation as a ‘Seer’ or at the very least, a white-light intervention. I moaned as she drew me into the clearing. As soon as my bare toes touched the packed earth, a tingle started on the soles of my feet and fizzled up my legs and across my torso, stretching the length of my arms and up the back of my neck until it singed my scalp. When I shook my head, my hair danced around my head like the Bride of Frankenstein during a shock therapy session. Is this freakish frequency I’m on going to keep me invisible forever?

She eyed my hair, pointedly, and then my torn dress.

Okay, maybe invisibility was for the best. The pink chiffon was ripped, singed, and dive-bombed-dirty. Hey, flying isn’t as easy as angels make it look.

The feathers at the back of my neck twitched, stroking at my mind, but the force field pressing around me made it hard to think coherently. What’s a seer supposed to see?

Not just see, but record. Ilithyia placed a beautiful red-beaded chain over my head; a little black book, its soft leather cover worn and pliable, dangled from the end of the beads. This night, at the stroke of midnight, you became one of the Seers, your astral body able to travel the nine worlds. You are the watcher of lives and keeper of secrets. You will help mold strong consciences, which aren’t fully formed, those who don’t quite align with the strength of the power they will one day wield. You have been sacrificed as the ancient rites demand to fulfill this destiny.

This gig is bull-crap! You’ve burned my body, and made me suffer and die in vain.

I didn’t order this. She patted the loose curls around her face as if making herself presentable for some reason. Those in your care will stay on the right side of the white light, because when they tread too closely to the other side you will be here to remind them the costs of dark dealings.

No one can hear me or see me, how will I be able to remind them of anything?

Seers’ bear witness to epic events. Carry the book with you always and record what you see fit, but remember while you feel helpless to intercede in either Ordinary or ExtraOrdinary proceedings you will find a path.

What sixteen year old wants to sign up for watching the world without ever interacting? Hello, we’re the social media generation, we crave being liked and retweeted. I stretched my neck so I could glimpse my shoulder blades; the only positive about this situation were the badass wings. Maybe I’d take a test drive and make a run for it.

Come along, we have things to accomplish, Ilithyia said, gazing at me floating over her head.

I drew another deep breath and I was out of her reach.

You might not like where you end up if you leave without some guidance from me and my sisters, Ilithyia warned.

We’ll just see about that!

Maybe I was on the highway to Hades, but my wings made me think about the footpath to paradise. I might have ended up on the wrong road, but I certainly wasn’t going to give up on Locke without a fight. I sucked in long gulps of air, which made my wings take off like a bat out of hell. I did hear a few notes of Ilithyia’s mirth before I was out of earshot and thrust into another scene of utter destruction, a scene so heinous I refused to speak of it or even think about it.

Hellish Rehilibitation

ExtraOrdinary: A mortal or human person born with magical skills and powers.

LOCKE

---

A bleep, bleep, bleep sound startled me awake, my lungs cringing in pain as beads of sweat slipped down my sideburns. I let the physical pain wash through me. Every inch of my skin felt as if it was on fire and my left side from my deltoid to my ear throbbed. I felt something gauzy over my left eye, so I barely made out the outline of someone leaning over me in between the large black machines with red blinking demon eyeballs. I tried to scuttle away. A gentle hand rested on my forehead, sending pain through my skull, which the healing scent of camphor thick and heavy in the air was no match for.

You’re okay, my mother’s voice whispered.

I glanced around the hospital room and the last moments of Halloween night I remembered stole what little air I thought I had in my lungs. Where is she? I shouted as I tried to sit up and put my racing thoughts in some kind of order while I searched the room for her.

I’m so sorry you were hurt. My mother shook her head ‘no’ solemnly, as a single tear slipped down her face and collided with my damp cheek. I’m glad you’re okay.

What? No! I’m not all right! I’m furious, someone tried to kill me and they hurt her in my place. Someone poured tar all over the road to cause the accident, and then the frickin’ biker basilisk planned on barbecuing us both.

I tried to warn you she wasn’t a good idea.

No shit, it wasn’t a good idea, but someone powerful had sent an OtherWorldly hit squad. I had to be the target. I’d been asking questions, hard questions; I’d been testing the boundaries of my own skills and the patience of the Order—demanding I be given the opportunity to bring her into the Order, forcing them to recognize my research showing other conversions of Ordinary people.

All I wanted was to be able to be with the girl I loved openly, to be able to tell her and show her what I was. I wanted to live in public with her and now I’d brought death and destruction to her doorstep. Her Ordinary world had nuclear weapons, disease, and self-destruction based on greed; my world had magic more powerful than anything known to man and it was always based on the authority of the Order.

I remembered the flames and the horrible smell.

She was gone. Ripped from this world and burned alive right in front of me.

It was my fault. My penance.

My chest cinched and I felt like I didn’t have any oxygen in my lungs because inhaling burned like I’d swallowed anti-freeze.

My inability to navigate the two worlds I lived in had taken her from me. A raw anguish ripped through me and made anything I physically felt incomparable. I should have been the one to die, not her, she shouldn’t have to pay a price for my failings.

She was a sweet girl. My mother brushed my hair away from my fevered brow. But there are forces at work inside the Order which would never allow for such a coupling.

She was mine. I picked her. I loved her, since I was a boy.

I know you pretend you don’t remember, but there was another girl you loved long before her. When you lost Keleigh I think you transferred some of your loss and affection onto this Ordinary girl.

Keleigh was a vague, and at the same time powerful memory, but we were small children the last time I’d seen her and her mother had taken her away from the Order, away from our way of life after what happened. The accident happened on a sunny afternoon I tried everyday to forget. I know what I felt and who I felt it for. I swallowed over the vile, ashy taste on my tongue.

No one could take the place of my Ordinary childhood friend, the girl who grew up with me and grew in my heart. No one could laugh at my jokes the way she did or somehow manage to outmaneuver the little spells I put on her. Now I’d never find out if it was a conscious decision or her part or some latent magical talent. It’s what made me hopeful I could teach her to be more than an Ordinary.

What you’re destined for someday, the role you are to play in the future, it could never be accomplished with an Ordinary. My mother leaned in close to me to whisper, Even if she converted, she wouldn’t have any ExtraOrdinary abilities or a bloodline to keep our way alive.

She could have learned. I could have taught her. She was smart when she set her mind to something; so at this point she was more worried about fashion and Facebook than she was going to college. She was funny and sweet and she was mine. Mine from the first shy smile to the provocative smirks to the funny Southern sayings nobody got but me.

With decades of practice she might have become a hedge witch, nothing more.

I glared at my mother. Even if I suspected what she said was true, I was angry with her for voicing my deepest doubts. I didn’t want to feel uncertainty now; I only wanted to remember a time when I thought we stood a chance.

What happened? my mother asked, straightening my bedclothes.

There was a basilisk, it drove into us head on.

My mother brushed the hair away from my forehead. No, it wouldn’t have been able to drive a car. You hit your head. You’re confused.

A big biker dude transformed into a basilisk. I tried to think of a way to convince my mother this was an OtherWorldly attack. Was there another body?

My mother shook her head no. Your father went to examine the wreckage and look for clues.

Why would he go inspect the area?

There was a huge power drain on the ley-lines.

I swallowed over the lump in my throat. Guilt is hard to swallow. It would take a lot of juice for something to cross over from the OtherWorld and possess a human body.

My mother flinched and tested my brow again. You’re fevered, you hallucinated the whole thing, she insisted.

Sweat ran down my neck and into my hospital gown. I was fevered but I knew I’d almost had a quarter of my face fried off and the beast who attacked us had crossed over from the OtherWorld. I’d killed it; it’s why there was no evidence of anyone else at the scene of the accident. I had to go and help my father and convince him to look into it. I had to convince him to appeal to the Elders and get the full force of the Order after who ever did this. First, I had to go see her body; perhaps there was something I could do to bring her back. It wouldn’t be pretty or easy but maybe I could do it, and it wouldn’t matter the cost because she was worth it to me. I tried to sit up again and the room spun. I want to go see her.

My mother’s eyes watered. She was buried today.

Why would they have her funeral without me? I thrashed my legs. I want to say good-bye. The thought of someone burying her in darkness forever was almost too much to fathom and I had to suck in long drags of oxygen to stay conscious. She used to hum a silly little children’s bible song all the time. I replayed the sound of her voice humming to conjure her image in my head.

Absolutely not. My mother forced me back into the pillows. We are all born with our gifts and abilities, but she was not born one of us. It was fate’s choice and her mother won’t want to see you right now.

Her little light is mine, I tried to sing, but my throat was hoarse from all the smoke. I’m going to let her shine.

You’re delirious. My mother tested my brow again. I’m going to help you, she whispered before she started an incantation.

No, don’t. I begged, as I felt my body ease. I want to feel the pain.

Codladh anois, my mother instructed.

Fate sucks, I screamed as a searing pinprick of calm shot through my head. I forced myself not to yawn in response to the sleeping spell but I had no other choice—I followed the desire of complete relaxation into oblivion.

Witches Of The East & West

OtherWorld: A realm running parallel to our human realm but it is inhabited by the ShiningOnes, gods and goddesses who are sequestered there. The realm where Celtic myths and legends still live.

SEER

---

When the same unexplainable mumbo jumbo, which allowed my wings take flight in the first place, forced a landing clear across the country I was disoriented. I had no concept of time on this frequency because I could smell the ocean again and I knew I’d flown west. Unless my internal compass was off I’d made it to the Pacific Ocean in a land speed record that would make traveling by Concord jet about as appealing as traveling by stagecoach.

My toes squished in the mud and the scene playing out in front of me was so heinous I stood on the ridgeline between two red oaks in utter shock. It was as if I’d been dropped into the middle of a demonic apocalypse action scene. There was fire, soot, smoke, thunder and lightning overhead, beasts and acts of magic so powerful the hillside shook, but none of the players noticed me. In spite of being able to feel the heat of the flames and the ground trembling under my feet, I was impotent to do anything more than stand and stare openmouthed. I’d tried to scream, and while I could hear it in my head nothing else reacted to it.

The only way to witness this overwhelming ordeal was to compartmentalize it in the deep recesses of my mind. Accepting these other deaths and the destruction, along with mine, as sacrifices to a world operating behind the veil of the Ordinary world was too much for me to process at the moment. How much misery was this world going to heap on me? All I could do was bear witness and remember, so I recorded in my mind’s eye, writing it on a huge blank slate with sharp white chalk because I was too frightened to intervene and too shocked to move.

All I wanted was Locke and the serenity I felt in his presence.

My head still throbbed with what I’d witnessed in a redwood forest to perfect strangers. I was terrified … so panicked I’d hurled myself back into the sky and flew to Salem looking for comfort. I went to my family home but I couldn’t go in. It was the middle of the day—what day or how many days had passed I couldn’t tell you, but there were people dressed in black coming and going. For them my death must be sharp and sudden, but for me my life felt as if it fluttered away on the tide of my dwindling teardrops and the dewy memories of a life both distant and unattainable.

From a tree across the street I observed my family and friends through the big picture window as my mother grieved. I couldn’t figure out how they’d buried me so quickly when my death felt like it happened last night. Time was fuzzy on this frequency and I panicked when I couldn’t recall what day of the week it was, or what month it was. When I tried to recall these things it was as if an eraser wiped a portion of the slate clean. Time no longer had a hold on me.

Walking the perimeter of my house I watched the mourners come and go until there was no one left inside the mansion except my mother. Just as the house grew quiet and I thought it would be safe to enter I caught a soft light coming from my bedroom window. I flew to the roof and landed outside the dormer window. My mother positioned a flameless candle on the windowsill and I reached out and put my hand on the glass of the window, but she couldn’t see me or my tear streaked face, but I could see her. Her pain was so raw and it came off her in waves, she was truly alone, no husband, no child, no one left. She straightened the lace shears and melded away. I collapsed on all fours, crying out as I watched the candle burn away the long hours of the night and I imagined her soft voice in my mind singing to me as if I was a small lost child again, This little light of mine, I’m going to let it shine.

Every tear I shed was black and painful. Every drop of my new magical blood transformed me mentally and shifted my physical body. My wings recognized the subtle changes in the wind weren’t always weather related, but warnings and messages from another realm. I would have to find another way to let my light shine but it wouldn’t be in my mother’s world.

I better find the Mother. Maybe she could shed some light on what was happening to me. Where else could I turn when I was dead to my own mother?

When I didn’t find Ilithyia at her home I propelled my senses into the darkness and somehow her location came to me. She was at Salem Memorial Hospital. Okay, this was weird. I could locate people but I couldn’t remember dates. Reaching out with the same senses, I imagined Locke. My head filled with confused images of anger, destruction, and desperation; they burst like red blood and black soot through my mind, as I landed in the antiseptic corridor of the ICU burn unit.

Locke was here, I could feel him. Ilithyia was nearby; we had some sort of telepathic connection. Or maybe it only meant we were both OtherWorldly … whatever being ‘OtherWorldly’ meant. I shuddered my wings, stumbling to the door where I felt her presence as if she was a runway beacon. Alongside the door, I brushed the sign with CAVANAGH printed in neat block letters, before placing my hand on the handle. Some invisible force shoved me away from the door and back into the center of the hall as two brown-robed figures materialized, standing sentinel on either side of the entrance.

I shouted several expletives, but no one down the corridor noticed. Both of the figures’ faces were concealed in the folds of their rough woolen hoods. Their ivory-colored braided rope belts hung low at their hips, and matched the straps crisscrossing their chests. Carved ivory handles protruded off the tops of their shoulders, and as I reached out to touch one of them to make sure they were real, the man stepped away, turning so I could see the four-foot long rapier, the tip of the sword stuck out near his elbows, signaling these men were deadly and escape was futile.

Down the dimly lit hall none of the nurses acknowledged our little scuffle. You’re obviously invisible, I projected, thinking neither one of the creepy guards would communicate with me.

Only to Ordinaries, one of the robes snickered with a deep voice and my feathers twitched. And only when we choose to be.

The shorter of the two forms slipped his hood away from his bald head. What exactly are you? he asked playfully.

I’d love a complete explanation of what I am myself. All I can tell you is I died last night. I frowned. Or the other night. I shrugged, unsure of the timeline. I’ve been to the West Coast and through a red wood forest and back since then.

The man with the brown hood still over his head angled it at me as he considered me. I’d swear he could see through the brown, scratchy-looking fabric.

What are those things strapped to your back? The baldheaded man ruffled the feathers of my wings. Pure silk, he said, eyeing the rest of my costume. Couldn’t afford a decent party dress once you’d splurged on the wings?

I guess no one paid the devil his due.

There is no such thing as the devil, only demons. The blue-eyed, bald boy didn’t look much older than me when he smiled. As a Guardian I fight them, he said, puffing out his chest with apparent pride.

I nodded my head at the ‘Cavanagh’ sign posted on the hospital door. A little late for guarding, don’t you think?

We’ve been summoned to Salem because of an uptake in usage.

Usage of what?

The second of the pair didn’t move when he spoke, but his voice was darker, and for some reason the sharpness of his tone made the palms of my hands itch. After you conclude your business with Ilithyia we will take your statement, for the record of course.

The dead tell no tales, I replied snidely, pushing against the door. I received another shock of electricity, which danced up my arms and reverberated in my skull. Ouch.

Tristan takes his job seriously, the baldheaded Guardian covered with tattoos said. I’m Finny.

Trinny and Finny? I asked, fingering the invisible barrier, as I looked sideways at Tristan. I couldn’t see his face but I didn’t need to; I could feel his grimace radiating through his cloak. I dropped my arms and prayed I hadn’t already taken on a deadly stench. What are you two?

We’re OtherWorldly. Like you. Finny chuckled. Except with more baggage.

You’re OtherWorldly?

The ShiningOnes are OtherWorldly, too. At my puzzled expression Finny added. ShiningOnes are the gods and goddesses.

Can you tell silent Tristan to lower the mumbo jumbo force field?

There aren’t too many of us around. Finny was still intent on talking me up, and under normal circumstances I would have appreciated the conversation since I hadn’t spoken to anyone other than a witch since I’d died, but I wanted to see Locke and I wasn’t interested in OtherWorldly chitchat with strangers who electrocuted me for the fun of it. We Guardians, Murmurs, and Seers need to stick together, if we want a second chance.

A second chance at what? I asked as I tried to figure out a way to force the door open.

Finny leaned into me and grinned. Humanity.

My fingers grasped Finny’s sword straps as if they were lifelines. You mean there’s a way to be human again?

Tristan reached out and brushed the back of my hand, shocking my fingers loose. "My protégé likes to toy with the young ones. Go about your business with your lover and we will interview you later." His use of the word ‘lover’ was threaded with a mouthful of disdain.

I glared at the ‘hoodlum’ a.k.a. Tristan.

Ilithyia threw open the door and the invisible barrier broke, giving me a shock as I was pulled across the threshold.

I wish you would stop marionetting me!

Ilithyia poked her head out into the hall and mine leaned back following hers. Several of the nurses looked up from their computers and frowned at her. Why the heck wasn’t Ilithyia invisible? Was she like the Guardians, she could be seen and unseen whenever she chose? Invisibility management was a skillset I was interested in learning … not because I was committed to staying dead, but if I couldn’t be reinvented, reincarnated, or restored then I at least wanted an on/off switch. Ilithyia wasn’t liked from the frowns the nurses passed from one another. Inside I fluttered my wings and in a single bound I was perched on Locke’s footboard; I’d gotten my sense of equilibrium back, maybe I’d get this flying thing down after all.

Locke hadn’t fared well; one side of his face was wrapped as if an apprentice Egyptian embalmer had found some white rolls of gauze to practice with and his assignment had gone askew. Black hospital monitors pecked and bleeped like busy crows chattering over tattered road kill. One measured his heart rate. I knew there was no way an electronic device could measure the rhythm of his heart, but once upon a time it beat in perfect time with mine. Now I wasn’t sure, but if I was going to be replaced it wouldn’t be by one of these black monitors.

Ilithyia examined my muddy feet and me as if I were a wayward child returning from a botched runaway attempt. The silent hum of the machines hung between us for several long moments. Where have you been? she asked.

I shrugged. How long have I been gone?

Several days.

I startled at the length of time I’d been transported away for. I was having difficulty judging anything time or distance related. Which made me remember where I’d been and what I’d seen.

Per Ardua? My whispered question was so quiet it wouldn’t rouse the silence, but no one other than Ilithyia could hear or see me besides the two Guardians outside anyway. Locke’s mother, Rory, was asleep, her chin resting on the side of his hospital bed, some of her burgundy hair clutched in his twitching hand.

What? Ilithyia asked, puzzled.

Per Ardua, what does it mean?

Through difficulties. Ilithyia’s eyes grew round. Why? Where did you hear those words?

It’s the tattoo Locke had on his collarbone.

Ilithyia examined Locke from his pectoral to his ear, unable to locate the ink. She stared at him for a long time.

It’s where he’s burned now.

Ilithyia murmured foreign words under her breath I couldn’t make out.

How long has he been unconscious?

Since the collision. He was so wild when he regained consciousness they put him in a narcotic induced coma so he wouldn’t rip open the burns. Ilithyia frowned. He calls for you.

I imagined my name on his lips as I eyed the boy I’d grown up with. He was a man now, a young man I loved desperately, but didn’t really know. What is he?

I told you, he’s a Druid, an ancient Celtic shaman.

You mean a witch? Or is it warlock? I flinched because it was almost unreal to me, but then again I’d been zapped to California and back here in what felt like the blink of an eye, so my sense of reality was seriously distorted. I mean, I’m some sort of an invisible spirit with wings strapped to my back and yet I still feel alive. Is his family involved in the Order?

Ilithyia smiled. Most of Salem is of the Order.

Order of what?

Druids, vates, and bards.

I eyed Ilithyia suspiciously. What are you?

"I told you, I’m