33. Silas
Circle of Shelter:
Ashes and salt traced on the floor keep harm away.
The library is exactly as I remember it.
Floor-to-ceiling shelves on three walls, a rolling ladder that hasn’t been used in decades, the faint musty sweetness of old paper and leather bindings.
Etta keeps the wards updated—temperature control, humidity, fire suppression—but she refuses to modernize anything else.
No computers. No digital catalogs. Just rows and rows of books, organized by a system only she fully understands.
“Willowbrook history,” I say. “From the beginning. I want the full picture.”
“You already know most of it.”
“Humor me.”
Damon leans back in his chair. “Town sits on a pool of magic. One of a handful of places in the world where the energy runs richer and stronger than anywhere else. The main coven in Chicago watches over all of them, but Willowbrook’s always been different. No one knows exactly why.”
“Go on.”
“The Rift is what they call the instability that comes from that pool of magic. It manifests as a quarry outside town—a physical scar where the energy bleeds through. Every time it widens or flares, it throws every witch’s powers off balance.
Spells fizzle, charms misfire, potions go wrong.
Bonded Omegas act as natural stabilizers.
They’re emotional anchors and magical amplifiers—their bond energy feeds into the ley lines and keeps things level. ”
“And unbonded Omegas?”
“Every unbonded Omega increases the risk of another flare. That’s been the accepted wisdom for generations.” Damon pauses. “But here’s where it gets complicated. For the last ten years, no Omega witches in this town have successfully bonded into a pack.”
I stop reading. “None?”
“Not a single one. The Council’s matching service has tried.
Local Alphas have tried. The bonds just don’t take.
And this generation has an unheard-of number of Omegas—way more than the statistical average.
So you’ve got more unbonded Omegas than ever, an active Rift that’s getting worse, and a bonding failure rate of one hundred percent. ”
“That’s not a coincidence.”
“No. It’s not.”
I set the book down and pull another from the shelf. The Rift and Its Keepers: A Historical Account, 1958. This one’s thinner, the binding more fragile.
“Who are the keepers?” I ask.
“Families sworn to protect the Rift. Goes back to the town’s founding.
There were five original families—the Wilders, the Crosses, the Hartwells, the Finches, and the Ashes.
Each family held a specific role. The Wilders handled the wards.
The Crosses monitored the ley lines. The Hartwells managed the record-keeping.
The Finches supplied the potions and botanical components.
The Ashes maintained the physical site of the quarry. ”
“All five families still active?”
“The Ashes aren’t. Gideon Ash runs the tavern, but he doesn’t do keeper work. His father was the last one, and when he died fifteen years ago, the quarry maintenance fell to the town as a whole. No single family claimed it.”
I open the book and scan the table of contents. Chapter Three catches my eye: The Catastrophe of 1887: Fact or Fabrication?
“There was a catastrophic flare,” I say. “Legend says it killed almost everyone in town.”
He’s quiet for a moment. “The records from that period are sparse. Whole sections of the town archives are missing—births, deaths, property records, everything from an eight-year span. Nobody touches those gaps. Nobody asks about them.”
“Who would have the authority to erase that much history?”
“Someone with significant power. Council-level power.”
I file that away and keep reading. The 1887 chapter is short—barely four pages—and the author spends more time dismissing the legend than examining it. No physical evidence exists to support the claim of mass casualties. The story persists as local folklore, likely exaggerated for dramatic effect.
I pull another text. Berrick, Aldric. An Empirical Study of Rift Instability in Omega-Dense Populations. Published eight years ago. The same Berrick who came to Willowbrook twelve years ago. I didn’t know he’d published his findings.
“Damon. Did you know Berrick wrote a paper on the Rift?”
“He mentioned it while he was here. Said the Council buried it.”
I flip to the introduction. This study examines the correlation between unbonded Omega populations and Rift instability in three monitored locations.
Findings suggest that the relationship is not merely correlative but potentially causal, with unbonded Omega magic acting as a catalyst for flare events.
I scan further. However, anomalies in the Willowbrook data suggest the presence of an additional variable not accounted for in standard models.
The author recommends further investigation before policy recommendations are made.
“He found something,” I say. “Something that didn’t fit his model.”
“That’s what he told my aunt. Said the numbers didn’t add up. The Rift in Willowbrook was destabilizing faster than the unbonded Omega population could explain. There was a gap—a missing factor. He came here to find it.”
“And?”
“And he left three weeks later with nothing. Told Aunt Etta he’d been called back to Chicago. Told the Council his investigation was inconclusive. But he told my aunt he thought someone was interfering with the Rift.”
My hand stills on the page. “Interfering how?”
“He didn’t know. And the Council didn’t give him the opportunity to look into it further.”
I set Berrick’s paper down and reach for another text—Keepers of the Rift: Lineage and Duty. This one is more detailed, with family trees and diagrams. I trace the Wilder line back six generations, then the Cross line, then the Hartwells. All intact. All documented.
Then I get to the Ashes.
The family tree stops three generations back.
No death dates, no marriage records, no children listed after 1942.
Just a blank space where the rest of the lineage should be, and a footnote in small, cramped handwriting: Records sealed by order of the Regional Representative’s office. Reason: classified.
“Damon.”
He looks up from his book.
“The Ash family tree ends in 1942. The rest is sealed by the Council.”
His jaw tightens. “That’s new. It wasn’t sealed when I was a kid. I remember looking at these same books with my aunt when I was twelve. The Ash line went all the way to Gideon.”
“Someone sealed it between then and now. Classified it.”
“Who has the authority to classify historical records?”
“Regional representatives. Or anyone acting on their behalf.”
I pull another volume from the shelf—Rune Applications in Ley Line Stabilization, 1985. I’m not looking for rune theory. I’m looking for something else.
“Damon. Have you noticed any runes at the quarry? Recent ones. Applied in the last few years, not the old ward work.”
He frowns. “I maintain the perimeter wards. I’d notice if someone added runes to my work.”
“What about inside the quarry itself? Past the perimeter?”
“I don’t go inside. Nobody does. It’s too unstable—you start feeling the effects the moment you cross the boundary. Disorientation, power surges, the works.”
“So anyone could have placed runes inside the quarry, and you wouldn’t know.”
The implication lands. Damon sets his book down slowly.
“I’ve been maintaining those perimeter wards for six years,” he says. “Every month, same pattern, same sequence. If someone got past them without triggering an alert, they either knew the ward structure or they had access to the original designs.”
“Who has access to the original designs?”
“My aunt. Me. The Council archives in Chicago.” He pauses. “And whoever held the keeper role before the Ashes stopped doing it.”
“The Ashes. Whose family records are now classified.”
Damon stands, pushing his chair back. “I need to check something.”
“Check what?”
“The original ward schematics. My aunt keeps them in the vault. If someone’s been modifying the wards from inside, there might be a signature—a magical fingerprint that doesn’t match mine.”
He leaves the library, and I hear his footsteps fade down the hall.
I turn back to the books, pulling texts from the shelf faster now, scanning for anything that connects the missing Ash records to the bonding failure rate to the Rift flares.
The pieces are there. I can feel them. But they won’t line up.
Then I find it. Tucked into the back of a 1994 compendium on Omega magic—Addendum: Notes on Observed Anomalies in Willowbrook Bonding Ceremonies, 1991-1994. The handwriting is different from the main text. Neater. More clinical.
Subject: Three separate bonding attempts between compatible Alpha-Omega pairs.
In each case, the bond was initiated successfully and confirmed by both parties.
Within 72 hours, the bond dissolved without external interference.
No physical cause identified. No magical interference detected in standard diagnostic scans.
Recommend investigation into possible environmental factors affecting bond permanence.
Three failed bonds in three years. All confirmed, all dissolved. No explanation.
The addendum is unsigned, but at the bottom, there’s a notation: Filed with Regional Representative V. Ash, for review.
V. Ash.
I stare at the name until the letters blur.
Damon returns with a rolled parchment in his hand, his face pale.
“The ward schematics,” he says. “There’s a second layer. Underneath mine. Someone added a secondary ward structure to the quarry perimeter—been there for at least a decade, maybe longer. It’s designed to look like my work, but the signature’s different. The rune construction is different.”
“Can you identify it?”
“I’ve never seen this style before. It’s not Council standard.
It’s not any style I recognize from the texts in this library.
” He unrolls the parchment on the table, his finger tracing a line of runes I can barely make out.
“But there’s something else. The secondary wards aren’t just protective.
They’re directional. They’re channeling energy from the ley lines into the quarry, not keeping it in. Feeding it.”
“Someone’s been funneling magic into the Rift.”
“Someone’s been feeding it. For years. Maybe decades.”
I point to the notation on the addendum. “V. Ash. Does that name mean anything to you?”
Damon looks down at the page. His face goes from pale to something worse.
“Victor Ash,” he says quietly. “Gideon’s father. The last keeper of the quarry. He died fifteen years ago.”
The library feels smaller suddenly. The shelves press in, the weight of a hundred years of secrets bearing down.
Somewhere in this town, someone has been manipulating the Rift for at least a decade, suppressing bonds, triggering heats, feeding chaos into the ley lines.
And the trail leads to a dead man whose records no one can access.
“We need to talk to Gideon,” I say.
“We need to talk to Dahlia first.”
“Dahlia’s in bed with a heat-induced headache.”
“Then we need to figure out what Victor Ash knew and how it connects to her. Because if he was the one who started this, and she’s the only Omega shadow witch in recorded history, and she just happened to be adopted into a keeper family—”
“That’s not a coincidence.”
“No. It’s a pattern.” Damon meets my eyes. “And I don’t think we’ve seen the whole thing yet.”