Chapter 6
Chapter
Six
Frost Fest had transformed Devils Point.
Willow paused at the edge of the vendor village, taking it in.
String lights crisscrossed overhead, thousands of them, draped between wooden posts and wrapped around the lampposts lining the marina.
They'd look magical once the sun went down, but even now in the grey morning light they gave the whole area a feeling of celebration.
Ice sculptures dotted the main thoroughfare—a leaping salmon, a cresting wave, a wolf mid-howl that made her smile every time she passed it.
The tourists who'd start arriving in a few hours would think it was charming local branding. They had no idea.
Clear igloos clustered near the waterfront, each one fitted with a propane heater and pile of wool blankets, already set up for visitors who wanted to sip hot cocoa while watching the harbor.
The cocoa stand itself was still being assembled, two wolves she recognized from the distillery wrestling a commercial espresso machine into place while their breath fogged in the cold air.
Food trucks lined the access road, hatches closed for now but promising clam chowder, fish tacos, and wood-fired pizza once the festival officially opened.
The smell of coffee already drifted from somewhere, sharp and bitter underneath the salt breeze coming off the water.
January on the island meant cold that seeped through every layer.
Willow had dressed for it—wool sweater under her jacket, thick socks inside her boots, a knitted hat pulled down over her ears—but the damp Pacific Northwest chill still found its way in.
The sky hung low and grey, threatening rain that probably wouldn't come until evening.
Typical Devils Point winter weather: not quite miserable enough to keep people away, but enough to make the warm drinks and heated igloos feel like necessity rather than luxury.
She checked her clipboard and started her morning rounds.
The bakery's festival booth sat near the entrance to the vendor village, prime real estate that Maeve had secured years ago and held onto with the tenacity of a wolf guarding territory.
Willow had been up since four preparing for it—honey lavender scones cooling on racks, ginger molasses cookies packed in wax paper bags, pastries arranged on tiered displays that Sage was currently fussing over.
Everything infused with the right amount of magic.
Warmth. Comfort. The subtle suggestion that this island was a good place to spend money and come back to.
"These look perfect," Sage said as Willow approached. "I mean, they actually rose this time."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence."
"You know what I mean." Sage tucked a strand of dark hair behind her ear, her expression caught between relief and lingering worry. "Last week was rough. I'm just glad you're back."
Willow was glad too. The days after the stockroom had been a disaster—batch after batch of flat, flavorless failures while her body remembered things her mind kept trying to forget.
The weight of him pressed against her. His breath hot on her throat.
That low, rough sound he'd made when she tilted her head back.
But Ryker had made himself scarce after that afternoon. He'd agreed to handle most of their coordination via email, and whenever they did meet in person, Gray or Cal always seemed to be there. She'd been furious at first. Then relieved. Then furious about feeling relieved.
The distance had given her space to breathe. To sleep through the night without waking tangled in her sheets, aching for something she couldn't have. To stand in her kitchen before dawn and focus on the flour under her hands instead of imagining his hands instead.
Her pastries had started rising properly again by the third day. She'd stopped burning the honey glaze by the fifth. And yesterday, she'd produced her best batch of scones since arriving on the island—Sage had eaten three of them before noon without a single worried glance in Willow's direction.
So the avoidance had served its purpose. She could function now. She could do her job.
She still hated him a little for making it necessary.
"Willow!" The candle maker—Beth, a human woman who drove over from the mainland twice a month—waved her over. "This table leg is wobbling again. Do you have a spare shim?"
Willow tucked her clipboard under her arm and crouched to examine the problem.
The folding table had seen better days, one leg slightly shorter than the others.
She pulled a wooden wedge from her pocket—she'd learned to carry a handful of them after the first vendor setup day—and worked it under the short leg until the surface leveled out.
"You're a lifesaver." Beth arranged her display of hand-poured candles, each one labeled with names like "Coastal Morning" and "Evergreen Mist." The scents were pleasant enough, though Willow's trained nose caught the synthetic edge beneath the fragrance. "I swear this table is cursed."
"Just old." Willow stood and brushed off her jeans. "Let me know if you need anything else."
She continued her rounds, zigzagging between booths as the festival grounds slowly came to life.
A woodworker needed help angling his display toward the foot traffic.
The woman selling hand-knitted scarves and hats wanted to know if there was somewhere warmer she could set up, and Willow pointed her toward an open spot near one of the propane heaters.
A photographer documenting the festival asked about the best vantage point for the ice sculptures, and Willow walked him over to show him how the wolf carving caught the light when the clouds broke.
By mid-morning, the first wave of tourists had started crossing the bridge.
They came in clusters at first—couples with cameras, families bundled against the cold, groups of friends already carrying coffee cups from the stand near the marina.
The vendor village hummed with new energy as booths opened for business and the smell of food intensified.
Someone had started playing music near the main stage, something acoustic and vaguely folky that drifted between the tents.
Children discovered the clear igloos and immediately claimed them, pressing their faces against the curved walls while their parents tried to coax them toward the craft booths.
Willow watched a young couple settle into one of the waterfront igloos, wrapped in blankets, sharing a cup of hot cocoa while they looked out at the misty harbor. The woman leaned her head on the man's shoulder, and Willow's chest ached at the simple intimacy of it.
She looked away and kept moving.
The jewelry maker couldn't find the card reader for her phone.
The guy running the kettle corn stand had run an extension cord across a walkway and needed to be convinced to tape it down before someone tripped.
A little girl had lost her parents near the ice sculptures, and Willow stayed with her, making silly faces until a frantic mother appeared and swept the child into her arms with a breathless thank you.
The other co-chair was nowhere to be seen.
She told herself she wasn't looking for him. Wasn't scanning every cluster of people for broad shoulders and sandy brown hair that fell across his forehead. Wasn't listening for his voice among the dozens of conversations filling the frigid air.
The lie lasted until she rounded the corner near the food trucks and nearly walked into his chest.
Ryker stopped short, close enough that she caught his scent—pine and woodsmoke and something underneath that made her stomach tighten. His eyes met hers, that blue-grey going sharp and intent before he shuttered the expression into something neutral.
"Willow."
"Ryker." She gripped her clipboard like a shield. "Vendor check going okay?"
"Fine." His jaw tightened. "You?"
"Fine."
They stood there for a beat too long, the festival noise fading to a distant hum.
She watched his gaze drop to her throat, just for a second, and heat flooded her despite the cold.
Her body remembered. Her body didn't care about professional distance or smart boundaries or the fact that he'd been avoiding her like she carried plague.
"I should—" she started.
"Yeah." He stepped around her, not quite touching, and continued toward the pier without looking back.
Willow let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. Her hands trembled slightly against the clipboard, and she gripped it harder until the trembling stopped. This was fine. This was manageable. A few seconds of proximity and her whole body had gone haywire, but she could handle it.
She turned and walked in the opposite direction, toward the north end of the vendor area where she hadn't yet made her rounds.
The crowd thinned as she moved away from the central cluster.
This section of the festival was quieter, the booths spaced further apart along the path that eventually led toward the coastal trail.
A soapmaker had set up near a small fire pit, her display of handmade bars arranged by scent—lavender, cedar, something she called "ocean mist" that smelled nothing like the actual ocean.
A few tourists browsed the selection while warming their hands over the flames.
Beyond her, a local artist sold watercolors of the island's coastline, and an older man offered jars of honey from hives he kept somewhere on the mainland.
Willow stopped to adjust a crooked sign, then helped the honey vendor open a stubborn folding chair. Normal festival tasks. The kind of small problems she could solve without thinking.
But something felt wrong.
She slowed near the edge of the vendor area, trying to identify the sensation.
It wasn't anything she could see—the few tourists here seemed content, the vendors patient and unhurried.
The sky was the same flat grey it had been all morning.
Wind rattled the bare branches of a nearby tree, sending a scatter of dead leaves across the path.
The pressure built at the edges of her awareness. A subtle wrongness that made her skin prickle, like walking into a room where an argument had just ended. Her magic stirred uneasily, responding to something her conscious mind couldn't name.
"Excuse me." A woman approached from the direction of the inn, middle-aged with tired eyes and an expensive-looking coat pulled tight against the cold. "Are you with the festival?"
Willow held up her clipboard. "I'm one of the coordinators. How can I help?"
"My husband and I are staying at the inn." The woman glanced over her shoulder, lowering her voice even though no one else was nearby. "We were supposed to stay through the weekend, but we're leaving today. I just wanted someone to know why."
"Is there a problem with your room?"
"The room is fine. It's—" The woman hesitated, wrapping her arms around herself. "This is going to sound crazy."
"Try me."
"I can't sleep here. Every night since we arrived, I have these dreams. About the water.
I wake up and I can taste salt on my tongue, and I feel like—" She shook her head.
"I feel like something is watching me. Something out in the cove.
My husband thinks I'm being ridiculous, but I can't shake it. I can't stay another night."
The prickling on Willow's skin intensified. "Which cove?"
"The one north of the inn. You can see it from our window.
" The woman's eyes were bright with something that looked like fear barely held in check.
"Last night I woke up standing at the window.
I don't remember getting out of bed. I was just..
. standing there, staring at the water. My husband had to shake me before I heard him. "
Willow's throat went tight. "Thank you for telling me. I'm sorry your stay hasn't been what you hoped. We'll look into it."
The woman nodded, seeming relieved to have told someone, and retreated toward the inn with quick steps. Willow watched her go, the clipboard hanging forgotten at her side.
Dreams about the water. Waking up tasting salt. The feeling of being watched from the cove…
She knew how it felt when a place held residual magic. Her mother's compound had practically hummed with it, layers of spellwork built up over decades. This was different. This felt less like magic left behind and more like magic actively reaching out. Testing boundaries. Pushing at something.
Something was out there. Something in the water north of the inn, in that cove the tourists could see from their windows. And whatever it was, it was affecting people. Drawing them.
She needed to tell someone. Gray, probably. Or Damien. They'd know what to do, who to send to investigate.
Or Ryker, the traitorous part of her brain suggested. He was handling security. This was a security issue.
She crushed that thought before it could take root.
She could handle this without manufacturing excuses to talk to him.
She could walk into the distillery and report to Gray like a professional, and if Ryker happened to be there, she would be polite and distant and absolutely would not think about the way his eyes had dropped to her throat.
Willow turned back toward the center of the festival, the sounds of music and laughter growing louder as she walked.
The igloos glowed faintly now, their interior lights switched on against the grey afternoon.
Tourists clustered around the food trucks, steam rising from cups and bowls, their breath fogging in the chilly air.
It looked exactly like a successful winter festival should look—warm and inviting and full of people spending money.
None of them knew something was wrong. None of them felt the pressure building at the edges of the island, the sense of something watching from the water.
Willow squared her shoulders and headed for the distillery.