Chapter Thirteen #2
Not open—
Just enough.
Like a lock testing itself.
The streetlamp outside flared, then dimmed.
Something moved beyond the glass, where there shouldn’t have been movement—shadows gathering like they’d been called.
Owen swore under his breath. “Piper—look at me.”
I tried. I tried so hard.
My vision tunneled, the compulsion dragging my attention back to Garrat’s voice like a leash.
“You can’t fight a pull you don’t understand,” he said kindly. “Not yet.”
He stepped closer. Close enough that the cold in the room felt like it had teeth. And then—
“Stop.”
The word cracked through the darkness like a whip.
The pressure holding me in place snapped. I jolted, gasping, as my muscles remembered how to work.
For a heartbeat I couldn’t see anything but him—his halted hand, his smile frozen—
Then I became aware of the woman standing beside him.
She had not arrived loudly. There was no flash of light, no crack of thunder.
She simply was.
Full-size Tani stood there, her dagger in hand ready to attack. Her eyes were fixed on Garrat.
“Honestly,” she drawled, inspecting the scene like she’d wandered into a mess at a party. “Could you be any more dramatic?”
Garrat’s expression barely shifted. But I felt it—his attention flicked to her like a blade turning.
“You again,” he said.
“And you,” Titania replied sweetly. “Still skulking. Still sniffing around other people’s thresholds.”
She glanced at Owen—pinned in place, breathing hard—and made a face. “Rude.”
Owen’s jaw clenched. “If you’re here to critique—”
“I’m here because something in this quaint little shop screamed across realms,” Tani said, and her gaze snapped to the grimoire. “And I hate when humans ring bells they don’t know how to un-ring.”
My pulse hammered. “He—he was—”
“Trying to test you,” she said flatly. “Trying to see if the book answers you.”
Garrat’s smile returned, slow and pleased.
“She’s awakening,” he murmured. “I simply came to confirm.”
Tani’s eyes flashed.
“Oh, darling,” she purred. “You don’t get to confirm anything in my orbit.”
She lifted her hand—two fingers, lazy, like she was flicking dust from a sleeve—
—and the air tightened around him.
“You should go.”
A pressure like invisible silk, pulling taut. The shadows at the windows hissed and recoiled as if burned. Garrat’s gaze snapped to me one last time, eyes gleaming with dark promise.
“This isn’t over,” he said softly. “He’s been patient a long time. You can’t close what’s already torn.”
The darkness folded.
He vanished—not with a bang, not with a flash—with the sickening sensation of something being pulled backward through a hole too small for it.
The room exhaled.
What did he mean by he’s been patient a long time? Add that to the list of mysteries I was investigating.
Owen staggered as the force holding him released. He caught himself on a shelf, breathing hard, fury carved into every line of his face. He gripped the sword tight in his other hand.
“Piper.” His voice went low. “Are you hurt?”
I looked down at my hands—still shaking, still gripping the sword like it was the only solid thing in the world.
“I don’t think so,” I whispered. “But I—”
My gaze snapped to the grimoire.
The clasp had been disturbed.
Tani drifted closer to the book, her expression suddenly sharp in a way that wasn’t playful at all.
“That book,” she said quietly, “is not a cute antique problem.”
Owen’s jaw flexed. “We know.”
“No,” Tani said, and for once, her voice held something like warning instead of comedy. “You don’t.”
She looked at me—straight through me, like she could see every thread under my skin.
“Guardian grimoires are anchored to bloodlines,” she said. “When Alice’s heir touched it, the book woke. Recognized you. And when a grimoire that old wakes up...” She paused. “It sings across the veil. Like a beacon calling home.”
My stomach dropped. “So anyone listening—”
“Knows exactly where you are,” Tani finished. “And what you are. Alice kept it dormant for decades. You picked it up and rang every bell between here and Faery.”
“That must be why it was hidden in the town archives,” I said. “Alice was protecting me before I ever came back.”
Owen swore under his breath. “And that’s why he came.”
“And why more will follow,” Tani said grimly, “if that door at the tree stays open. The grimoire called. The crossing answered. And now everything on the other side knows there’s a new Guardian in Hickory Hollow.”
My mouth went dry. “How do I close it?”
Owen’s fingers tightened around my elbow. “How do we make it stop?”
Tani’s smile was thin. “You start at the tree. You seal the crossing properly—before it widens.”
Her gaze flicked to the sword in my hand.
She went very still.
“Hey—” She stepped closer, eyes fixed on the blade. “That’s not the Sword of Light.”
She held out her hand.
I gave it to her, pommel first. The moment her fingers closed around it, she drew in a low, stunned breath. When she looked up at me again, her expression had gone almost reverent.
“Do you know what this is?” she asked.
“A sword?”
Her mouth flattened. “Not just any sword. Excalibur.”
A startled laugh escaped me before I could stop it. “Funny, Tani.”
But she wasn’t smiling.
“Oh, God,” I breathed. “It is.”
Owen stared at the weapon in her hands. “Then what have I got?”
“The Sword of Light,” Tani said, glancing toward him. “And she”—her gaze returned to me—“has Excalibur.”
“Okay, great,” I said faintly. “So between us, we’re apparently running a two-sword special.”
Neither of them laughed.
“Where did Alice get Excalibur?” Owen asked.
“The mystery deepens, McAllister,” I muttered with a shrug, because Alice was clearly into a lot of weirdly magical, legendary things and I no longer had the energy to be surprised.
Tani looked between the two blades, then at the crates stacked against the wall.
“You have the Sword of Light,” she said to Owen. “And Excalibur was hidden here, too.” Her voice lowered. “Alice wasn’t just safeguarding the three Fae treasures. She was hiding more than anyone knew.”
She stepped toward the crates, eyes narrowed.
“How much do you want to bet the other two are in those?” I asked Owen.
He nodded slowly. “It’s a good possibility.”
“Well,” I said, exhaling shakily, “this has all been deeply educational. But we still have the problem of the tree.”
“Yes,” Tani said. “And this time, Piper… you don’t do it alone.”
I swallowed hard, staring at the doorway where Garrat had stood, the air still wrong where his attention had touched me.
“Okay,” I whispered. “Then we close it.”
Owen’s voice came out like a promise. “Together.”