Chapter 17 Tristan
TRISTAN
Tristan dropped Maren at the Book Nook just after dawn, snow still falling in the gray light.
Lucien met them at the door, dark hair tied back, green eyes sharp and assessing. The panther shifter moved with predatory grace even while doing something as mundane as holding a door open.
"She'll be safe here," Lucien said, more statement than reassurance. "I'm on guard rotation today anyway. Might as well watch someone who actually needs watching."
"Council approved this?" Tristan asked.
"Emmett did. Figured keeping her locked in the safe house wasn't helping your investigation." Lucien stepped aside, letting Maren pass into the warmth of the shop. "Moira's got more research to do. Historical texts, magical precedents, that sort of thing. Extra set of eyes won’t hurt."
Tristan looked at Maren, who'd already moved toward the back of the shop where Moira was likely buried in archives. Her shadows spread over the floor, relaxed in a way they rarely were anywhere else.
"You good here?" he asked.
"I'm fine. Go do your investigation." She glanced back, silver eyes meeting his. "Find something we can use."
The door closed behind him, and Tristan stood for a moment in the falling snow, trying to shake the feeling that leaving her was a mistake. Lucien was capable, the Book Nook was warded, and Maren could use the space, but it still felt wrong.
He forced himself to turn toward the square, pulling out his notebook. He needed more evidence and in a considerably shorter time frame than previously.Today needed to count.
The Mercantile was his first stop. Rufus had been one of the few people showing Maren any decency, which made him worth talking to properly.
Rufus stood behind the counter sorting inventory, his rugged features neutral when Tristan entered.
"Morning, Officer. Here about the window?"
"And anything else you've noticed." Tristan moved to examine the cracked glass, pulling out a small leather pouch of tools. "Walk me through the incident. Everything you remember."
"Lantern exploded around midnight. Cold fire, just like at the forge. Frost everywhere, glass cracked from the inside out." Rufus joined him at the window. "I was in the back room doing books. Heard the crack, came running, found this."
Tristan scraped residue from the frost pattern into a vial. Under magnification, it would show magical composition, maybe point to specific spell work. "You see anyone outside beforehand? Hear anything unusual?"
"Nothing. But I was focused on numbers, not paying attention to the street." Rufus paused. "For what it's worth, the more I look at it and really think, the more I don't think Maren did this."
"Why not?"
"Because she's had two years to cause trouble if she wanted to. Why start now?" Rufus crossed his arms. "Seems more likely someone's trying to make it look like her work, like Emmett said."
"You're one of the few people willing to agree with that out loud."
"Most people are scared. Scared makes folks stupid." Rufus's expression hardened. "But I've been around long enough to recognize a setup when I see one. Someone wants her gone. Question is who and why."
Tristan pocketed the vial. "If you think of anything else, anything at all that seemed off in the days before the incidents started, let me know."
"Will do."
The forge was next. Silas wasn't there, but his apprentice was a young bear shifter named Carter who still looked shaken from the lantern explosion.
"It turned blue," Carter said, wringing his hands. "Just went from normal to blue to cold. Fire shouldn't be cold, you know? That's wrong."
"Did you see anyone near the forge before it happened?"
"No. Just us working. And then..." He trailed off, shaking his head. "My dad says shadow witches can't be trusted. Says their magic comes from dark places and always goes bad eventually."
"Your dad's wrong." Tristan kept his voice calm despite the irritation building in his chest. "Shadow magic is just magic. It's what you do with it that matters."
"But the fire here was shadow work. I saw the patterns."
Tristan examined the scorch marks on the wall, comparing them to his sketches from previous incidents. "See how the pattern's geometric? Perfect angles, precise lines. Natural shadow work doesn't do that. It's organic, fluid."
Carter leaned closer, squinting. "I guess. But how do you know someone's copying her instead of her just being really controlled?"
"Because I've seen her magic work. It doesn't behave like this." Tristan photographed the marks from multiple angles. "Whoever's doing this has knowledge of shadow theory but not the instinctive understanding that comes from bloodline work. It's painted on instead of grown from within."
He spent the next two hours checking every incident site, collecting samples, documenting patterns. The fountain. The cracked mirror in the child's bedroom. The wards at Thomas Wells's shop.
Every single one showed the same shadow signature that looked right on the surface but fell apart under close examination. Too precise. Too deliberate. Too calculated to be natural magic responding to its wielder's instinct.
Someone was faking it. Someone with enough magical knowledge to be dangerous but not enough innate power to do it perfectly.
By noon, Tristan had samples from six different locations and a growing headache from trying to make the pieces fit into something coherent.
He stopped at Griddle & Grind for coffee and information. Twyla took one look at him and poured something dark and bitter.
"You look like death warmed over," she said, her fae-touched features creasing with concern. "When's the last time you slept?"
Instead of answering, Tristan downed half the coffee in one go, welcoming the burn. "You hear anything useful? People talk in here."
"They do. And what they're saying is that Maren's dangerous, cursed, going to destroy the town if she's not stopped." Twyla's expression soured. "Fear talk. The kind that leads to violence if someone doesn't step in."
"I'm stepping in."
"I know. But one man can't hold back a whole town if they decide to act." She refilled his cup without asking. "Find your evidence fast, tiger. Time's running out."
He left the café and headed toward the residential areas where the vandalism had occurred. Thomas Wells's shop first, then the houses reporting cracked wards.
The patterns became clearer the more he looked.
Boot prints that didn't quite match any single person but rotated between three or four different sizes.
Spell residue that suggested multiple casters working together rather than one powerful witch.
Tool marks on damaged wards that indicated physical force alongside magical interference.
This wasn't one person. This was coordinated.
A group working together to frame Maren while making it look like her power was destabilizing. But why? What did they gain from her exile or imprisonment?
Tristan crouched near Thomas Wells's door, examining the shadow marks burned into the wood. His fingers traced the pattern, feeling for magical resonance.
There. A secondary signature underneath the obvious shadow work. Faint but present, like someone had laid one spell over another to hide their tracks.
He pulled out his magnifying glass, studying the marks under enhancement. The secondary signature felt wrong. It wasn’t shifter, witch, or fae. Something else entirely, or something deliberately obscured.
"Find what you're looking for?"
Tristan spun, hand going to his knife. Thomas Wells stood behind him, arms crossed, expression hostile.
"Evidence," Tristan said, straightening slowly. "Your door's been tampered with multiple times. Different people, different spells, all designed to look like shadow work."
"Or she's just good at covering her tracks."
"She's not covering anything because she didn't do it." Tristan took a photograph of the secondary signature. "Someone wants you to think she did. Someone who benefits from turning this town against her."
"And who would that be?"
"That's what I'm trying to figure out." Tristan pocketed his tools. "But I will figure it out. And when I do, you and everyone else who jumped to conclusions are going to owe her an apology."
Wells's face showed his distaste at the idea. "You're too close to this. Too close to her."
"I'm exactly as close as I need to be to see what's actually happening instead of what fear wants me to see." Tristan stepped past him, done with the conversation.
The rest of the afternoon yielded more samples but no clear answers. Nothing cohesive. Nothing that connected to a specific person or group.
By the time twilight started creeping in, Tristan had a bag full of evidence and no clear picture of who was behind it.
Whoever was doing this wanted her punished. Not just gone, but punished. Exiled or bound or worse, made an example of in front of the entire town.
But why? What had she done to inspire that level of targeted hatred?
Tristan headed back toward the Book Nook, mind working through possibilities.
Personal grudge seemed unlikely, she'd kept to herself for two years.
Magical rivalry didn't fit because shadow witches were rare enough that competition wasn't really a factor.
Fear was the easy answer, but fear alone didn't explain the level of planning and coordination this required.
Someone had a reason. A specific, deliberate reason for wanting Maren destroyed.
And he had two days left to figure out what it was.
The Book Nook appeared through the falling snow, windows glowing warm. Lucien stood outside, breath fogging in the cold, his posture relaxed but alert.
"Quiet day?" Tristan asked.
"Very. Moira and Maren have been buried in books all afternoon. Fascinating stuff if you're into obscure magical history." Lucien's green eyes tracked the street behind Tristan. "Find anything useful?"
"Evidence of sabotage. Secondary magical signatures under the obvious shadow work." Tristan rubbed his eyes, exhaustion pulling at him. "But nothing that points to who or why."
"The why matters more than the who sometimes."
"Yeah. That's what's bothering me." Tristan pushed open the door, warmth washing over him. "Someone's got a reason. I just can't figure out what it is."
Inside, Maren looked up from a massive tome. Moira sat across from her, both women surrounded by stacks of books and scattered papers.
"Did you find something?" Maren asked immediately.
"Sabotage." Tristan moved closer, setting his evidence bag on the counter. "But no clear motive, no specific culprits. Whoever's doing this is smart enough to stay hidden."
"We might have found something too," Maren said, glancing at Moira. "Something that explains the how."
"Show me."