Page 4 of Magic's Rise

But Horace had not received that invitation.

Were it up to me, he and everyone he talked into his scheme would have been kicked out of Hartford Cove. Both Haut and Owen vetoed my proposal, though. Apparently, trying to murder the pack leader is a forgivable offense.

As we near Main Street, my gaze catches on a tent erected around what used to be the statue of Nesse, the wolf shifter who led the founders to this forest to rebuild a home.

The statue had been destroyed during the fight against the rogue huntsmen, but it’s finally getting replaced.

Why the secrecy, though?

Curious, I release Tris’s hand to dart toward the tent opening.

“Rowe, what are you—” Tris cuts himself off when he sees where I’m heading.

“Is that the new statue?” Delilah’s long legs easily catch up with me.

“Let’s see.” I push aside the flap at the entrance to peek inside.

A polished bronze wolf gleams at the center, her head raised to the sky just like the original Nesse. All perfectly on the up and up, except for the addition that now stands at her side; a short witch with a wand held high.

My jaw drops in horror. “No.”

Behind me, Tris laughs. “Wow, they really captured your shortness.”

“It could be Mel. She was a bigger part of the fight than I was.” I walk over to stand next to the witch, and dismay fills me that our heads are at the same height. “Who approved this nonsense?”

“I believe that would be the town council.”

“But I’m on the town council, and I never approved…” I wave a hand at the bronze me I stand next to. “This!”

“That’s what happens when you skip meetings.” Tris hustles me back out of the tent. “Practice your grateful acceptance face for the big unveiling.”

I throw my head back against his shoulder, trusting him not to let me walk into anything. “Why is my life filled with so much burden?”

Delilah’s green-blue eyes twinkle with amusement when we rejoin her. “It’s not every day you get immortalized in bronze.”

Sure, she can joke. She’s not the one being placed on a literal pedestal in the middle of the town.

I glare at my sister-in-law. “I seem to remember twelve other witches standing there with me.”

“You’re the one who killed the boss, though.” Tris squeezes my shoulders. “Take the honor in the spirit of its intent, sparky.”

“That’s it, I’m changing my last name,” I grumble as he leads me up the road toward our long driveway. “From now on, I will be a Shultz.”

Delilah claps her glove covered hands. “I’m delighted to hear it.”

“It’s just adding a new name to the list, Ms. Branning-Wendall-Rothaven-Shultz.” Tris kisses the top of my head. “Once you go down that path, you’ll be tacking on Hartford and Haut, too.”

My shoulders slump with the weight of all that expectation. Sometimes, I want to go back to when it was just me and Tris, in a car running on fumes.

Had we turned the other direction on the highway and never come to Hartford Cove, would my life be less complicated?

Were that the case, I never would have discovered my magical heritage or the burden that came with it. Then again, I also never would have reconnected with Owen or met Haut. Tris would still be cursed, and Ambros might not have ever learned of his father’s evil.

And Delilah probably wouldn’t have escaped that well where she and the other witches were buried.

Not to mention I would probably be insane by now, my mind broken by the unused magic inside of me, if Bryant hadn’t killed me before I reached that point.

I pull back my shoulders and straighten my spine. After all that, I can handle a little statue in the town square.

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