Page 3 of Shadow Witch

“Give Paige some leather trousers, too, so she won’t be a whiny brat.”

“I’m not a whiny brat!” Paige shouted, her hands balled into fists at her side. “My mother is dead! After decades of wondering about her and missing her, and then finding out she was alive, she’s slipped right through my fingers!”

“Well, that’s what they want you to think, anyway,” Devon said with a shrug as he crossed his arms, his biceps bulging under his sleeves.

Paige slid her tired, stinging eyes closed and shook her head. “No. Please stop giving me hope where there is none. I can’t handle it. They found her body. They made a positive ID. It’s over.”

“Or they want you to think it’s over,” Devon retorted.

Paige let out a muffled scream as her head dropped back between her shoulder blades. “Stop saying that!”

“No!” Devon yelled back. “Because it’s true. We have a clue. Yes, it’s vague, but if we put our heads together, I think we can track it. Now, do you want to find your mom or not?”

“A clue? Didn’t you buy a vowel in the last round when they found her body? Am I speaking an alien dialect?” Paige said.

“You don’t understand, Paige. Take it from someone with over a century of experience in this world. You’ve been here for what? A month? You have no idea how real things can look when they aren’t at all.”

“He’s correct. Your mother appeared to be dead thirty-odd years ago,” Drucinda added. “Yet she was not. Now she appears to be dead again. I have my doubts.”

Paige swallowed hard, the lump forming in her throat again. Could they be right? Could this all be an elaborate hoax to get her to give up on her mother?

“How would they do this?”

Drucinda shrugged. “Elaborate magic. A system we don’t yet understand.”

Her hope waned almost immediately. “Wait, you’re saying this is a magical hoax, but only with magic no one has ever used before.”

Drucinda heaved a sigh as she tried to explain. “Higgins is something none of us have ever seen before. He has somehow resurrected himself into a form we don’t understand. There is something big happening here. Something they needed all those artifacts for years ago.”

Paige shook her head. “I’m just not sure I can let my heart hope again.”

“Then let ours. You do the grunt work.”

“Grunt work?” Paige asked.

“Yes, we need an artifact,” Devon answered. “It’s the one thing that will tell us about your mother’s status for certain. But only if we can find it and calibrate it.”

Dewey gasped. “You’re not talking about…” His voice trailed off as his eyes went wide.

“Yes, I am,” Devon said with a tense jaw and a nod.

“What?” Paige asked. “What is it?”

“A…” Dewey lifted his chin, his voice taking on a reverent tone. “A soul compass.”

“A what?” Paige shot back.

Dewey sighed. “Way to ruin the moment, Paige. Soul compasses are only the single greatest artifacts of all time. They literally monitor someone’s soul and can tell you if they are alive or dead.”

“Why has no one used one of these before? Like thirty years ago maybe, when she went missing the first time?”

“Because we needed you,” Drucinda said. “But you were gone, too.”

“Me? Why do you need me?” Paige asked.

“Soul compasses work off the emotional connections,” Devon answered.

“Well, why didn’t you use Drucinda’s that was forged by the flames of love or whatever?”

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