Page 26 of Enchanted Shadows
“Uncle Owen!”
I lifted him into a big hug. He might be twelve now, but I was still bigger. And I was going to hug him until he told me not to. “Warrick. How are you?”
“Good. How are things here? Did they all pass the test?”
The fact that he’d taken an interest in what I was doing andremembered it was the timed trial today did my heart good. “All but two.”
“I’m sorry,” he told me.
“Me too,” I told him back as I ruffled his dark hair before scooping up little Arden to put him on my back.
I turned to find Jorah speaking to Molly, giving her a quick hug. Most of the team were heading in to shower, but a few stayed back to chat.
“Hey,” I snapped. “No outside influence. You know they aren’t supposed to have contact with family and friends for the full ninety days. Letters only.”
“Right, I forgot,” Jorah said as she pulled back quickly.
I knew for a fact she rarely forgot a thing.
“Excellent job to all of you today!” she told the rest of them.
“Nana is making cookies,” Warrick told me. “But can we practice with the bow and arrow you got me?”
“We have all day,” I told him.
We headed with Krew and Jorah to the barns before Warrick, Arden, and I would walk back to the castle.
“Do try not to have too much fun today,” Jorah told us.
“No promises,” I told her and bounced Arden on my back, his giggles loud in my ear.
“Thank you for volunteering,” Krew told me with a slap of a hug to my back. “You didn’t have to do this with your afternoon off.”
“No problem.”
I didn’t tell him that I was exactly where I wanted to be. That being around their family was like being around my own. Being a part of their family grounded me. Krew and I hadn’t just been best friends, we were brothers. Their familywasmy family.
Jorah and Krewwere back from Nerede. I had finally showered and was ready to walk back over to my cabin, when there was a rapid knock on my door.
“What is it?” I groaned.
Miles opened the door without delay. “It’s the forest.”
“What about it?” If there was another fire, I was going to personally filet whoever did it.
“Someone saw some magic,” he began.
I refrained from rolling my eyes. Magic, in an enchanted forest? Who would have thought?
But then he clarified, “Blackmagic. General Whitman is already down there.”
“Oh.” An image of the life leaving Theon’s eyes popped into my head. He was dead. I knew he was dead. I had seen it with my own two eyes.
“The guards who saw it say it lookedjustlike Theon’s.”
I stilled. It had to be someone else with black magic like Theon’s. There was no other logical explanation. But on the other hand, that forest was teeming with the impossible. Katarina’s magic had been siphoned into the sword, which was home to the purple hydrangea tree; so what if some of his remained?
Miles kept going, “And your training team is a bit rattled now. Two of them saw it as well.”
