Page 70 of Crossroads Magic
“She passed. A long time ago. Life happens, Anna.” He lifted his chin to look at me. “You made a mistake. You’ll make plenty more. You can’t linger in the shadow of a single mistake. It will shade the rest of your life.”
His eyes would not let go of me. I knew there was much more he could say about that. That the lady’s name wasveryimportant. To him, at least. I’d just caught another glimpse of the length of his life.
And I knew that he would one day share it fully with me…once I had earned his trust.
Trust is hard to gain and easy to break.
Oh boy, did I know that! I’d just had my face slapped with it.
Chapter Twenty-Two
June: The demon who broke through the wards has been banished. Trevalyan sent him running. His attempt to possess the crossroad failed only because Trevalyan is who he is. But who summoned the demon? They do not answer to just anyone….
I closed the notebook with my finger in the page I’d reached, so I could think about what I’d just read.
My mother hadn’t made the connection because the two events were too far apart in time. Six months after a demon had tried to possess the crossroads, Harper had come to my mother asking her to find her stolen summoning token.
Did Harper summon the demon? She was always angry about something. Had someone, like my mother, pissed her off enough for her to bring in a demon to do her dirty work?
Or had the token been stolen more than six months before, and used by someone else?
Or, once the demon had failed in their task of taking out my mother, Harper had taken matters into her own hands?
Only, she had been with Ben that night.
I rubbed my temples, and realized that my legs were numb from sitting cross-legged on the sofa for too long.
Painfully, I unfolded them and got to my feet. Time to move. Time to speak to real people.
I pulled on my mother’s ponchoandthe gloves, and headed outside. On the sidewalk in front of the inn, I paused, and looked up and down the street. And today there was someone to see. Trevelyan was walking along the street, a dozen houses up from the inn and on the other side. His back was to me.
“Trevalyan!” I called, not sure if he would hear me from that far away. I took in a deep breath and shouted his name once more.
He turned and saw me. Lifted his hand and beckoned.
Pleased, I crossed the road and jogged to where he waited. I arrived breathless. “I need to exercise more!” I said, between breaths.
“You seem to work hard enough in the kitchen.” Trevalyan’s eyes sparkled behind the round glasses. He had become a regular at the long table in the dining room. Breakfast and dinner every day, often lunch, too.
“Where are you off to?” I asked.
“Oh, a slow stroll to the edge of the settlement to check the wards,” he said easily. “Come with me.”
“Okay.” I fell in beside him and we walked at the slow pace he had mentioned. “Tell me about the wards. My mother was worried about them, before she died.”
“They were failing,” Trevalyan said. “I wish she had told me sooner. It was touch and go. But they are revived once more.”
“You revived them?”
“On the solstice.”
“They must be renewed on the solstice?”
“The date was a coincidence. They can be renewed at any time, preferably before they fail.” He smiled, his tone teasing.
“So they don’t run out at midnight on the solstice every year?”
“Not everything in this world revolves around the ancient calendars,” Trevalyan said complacently. “Wards are far older than any timetables ever invented.”
