Tangled in Moonlight: Unshifted

Crone… My mind races, grasping at fragments of memory. Magister Orion told me about them, I'm almost positive. Something about three priestesses of the Goddess… which one, though? Damn.

You don't seem to be a very good student, Grimoire says thoughtfully.

Oh, shut up.

"It's you, isn't it? It has to be!" Eleanor's face blossoms, her cheeks flushing bright pink as her eyes sparkle in my direction. She steps forward impulsively as she tucks her book into a bag at her side.noveldrama

Vester stiffens and side-steps to come between us again.

"Stay back," he warns, but Eleanor barely acknowledges him, peeking around him like a curious animal.

"Your magical signature is all over these wards," she breathes, her eyes wide. "I've been tracking energy patterns for months, but nothing like this. The complexity, the layering—it's beyond anything I've ever seen!"

I hold up a hand, trying to slow her torrent of words. "Wait. What do you mean, my signature?"

You should know this. Grimoire's disgust with my question is almost palpable. Have I been teaching you in vain?

"All magic leaves traces, but yours… Yours is so delicate. Like the most beautiful signature." Her hands flutter as she talks, and then she presses them against her face with a little squeal. "I can't believe it. It's you! I've been looking for you."

"Hold on, Eleanor. I'm not the… Crone."

Eleanor shakes her head vigorously, her braids flying around her head. "It must be you! The knowledge you have far exceeds anything I've ever seen."

Vester moves closer to me, voice pitched low and arm out to dissuade the overexcited woman from approaching. She takes a step closer every time he steps back, though, so he eventually stops trying to reach my side. "Luna, we should take her back to camp. She seems suspicious."

"I'm not suspicious!" Eleanor's face goes pale as she waves her hands in the air once again, like a scarecrow with a seizure. "I swear, I'm not a suspicious person! I'm just a witch, trying to find other witches. I'm not strange. Well, I am strange, but I'm not suspicious…"

Eleanor's excited rambling cuts off with a startled squeak; my bodyguards have silently formed a tight circle, boxing her in. Two more position themselves at my back, their muscular frames tense and ready.

Eleanor's eyes dart between the men surrounding her, her eyes widening with each one. A hiccup escapes her lips as she stares at Vester, her hands twitching now in front of her as she twists them together.

The book she'd tucked away moments ago seems important to her.

"What's that?" I ask, gesturing toward the bag as I keep my voice neutral. She doesn't seem like a threat, but she also messed with my wards. That isn't normal-people behavior.

And while I want to assume she's on my side as a self-proclaimed witch, it doesn't mean our interests or morals align, either.

The woman's face brightens immediately. "Oh! This?" She pats the worn leather satchel at her hip. "It's my magic journal. I document everything I learn and observe about magical energy patterns."

Before anyone can stop her, she yanks the book out and lurches forward, thrusting it toward me. "Here! You can look—"

Vester moves with supernatural speed, shoving her back with enough force to make her stumble. His face remains impassive, showing no remorse for his roughness, as Eleanor shrieks and falls to the ground.

I hiss, "Vester!" through clenched teeth, feeling terrible for her. She's strange, but to react so strongly when she's just trying to show me what I'm asking about…

But he knows best, and I swallow the rest of my protest in silence. Better to make sure it's not dangerous first, even if it feels kind of like bullying a lost puppy.

In the momentary confusion, Selene darts forward. She snatches the book from Eleanor's grasp and trots back to me, head held high with her prize.

The book isn't very magical, she reports thoughtfully. No sense of power at all. Just paper and ink.

The journal is smaller than I expected, bound in worn brown leather with countless loose papers sticking out from between the pages. The edges are frayed, and coffee stains mark the cover. I flip it open while keeping one eye on Eleanor, who watches with a mixture of anxiety and reverence.

"Please be careful with it," she says softly. "It's everything I've learned over the past three years."

The first pages contain meticulously drawn diagrams—circles within circles, strange symbols arranged in patterns which seem vaguely familiar yet distinctly amateur. Nothing like the elegant runes Grimoire has taught me to trace. These are more like a student's attempt to recreate something they've only glimpsed.

It's curious how familiar it looks, though.

I turn more pages. Eleanor's handwriting varies wildly—sometimes neat and precise, other times a frantic scrawl that's barely legible. Observations crowd the margins:

Three attempts—failure. Energy dissipated too quickly. Need anchor???

Cedarwood, WA—??? why so much magic in a small town?

That last note makes me pause.

She's been tracking you, Grimoire observes, his mental voice unusually contemplative. Or at least, tracking magical signatures that led her to you.

"What were you doing in Cedarwood?" I ask, looking up from the journal.

Eleanor blinks rapidly. "I live nearby. Stopped at a bookstore and kept feeling something strange in the air. I spent a week there and found a spot in one of the local parks with a lot of residual magical energy there, but it was all…" Her fingers wiggle. "Muddy? I couldn't really see it, but I knew it was there. I've been following the traces ever since. Well, the Goddess had to give me a few hints, though."

Flipping through more pages, I find hand-drawn maps with locations marked, dates, and times. Detailed notes on energy fluctuations and theories about their origins. It doesn't seem like I'm the only one she's tracking—

Fae, Grimoire says, after jumping to my shoulder to peer at the journal himself. They leave different traces. She doesn't seem to understand the difference. How fascinating. The girl has talent. Like you.

Selene eyes Eleanor, her tail wagging slowly. Raw potential but no direction?

Pretty much, yes.

"Did anyone teach you magic?" I ask, wondering if she's attached to some larger organization we should know about.

Eleanor shakes her head. "I'm self-taught. My grandmother had some ability, but she died when I was twelve. Left me her pendant—" She touches a small stone hanging from a leather cord around her neck, "—but no instructions. I've been figuring it out as I go."

I continue leafing through the journal. What do you think? I direct my thoughts to both Grimoire and Selene.

Harmless, Selene responds immediately. But we don't know if she can be trusted.

Grimoire sounds less convinced. Her ignorance makes her dangerous. She's been blindly following magical traces without understanding what she's tracking. How are we the first to find her?

Good point. If Eleanor was wandering the wilderness alone, tracking magical signatures without protection or true understanding, it's a miracle she hasn't been killed already. Especially with the events of the last few months…

The last few pages of the journal contain a dramatic change in her writing. The neat observations give way to excited scribbles, the ink bleeding through the paper where she pressed too hard:

FOUND IT!!! Strongest signature yet. AMPLIFIED. Crone???

Below this, a crude map sketched in haste, with Wolf's Landing clearly marked as her destination, as if seen from above.

"You came here looking for someone called the Crone," I state rather than ask, closing the journal but keeping it in my hands. "Who exactly do you think that is?"

Eleanor stares at me, tilting her head as she inspects my face. She bites at her lip. "I thought you were… Well, it's fine. The Crone's the most powerful witch. She's part of the trinity—the Maiden, the Mother, and the Crone."

My eye twitches. It's hard not to take offense. "Out of those three, you'd guess me as the Crone?"