Page 103 of Woods of the Raven

“A hoard can also be a hiding place where something valuable is hidden from others to be used at a later time.”

“Which is precisely what we found.”

“Yes.”

Lorne took a breath. “The bodies are all bones now.” When we’d arrived, the bodies had been safe in the hoard, undisturbed and protected, looking like they were simply sleeping. Once I’d disturbed the hoard, broken the protections, time had caught up with the murdered people and turned them from cadavers to bones.

The state police would soon be out here with protections from the elements, tarps to keep the rain out of the pit, and floodlights. The FBI would be arriving in two hours, Lorne was told, and his attendance was required, as well as that of anyone who could help place the bodies in a historical context. Taylor had already been asked and was thrilled to lend her expertise, and of course there would be a forensic anthropologist on site to start identifying the individuals.

Lorne’s deputies, Victoria Day and Peter Rooney, were on their way to watch over the bodies while Lorne took me home. We were holding hands as I explained to him, again, that the site was safe.

“Whoever put these bodies here stored them because, as Taylor showed us, originally the rift was supposed to be here.”

“Not on your land.”

“No.”

“Okay, so somewhere, probably close,” Lorne surmised, “is a very small doorway, and that’s where Rulaine, and everyone and everything like her, crossed into Osprey.”

“Yes.”

“But what about the slip at the harvest festival?”

“That’s not a rift, it’s a trap. She created that to catch me and kill me.”

“So she just conjured that out of thin air.”

“Yes, she did. She was very powerful.”

“But not as powerful as you.”

“Different kinds of magic. Hers was glamours, enchantments, alternate realities, curses, and incantations.”

“And what’s the difference between an incantation and a spell?”

“With an incantation, you’re creating something from nothing, and it normally requires a sacrifice or offering of some kind. A spell is a prayer with added stuff.” I chuckled. “Smoke or water or something you’re blessing. It’s simple and easy and takes only your intention to manifest.”

“Like the rice bottle at the front door of the house.”

“That’s right. I put it there, I tapped the lid, told it what I needed it to do, and it’ll do it, so mote it be. The latter marks the end of the spell and releases it out into the world to do good work.”

“So everyone can cast spells?”

“Yes. It’s not only the dominion of witches. For the good of all and the detriment of none, as long as what you’re doing helps, nothing will block the magic.”

“But there’s a difference between you, who can actually fly and call on power in your hereditary line and speak to the dead—”

“I speak to ghosts,” I corrected him. “Those who wish to speak to me. And I send them on their way. But I’m not a necromancer who resurrects and forces the dead to speak to them. I don’t have that power.”

“That’s what Declan was saying that night we first spoke to him, that we’d need a necromancer to speak to the fae you killed, that guy Sola.”

“Right. The one Argos ate.”

“That’s so incredibly gross.”

I shrugged.

“Okay, you don’t wake the dead. I don’t have to worry about zombies with you.”