Page 114 of In Rising Tides

“What does it feel like?” Wilder asked.

He hadn’t felt anything unusual coming from the shell at all, except a closeness to her.

“It sounds like a song. A siren’s song.”

That made sense. It came from the sea, from her.

“Are the ley lines only in the sea?”

Jordania shook her head, and her hair waved like a thick curtain in the wind. “No, they’re all over. There’s one that runs right under the ancient willow.”

Wilder had felt the lure of the ley line then. He had always felt that the magic was more powerful there, ancient even.

There was still so much he didn’t know about this land and magic.

“I’ve heard the willow sing,” he said, reminiscing over the lilting lullaby it often sang to him.

“My mother told me it was the gods singing to us,” Jordania said. “A crack in the veil that kept us separated from them.”

“Is that true?” Wilder asked.

She shrugged. “I’ve talked to the willow, but it never talks back.”

“You talk to the tree?” Wilder asked incredulously, his mouth opening in surprise.

“Of course,” she tutted. “Magic is all around us and in all things. Most of it is unpredictable and wild. Everything I do, from scrying to potions, is just asking a question and letting the magic answer.”

Wilder pondered her words. He hadn’t ever thought of speaking to the willow before.

“The ley lines have been very active since her return. That’s where all of their earthquakes are stemming from,” Jordania spoke like she were puzzling the information out aloud.

“Why do you think that is?”

She chewed on her bottom lip as she thought it over.

“Possibly because she has returned, tied to magic that is not of the sea, but of the land. It unbalances.”

A skitter of rocks had them looking behind them at the cliff face as Otto meandered down the treacherous path.

“Oi,” he said. “Is she here?”

Jordania and Wilder shared a look before Wilder answered. “Who?”

Otto trudged a few steps closer, his heavy boots crunching smaller rocks under their wake.

The beads in his white hair gleamed in the moonlight. He smiled a toothy grin when he stopped just in front of them.

“There she is,” he gazed at Jordania. “Our Lady of the Stars.”

“This is who you meant?” Wilder asked with wide eyes.

Otto grinned and crouched into a squat on Jordania’s other side. “You thought I meant Lyra?”

It burned to swallow down his feelings on the matter, but he answered truthfully.

“I had hoped.”

Jordania patted Wilder’s knee. “Sorry to disappoint.”