A stone witch had lived here. Considering the placement of the stones, also maybe a moon witch. I slipped inside the circle.
Shock spiraled through me. Whatever I had expected, it wasn’t this. In the center of the circle were bones. Buried. Wrapped in roots from long-dead trees. Or . . . No. Not exactly.
Her bones held old magic. Old energies. I reached for them. They tasted faintly of death and decay, or something very like it. Something very like the power in the energy sink I had just left behind.
And also, something very like my own energies. Familiar.
A frisson of shock quivered through me.
I studied the bones wrapped in wood roots and buried in the circle. The roots looked odd. And I realized the bones were not wrapped in the roots. The bones were roots.
Like me, she had put down roots and become part tree. She had died, a long time ago. Seventy-five years? Longer ago than that? I had no way to tell.
I didn’t want to understand what I was seeing. But I did.
One of the Ames witches had been an earth sprite, a yinehi. Like me.
Within her belly, the fragile bones of a baby lay. The yinehi had been pregnant.
My whole soul stilled, my spirit shaking and withering. The yinehi had been pregnant.
Her blood had been spilled here.
I sank into the ground, all of what I was and all of what I might become centered on this curled ball of bone-wood. I circled her, my power reaching out. Touching the fragile remains.
Buried with her, beneath her left hip, was the rusted knife that had killed her.
She had been sacrificed.
Or murdered.
Or . . . Or she had killed herself here. A yinehi was buried here, in a witch circle. Her bones had turned fully to wood, to roots. She had become a tree.
Had she lost control of her bloodlust? Had she been put down like a rabid animal?
I trailed the trunk up toward the surface and saw where the tree had been cut down, ages ago, the stump splintered and broken by an ax blade. Tears gathered and I watered the earth here, crying, my grief trickling down as I understood. As I accepted what I was seeing.
The magic of death and decay. It was my magic, but turned and taught to destroy. That was why my bloodlust had been so quiescent. That was why it was taking so long for my fingertips to heal. Unlike the Green Knight, Soulwood hadn’t recognized the energies as a danger.
The power of the dead yinehi in the circle, the death and decay, had reappeared now, in the modern world. There was another bloodline similar to mine.
I felt sick and agitated and eager all at once. We were trailing a type of yinehi.
Whoever this current yinehi was, she was of this line, part of this woman’s lineage, a great-niece or second cousin. The current yinehi had been using the darkness of her power, killing and storing those dark energies in a power sink. And she knew Hugo Ames and Cale and Stella. Somehow, she was tied into the commune or tied to one of the commune members.
I backed out of the ground and placed my hands in my lap, thinking, eyes closed. Quivering and shocky, I took several long breaths, seeking to calm myself. Tears dried on my face.
Hugo Ames had come from witch roots. Hugo was not a witch.
Hugo Ames had been married and having an affair with a college girl. Hugo was dead.
We were still searching for the killer. And that person came from a bloodline like mine.
I knew it was time to tell my friends all about me. Because this burial was . . . was what might need to be done to me if I lost control of my bloodlust. Fear and horror shivered through me.
I forced my eyes open to see Occam in front of me, on one knee, elbow propped on the other knee, his chin in his hand. I had the feeling he had been there for a while, watching over me. His eyes were warm and full of tenderness. “Hey there, Nell, sugar.”
I caught my breath. “Hey there, cat-man.”
“No vines and thorns around you this time. I’m thinking you’re learning better control.”
I reached up and touched my hairline. “No leaves.”
“Just the one.” He reached over and plucked a miniature leaf from near my temple. He slipped it into his pocket over his heart. My heart melted and he twined