The coven had extremely powerful wards, with impressive coverage, around the perimeter but within the perimeter the defenses were sorely lacking. That wasn’t a huge surprise, the coven came here for privacy and the wards were meant to keep predators and wanderers out, not defend against an attack. There was no need for inner defenses.

  At least, there wasn’t before yesterday.

  Now that we knew Graves was snooping around, the village needed some serious defenses, and it needed them quickly.

  Our little group gathered around Harmony’s kitchen, which was the warmest place in the house. We pulled several stools up to the massive heavy wood counter, and tried to make a decent plan.

  “Here you go, a copy of grimoire,” Harmony announced as she dropped a heavy bound book down on the counter in front of me. When the massive leather bound tome landed, it did so with a deep thump, sending vibrations through the entire countertop.

  I stared at the book in awe, it had to be six inches thick, and it looked ancient. “How many grimoires did the coven bring here? This thing must weigh a ton.”

  “Two full wagon loads. Each one individually wrapped, to protect them from the elements during the journey,” Harmony explained. “Most of them are stored within the council hall, but there are a couple families that have private libraries.”

  “That’s quite an achievement, I can’t imagine dragging that many books all the way across the continent,” I said, gingerly opening the book. It appeared to be written in some sort of latin, I could make out some of it, but not all. I was pretty rusty.

  “Well, what’s a witch without her knowledge? I was just a young girl when I made the journey, and without the books I would have had to learn everything from my elders.” Harmony sighed, “I love this lot, but trust me when I say, teaching isn’t their strong suit.”

  “And this contains knowledge on how the perimeter wards were created?” Clara asked, as she leaned over my shoulder.

  “My mother was one of the original designers. Everything we need is in there,” Harmony announced proudly.

  Agnes scoffed. “We have the original designs, why would you want to change them?”

  “Because the perimeter wards are designed to keep people out, not protect people. What we need is something a little more… active,” I mumbled.

  “Do you honestly think that Lady Adel and Lady Olivia would sanction that?” Eliza whimpered.

  “I honestly don’t know, but it doesn’t hurt to do some research,” I murmured in return. The book was fascinating, it was unlike anything I’d seen back in Roanoke, probably because the Melting Snows coven originated from a completely different area. Most covens weren’t exactly eager to share their knowledge, at least, not after the witch hunts and inquisitions. Grimoires were often hoarded and protected, not shared.

  I could see some similarities to the magic I was familiar with, the underlying principles were the same, but the practices were completely different. I wouldn’t exactly call it better, some of the processes were very inefficient compared to what I was familiar with, while others streamlined the magic. It was quite apparent that their knowledge of wards and protective sigils was far superior to Roanoke.

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  After glancing through the book for a minute or two I begrudgingly handed the tome over to Clara.

  “You’re not going to read it?” she asked, surprised.

  “I’d love to, but I can only make out a few words right now. It would be far more efficient for you guys to go through it,” I admitted. “What we’re looking for is a way to either block, or disable someone from rushing directly into the village.”

  “Not kill?” Eliza asked.

  “You never want killing wards,” Agnes grumbled. “Because you never know who’ll wander into them. You want Dakota or Chyanne to trigger something accidently, and lose a limb? Containing a threat is much safer, at least in the short term.”

  Harmony nodded, then gently took the book away from Clara. After flipping through the pages for a minute or so she gently placed the book back on the counter, open to a specific page of runes. “I don’t remember the exact formation, but this section should have what we need,” she declared.

  The page was filled not only with general information about how to channel, and suspend a spell effect within an object, but appeared to have a comprehensive list of runes, and equations to explain the optimal placement of each rune. Every single spell required half a dozen runes, placed precisely, in order to prevent the spell from degrading.

  “This is a lot more complicated than I expected,” I admitted. “I’m used to just painting a couple runes onto a stake and then pounding it into the ground. I didn’t think there was so much to this.”

  “You never learned sacred geometry? Or geomancy?” Agnes snorted. “What exactly did they teach you back east?”

  “Compound spell effects, and focused casting,” I replied. “I admit wards were never my specialty, but it feels like I’m staring at a lost art here.”

  Eliza frowned, “What’s focus casting?”

  “Casting magic through an object, to improve the range and narrow the area of effect,” I explained. “You know how witches use wands, and soothsayers use crystal balls in the stories? Those are focuses. I knew Clara didn’t use one, but I thought it was just personal preference. You really don’t know about focuses?”

  “I’ve seen them mentioned a couple times in the library, but nothing specific,” Clara admitted. “Since they were scattered mentions, and never went into detail, I never thought it was important.”

  “They’re very important for dynamic casting,” I mumbled. “Since Thyra didn’t mention it before I’m guessing her Coven doesn’t use them either. It’s not important right now, they don’t really help with creating wards, but I’ll go over the basics with you later. They do make a serious difference in combat.”

  “Well I, for one, hope we never need them. I understand the need to protect ourselves, but I trust in our wards. They’ve been keeping us safe until now, and if this Graves company has been probing the parameter, that means they’re not confident they can penetrate our defenses,” Harmony said, before pausing. “That being said, I can’t blindly place my faith in our defenses. I have a little girl to protect. It’s always better to be prepared. So let’s figure out what we can do to improve our defenses around the village.”

  Pulling a stool up next to Clara, Harmony immediately started a lecture on the strengths, and weaknesses of each rune, along with the effects that could be suspended within each formation. The more complicated the spell, the larger and more complicated the rune formation had to be to support it. It could take days, or weeks, to properly design and test a complicated pattern, but once we had one we could template it. I didn’t think we had that kind of time.

  “We need something simple, but effective,” I declared. “Easy to implement, but effective defensive.”

  “A wall then,” Agnes muttered. “Detects incoming threats and creates a defensive structure. It’d be a pain to remove them afterwards, but protects the village in the short term.”

  “Excellent choice! Safe for everyone, if they’re ever accidentally triggered, but gives the guardians plenty of time to mobilize if they manage to make it this far,” Harmony praised. “If you give me a couple hours I can figure out the formation. Shouldn’t be too hard, I can do it while I’m waiting for the bread to bake!”

  “Then all we need is the elder’s permission to install them,” Eliza reminded everyone. “But it shouldn’t be that hard to convince them, right?”

  “As long as I’m not the one that has to do the convincing,” I said. “Pretty sure Olivia still doesn’t like me, and she might shoot down anything I suggest out of spite.”

  “She’s not that bad,” Clara muttered.

  “Maybe, but I don’t think it’s worth taking the chance,” I replied.

  “I can do it. Adel and I go way back, she’ll listen to me,” Agnes grumbled. “She may not like change, but she’ll do what’s best for the people.”

  “Thank you Agnes,” Harmony said, placing a hand on the older woman’s arm. “We appreciate it.”

  “Bah! Just doing what needs to be done, like always,” Agnes muttered.

  As the woman pushed away from the counter, and slowly started heading towards the door, Eliza turned towards Clara and me.

  “What do we do now?” Clara asked, turning towards me. “I feel like we should be proactive, but I’m not sure what we could do next.”

  “Honestly? I’m not quite sure. I feel like we could use some advice,” I said, pausing for a moment before turning towards Clara. “And I think I know just who to ask.”

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