Mistlight Signed Paperback - Aenigma Lights Book 2

• Same puzzle box as last book. Still holding lots of mysteries.
• Horrible, manipulating elven king.
• Same ravine as last book, still haunted and scary
• So many old secrets that are all tangled together.
• An elven wood trying to kill Kate. Or maybe absorb her.
• Two women who go from tentative friends to fast friends.
• Dwarf Twins and now Elf Twins. (Quadruple trouble)
• The mage is still trapped in one animal body after another.
• The little gnoblin comes in handy again and again.
• And, as always, a mismatched band of adventurers who become a found family.

Kate’s fingers tapped an impatient rhythm on her knee. Her earlier fear had settled down into a thick fury simmering deep inside her. Her breath came out in a cloud in the chilly air, and she tapped faster. The elf sleeping only an arm’s length in front of her twitched, and Kate leaned forward. A strand of red hair fell into her face, and she flicked it back. “Venn?”

Venn’s eyes cracked open, and she let out a groan, squinting into the late morning light. She focused on the closeness of Kate’s face and pulled back. “Are you watching me sleep?”

“Just waiting impatiently for you to wake.”

The paleness from Faron’s attack had left Venn’s face, and Kate gave an approving hum, ignoring the fact that the elf’s gaze was still clouded with exhaustion and something more broken. Venn raised her hand to rub her face, her two smallest fingers withered and black.

The fury burned hotter, and Kate swore she could almost see spots of red flickering in her vision. She resumed her tapping. “Feel better?”

“Obviously.” Venn’s eyes slid shut. “A couple of hours sleep is all one needs to come back from the brink of death.”

“Good.” Kate gave Venn’s shoulder a solid pat and stood, brushing the crusts of snow off her thick woolen cloak. “Because we’re going after Faron.”

Venn squinted up at her again. “Can we kill him when we find him?”

“Figuratively or literally?” Kate asked.

Venn frowned at the question. “How do you kill someone figuratively?”

“Take away his powers,” Kate answered, “or status, or reputation.”

Venn stared at her. “He left me to die, Kate. Literally.”

The image of blood pouring out between Venn’s fingers as she gripped her sliced-open tattoo—blood pouring out along with the vitalle that kept Venn alive—rose to Kate’s mind. She banished it and grimly picked up her pack. “We’ll discuss his fate once he gives us back the aenigma box.”

“I’m in for either type of killing.” Tribal sat up slowly from where he’d slumped against one of the other trees in the small clearing. “I may not remember how he knocked us out and kidnapped us, but I do remember waking up inside his cage right before he tried to kill us all. His face is too pretty. We should fix that.”

“If he’s literally dead,” Silas said from his own slouched-against-a-tree position, “he won’t care.”

Tribal stood, staggering before bracing himself on the trunk. “It’ll still make me feel better. The moment the spineless prince realized the trouble he’d caused was more than he bargained for, he grabbed Kate’s box like a surly brat and ran home.”

Kate looked down at Venn, who still lay heavily on the ground. “You can rest if you need to, but I’m finding Faron and getting the box back”—her anger flared so bright that the red specks of light appeared in her vision again like burning fireflies—“even if I have to search every inch of the White Wood.”

Venn flexed her hands, watching the slow movement of her two shrunken fingers. “Who needs rest?”

Kate smiled, not bothering to soften its vicious edge, and held out her hand. “Hopefully Faron.”

Venn let out a laugh and offered her damaged hand. Kate hauled the elf to her feet, Venn’s withered fingers cold in her palm.

“Great.” Kate let go of Venn and crossed her arms. “Where is he?”

Venn pressed her palm onto the large pine she’d been curled up against and tilted her head. After a moment, she frowned. “The trees remember him entering the White Wood not far from here, but then he just...disappears.”

“You mean he stepped?” Kate asked. “Shouldn’t they know where he…” She blinked at Venn. There were lights flickering in the air. “…Where he…ended up?”

The air around Venn most definitely glittered. Not red, but green.

Kate blinked again, but the lights didn’t disappear. Venn’s hair lay in its usual thick braid over one shoulder, colored with the bright reds and golds of a maple in fall. Her leather vest and clothes were the same mottled forest colors they’d always been, still dingy with travel. But a glittering mist of silvery-green light hovered around her.

“He wasn’t taking steps before he disappeared?” Tribal asked from where he sagged against the tree.

“What was he doing?” Silas said. “Flying? Because if elves could fly, that would make them more interesting.”

The dwarves’ matching black eyes were underlined with tired circles, and their matching thick black beards couldn’t hide the exhaustion filling their faces, but all around them, glints of molten copper swirled, like a cloud of tiny embers.

“Not that kind of step.” Venn shifted her hand on the tree. “Elves can move over a long distance in a single stride. They call it stepping.”

“Right,” Silas said slowly. “Faron did that to us, didn’t he? After we broke into that carriage in the ravine and started the rockslide. He stepped us away from it.”

“If the memory Kate showed us can be trusted,” Tribal added. “Although it does line up with mine of waking up in that stupid elven cage this morning.” He gestured through the trees toward the cave they’d escaped only hours before. A trail of copper twinkled behind his hand before fading.

“Faron did step with you,” Venn said, her voice hard.

“I suppose t’was nice of the dear prince to save our lives,” Tribal said blandly, “right before knocking us out, kidnapping us, and sucking away half our brains.”

“Can you step?” Silas asked Venn.

“No,” she said in a voice that did not invite questions. “If Faron stepped, the trees should know where he reappeared, but they don’t know anything. He’s just…gone. The frost pines might know more.” She dropped her hand from the tree and caught Kate’s expression. “What’s wrong?”

“You’re…” Kate looked between the elf and the two dwarves. “You’re all shimmering.”

There was a definite difference between the misty light around Venn and the glints around the dwarves. Venn’s surrounded her like a glittering fog with tendrils that stretched out and merged with the forest around her. It pooled in hollows between the roots next to her and seeped into the furrows in the bark.

The dwarves’ wrapped tightly around them like a pair of cloaks.

Venn held out her own hands. “Are you being literal here? Or is this some metaphor we’re all too tired to understand?”

“No…I can actually see it.”

“We’re shimmering? Like gemstones?” Silas elbowed his brother. “She thinks we’re precious gems.”

“About time she noticed,” Tribal answered.

“Not like gems.” Kate moved closer to them. “It’s like frost. Or sparks of fire.”

“The White Wood is already getting to her,” Tribal said, “if she thinks frost and sparks are the same thing.”

The glitters trailed every movement they made. Kate tried to focus on the glints of light. But they floated in the air like sparkling motes of dust. She raised her fingers to brush through the edge. A trail of orangey-red flickers appeared behind her own hand, burning out almost before she saw them.

“Things feel different this close to the Wood,” Venn said, her words tired. “I would imagine for someone like you, they might look different too.”

“Either that,” Kate said, “or Faron has made us so mad we’re all shooting off sparks.”

Venn let out a half laugh. “Then we’ll just set him on fire when we find him.” She shifted away from the tree to the sound of dwarven hums of agreement.

Kate pulled her eyes away from the floating lights. “Crofftus!”

A squirrel ran out on a long branch, trailing his own shimmer of bronze lights.

“Can you take us to the last place you saw Faron when he left Renault’s cave this morning?” Kate asked. “We can track him from there. But if it’s far from here, I swear I’m just heading north until I find frost pines. Then I’m gonna start shouting until some elves pay attention.”

The coward scuttled back home not far from here. Crofftus’s voice sounded in Kate’s mind as the squirrel leapt from one tree to the next. This way.

The dwarves heaved themselves off their respective trees. Venn set her shoulders, the determination in her expression almost outweighing the weariness, but when she stepped away from the tree, she wavered slightly.

Kate raised an eyebrow, but Venn waved her off.

“If you fall down, elf,” Silas said, “I’m not carrying you again. You’re heavier than you look.”

“She seems like she could go a while fueled by pure spite,” Tribal said.

Venn let out a laugh. “Spite is not nearly strong enough of a word for what I have.”

Crofftus bounded from tree to tree. Kate followed him, catching glimpses of his bronze trail whenever he passed through the shadows.

The air was briskly cold in comparison to the knot of hot anger that seethed inside her. As she crunched through the patches of snow on the ground, the events from Renault’s cave churned through her mind. The way the new drawer had opened in the aenigma box, the way Bo’s remnant had trickled out of it. His voice. The way Evan’s remnant had slid out alongside it.

Her hands closed into fists as she saw again Faron’s hands wrapping around the box, sliding the drawer shut, cutting off their voices and their remnants, then disappearing, leaving the cave empty of so many things—and leaving Venn bleeding on the floor.

She blinked the thoughts away. The tall crunchy grass grabbed at her feet, making each step more of an effort than it should have been.

Bits of brightness appeared through the woods to her right. Past the earthy brown trunks of the nearby pines and firs, slivers of bright white bark were visible like pillars of snow.

The frost pines of the elven White Wood held up a thick ceiling of deep green needles. Sunlight trickling between them flitted through air and scattered across the forest floor like it was being strewn by some frivolous hand.

Even from this distance, the air of the Wood thrummed with something Kate couldn’t quite capture. Something warm and bright, but something she wasn’t a part of. Something she shouldn’t step into.

“How close are we to the border of the White Wood?” she asked over her shoulder. “Does it begin where the frost pines start? Or are we in the edges of it already?”

Venn’s footsteps shuffled behind her. “The very edge, maybe.”

“We’re obviously at the edge.” Tribal’s voice floated up from behind Venn, where the dwarf twins moved at a trudging pace. “You can smell the stink of it.”

“Wretched Wood,” Silas agreed. “Smells like Auntie Rogan’s feet.”

“The elven Wood is not wretched,” Venn said tiredly, “and does not smell like some old dwarf’s rancid toes.”

Tribal gave a slightly apologetic hum. “It does, a bit.”

That’s the White Wood encouraging you to turn away, Crofftus said. The impression will grow stronger the closer we get to the frost pines.

Kate breathed in the faint piney scent in the air and fought the urge to turn away from it. “Just smells like a forest to me, but it feels like it would be happier if I left.”

“That suggestion,” Venn said, “is enough for most. There’s no guard at the edge of the White Wood. The elves won’t physically stop outsiders from coming in. They just encourage them to find somewhere else to go.”

The key to a clear mind is keeping track of what is yourself and what is coming from the outside, Crofftus said. Just keep your mind focused on something you want more than leaving.

“That shouldn’t be hard.” Kate focused on Faron’s fingers wrapping around the box. Her heart beat faster, and the prodding from the Wood grew less compelling.

“A clump of trees is not going to sway me from wanting to punch that prince in the face,” Tribal said.

The point where he entered the elven Wood is just ahead. Crofftus bounded along the branch of a tall fir.

Venn set her hand on its trunk and let out a growl of frustration. “I still can’t find Faron.” She spat out the elf prince’s name as though he were a festering mold. Her hand dropped heavily to her side, and she started walking again. “All these centuries,” she said quietly to Kate, “I’ve been holding out hope that when Faron is king, things will be different. That he—and I—could somehow be better.” She rubbed a hand across her face. “But, Kate, he’s turning into his father. The White Wood is going to have another King Thallion.”

Any words of comfort Kate could think of dwindled away in the face of the ranks of trees standing around them, the life of the forest so long and steadfast that it felt eternal. One corrupt king who reigned a thousand years was bleak. Two in a row was soul-crushing.

Venn didn’t look at her for any sort of answer, so Kate just walked beside her. Venn’s feet moved slowly, though.

Kate cast out, and a wave of awareness rolled away from her. Venn lit up like a bonfire of vitalle. The trees past her exploded into bright towers of light. The wave spread into the forest, fading as it went. Kate focused on the vitalle in Venn’s body. She appeared to be recovered from the fight with Faron. The only dark spots were her two fingers.

“Is your tattoo working?” Kate asked. On Venn’s forearm, under the bracer where her small crossbow was mounted, an intricate design of vitalle swirled, fueling the shield keeping that bit of death from spreading away from her fingers. “Because you’re still exhausted, even after resting in the forest.”

“The tattoo is perfect.” Venn shifted her shoulders, and her expression turned reluctant. “But ever since the aenigma box opened, the life debt is heavier.”

Her words drew Kate up short. “Because Bo’s in more danger now?”

Venn shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s not changing at all. It got heavier when the drawer opened and has stayed heavy since.”

The memory of Bo’s voice floating out of the drawer tore at something inside Kate. “I can’t believe he’s been trapped in the box.” His remnant had been so clear. And his voice. And…She clenched her hands uselessly into fists. “And Evan,” she said quietly. “It’s been twenty years since Evan disappeared.”

Venn lengthened her stride. “Then let’s not leave them in there any longer. Crofftus! How far?”

Here. The squirrel scurried down the trunk and stopped in a bright patch of sunlight, facing the White Wood. He went through here.

Kate stepped into the sunlight and stopped.

It wasn’t sunlight. She stood firmly in the shadow of a large cloud.

The brightness was from a trail of yellowy-gold light sunk into the grass itself, wrapping around each blade like a blanket. From it rose the citrusy resin scent of pines and the brisk, endless expanse of mountain skies. It prickled her skin like frost and blanketed her like snowflakes settling on a forest of needles.

“It’s remnants!” Kate turned to her companions. “The glittering is from your remnants! I can see Faron’s!”

Venn’s eyebrows rose. “That’s new.”

Kate nodded and started down Faron’s trail, pushing her tired feet faster. “I can see exactly where he walked!”

Venn moved along next to her, touching each tree they passed with a more ferocious motion than usual. “The trees remember him passing. He had the box, too.”

“He can’t be moving terribly fast,” Silas pointed out.

“Why not?” Kate asked. “He was in better shape than us when he left the cave.”

“And being near the White Wood would have healed him further,” Venn added.

“But he’ll be weighed down by his own life debt,” Tribal said, “like Venn is.”

Venn stopped and stared at the dwarves.

“What life debt—” Kate straightened. “Oh…”

“You did save his life,” Silas pointed out to Kate. “I’m not exactly sure what happened before Tribal and I woke up, but when we did, Faron was dying, then you put your hands on him, and he…got better.”

“Then he threw you into a table,” Tribal added, “which feels ungrateful.”

“I’m not sure if you both saved him,” Silas said, “or if it was just Kate, but the scabby, mewling prince definitely owes someone a life debt.”

• 634 pages