Virelight Trilogy - Book One - The Witch of Westwood Lane

"What do you want from me?" Elara's voice slices through the thick air like a sharpened blade, flat and steady, arms crossed tightly across her chest…her battle stance perfected over years of dodging disinterested relatives and half-hearted lectures. 

It was equal parts armour and bait: she dared whoever faced her to try and crack it. To tell her what to do. To break her.

Rowan doesn't answer immediately. 

Instead, his sharp eyes flicker around the sitting room with the precision of a hunter stalking invisible prey. He scans the warped wooden floorboards, their edges curling like old parchment, the sagging bookshelves burdened with tomes that seemed to breathe, and the cracked chandelier overhead, its crystals twinkling faintly even in the dim light. 

He even squints briefly at the tapestry on the far wall…a woodland hunt scene frozen in time, where the stag keeps subtly shifting position every time you blinked, as if the scene was alive, waiting for its cue to leap out.

Outside, the rain batters the stained-glass windows with increasing insistence, droplets hissing against the leaded panes like a thousand whispered secrets trying to force their way inside. The sound mingles with the house's own chorus: the fire in the hearth pops and cracks, though no one has stoked it, casting flickering shadows that seem to have a mind of their own, dancing too cleverly to be merely a flame.

Above, the old pipes of the home sigh…a long, weary groan that sounds suspiciously like the house itself was eavesdropping. Or judging. Probably both.

Rowan's voice cuts through the charged silence at last, low and calm but edged with something harder beneath. "I'm not your enemy."

Elara tilts her head, scepticism blooming fully now. "Are you sure about that? Because you're standing like a man preparing to interrogate a bomb."

Rowan's lips twitch, barely a smile. More like his face had considered it, then chickened out. "The Council sent me to assess magical anomalies," he says carefully. "Not to antagonize you."

"Tragically, you're doing both," she mutters.

His gaze snaps back to her, steady and focused, like a blade honed by restraint. 

Rowan Thorne was a man built from control, every breath measured, every word weighed before being released. He looked like he was carved from buried expectations and silent promises.

"But if you're sitting on something powerful," Rowan continues, voice dropping lower, "the Council needs to know. For everyone's safety."

Elara raises a brow, unimpressed. "Define 'powerful.' Because right now, the kitchen houses a gremlin-possessed blender that won't stop whirring, a cupboard that keeps sprouting leeches like it's breeding season, and a baguette that's been making obscene gestures since I arrived. None of those scream 'apocalyptic threat.'"

Rowan's jaw twitches…a flicker of irritation or maybe restraint. Elara files that quietly away as a small victory.

He steps toward the fireplace, his eyes rising to the gallery of portraits above the mantle. Most were of Aunt Isadora…captured mid-mischief in various states of magical mayhem. One showed her catching lightning in a teacup, face twisted in a grin that was half triumph, half madness. Another had her mid-air, tangled in a levitation spell gone sideways, legs akimbo and hat askew. One particularly aggressive painting featured Isadora glaring defiantly, a floating spoon crown hovering above her head like a misbehaving halo.

But Rowan wasn't looking at those.

His gaze settled on a smaller, sun-faded photograph tucked behind a row of antique keys. The edges were curled and fragile, but the image was clear enough to make Elara pause. Isadora standing beside a boy…young, pale, maybe fourteen, with unruly dark hair and storm-grey eyes identical to Rowan's. The boy looked wary, guarded, like someone who had already learned the world bites.

"That's you," Elara says softly, stepping beside him.

He doesn't answer right away.

"I studied under her briefly," he murmurs, voice low. "Before she left the Council's education division. She was...brilliant. Unpredictable. Dangerous. Unique."

Elara's mouth quirks up in memory, "She was also fond of spiced plum wine, believed hats had opinions, and apparently once hexed the mailman for folding a letter incorrectly…according to rumours. So...yes. Unique."

"She crossed lines," Rowan says quietly. "Not all of them are safe."

"No," Elara agrees, voice steeling. "But we should never follow the expectations of society's conformities or the rules made by them."

That makes him pause, jaw tightening as if about to argue, then he thinks better of it.

"You trusted her," she says, watching him closely.

"I trusted she wanted to help people," Rowan replies. "I trusted she saw things the Council or even the universe didn't. And now...we might never get all the answers."

"Then why didn't the Council look for her when she vanished?" Her voice sharpens, cold and accusing. "Why did no one care? If I had known earlier..."

Rowan's shoulders stiffens, the weight of unspoken truths pressing down. "Some of us did. But in her case...it was buried. Above my clearance level at the time."

"You were here though," she presses, "You must have known they weren't fully disclosing the investigation."

"Briefly," he admits reluctantly. "The official story was that she fled. Took something forbidden."

"And you believed that?" Elara's voice is incredulous.

He looks away. "I didn't want to."

Silence stretches between them, thick and suffocating as the fire murmurs quietly behind them. The ghosts of words unsaid hovers in the heavy air.

Elara reaches into her pocket, fingers curling around the key she had found earlier.

The metal was warm, pulsing faintly with living magic…as though it had a heartbeat.

She holds it out slowly, an offering, a challenge.

Rowan's brow furrows in recognition. "Where did you find that?"

"Upstairs," she says. "In a specially locked box. Which, knowing my aunt, meant it was important."

He steps closer, hand hovering inches above the key but not touching it. His eyes locked on the ridged silver design, the way the metal shimmers like moonlight caught in water.

"That's no ordinary key," he murmurs reverently. "Witch-forged. Tempered in starlight. Only a handful exist."

"Starlight," Elara repeats, smirking. "That's a very poetic word for 'magical and probably dangerous.'"

"It's also volatile," he warns. "Witch-forged objects carry intention. Purpose. They're unpredictable."

Elara turns the key over, fingers tracing the delicate runes etched along its length. "What would it open?"

Rowan's gaze meets hers, sharp and serious. "Something she didn't want the wrong people to find."

They stand like that for a moment…two halves of a secret weighing heavy between them.

Then the pendant Rowan had left on the table begins to glow softly, humming with quiet power. Syncing with the key in her hand…twin heartbeats of an ancient bond, acknowledging the key's power.

Rowan leans in, breath catching. "The key is a powerful artifact."

"Lovely," Elara mutters. "A secret key with power and mystery. Part of some secret mission I didn't even know I inherited or wanted."

"Sounds about right," Rowan says with a faint grin.

Moony suddenly sneezes loudly from his perch, a startling and entirely inappropriate sound that slices through the tension like a needle popping a balloon.

"Gods, the atmosphere in here is so thick I could butter toast with it," the cat comments, tail flicking lazily.

Elara ignores the interruption. "So, what now? I wave the key at the walls and wait for a trapdoor to open?"

Rowan shakes his head in denial, then points at the pendant. "That acts as a beacon. If you find anything—unusual magic, shifting wards, anything magic-related…you can try channeling your magic through it."

"What am I? A summoning magical tech support?" she retorts.

He doesn't smile. "Standard Council protocol."

"You must be fun at parties."

"I was never invited."

Elara chuckles despite herself.

Rowan moves toward the door. "I'll be around. Don't burn anything down."

"No promises," she shoots back.

The door closes behind him with a solid thud, echoing through the house's bones.

Outside, the wind shifts.

Inside, the house seems to exhale, releasing a held breath.

Moony stretches lazily, leaping from his chair. "You like him."

"I don't."

"He broods well. Likely reads poetry in his spare time, probably owns a tragic backstory. Your exact flavour."

"You say that like I have a type."

"You do," Moony says knowingly. "Sad eyes and secrets."

Elara rolls her eyes, but couldn't deny the flutter in her chest as her fingers curl around the pendant.

It buzzes softly, like the hum of a spider's web straining in the wind. There was something about it…something unsettling…not just its power, but its familiarity. 

As if part of her already knew what it was for and was pretending not to remember.

A cold twist settles in her gut.

"I don't trust the Council," she mutters.

Moony pads over to a low bookshelf and knocks aside a dusty scroll with a paw. "They don't trust you either," he says cheerfully, eyes gleaming. "The Vault markers have lit up. FYI." 

"Vault markers?" Elara echoes, moving closer.

"The standing stones in the cemetery. One moved," Moony says, tail flicking with amusement.

Elara freezes. "Which one?"

"The one near the Finch plot." He gives a sideways glance. "Why don't you check that old, scrolled-up map on the bookshelf? You might get some answers."

She turns to the bookshelf in question, pulling free the rolled parchment. The ink was faded and blotchy, but as she unfurled it, faint gold threads shimmer and flicker to life, weaving and pulsing softly.

"What are these lines?" she murmurs, tracing them with a trembling finger. "They intersect here. Is that the graveyard?"

"Leylines," Moony says knowingly. "And see these? Containment magic. Old. The kind they used around the Night Vaults during the war."

Elara's breath hitches, heart pounding like a drum.

"Looks like Aunt Isadora was guarding something."

"Yes," Moony says with a solemn nod. "And now, it's waking up and you need to solve the mystery, before the council does."