Free Lichgates: Book One of the Grimoire Saga (an Epic Fantasy Adventure) by S.M. Boyce Page B

me.”
    She walked toward the car and shook her head, restraining a sarcastic comment about where Ourea could stick its time zones and monsters.
    The Camry wasn’t actually hers. She rented it from a local couple each summer for next to nothing. It was their extra car, rusty and dented, which she assumed had long ago been paid-off and kept only out of convenience. It had only one headlight. Though mostly green, it did have a blue hood and a yellow passenger’s side door. Oh, it was a thing of beauty. It was also the only car in the lot. It wouldn’t jump alive any second. It might not start, but that had nothing to do with magic. It was just old.
    She shoved her hands into her jean pockets and looked out over the poorly lit gravel lot. The hikers who came here every day had normal lives that came and went. They didn’t know a thing about Ourea or the lichgate on the secret trail.
    Maybe it was all a dream. Maybe she was about to wake up in the gazebo, or even better, in her car, never to see Ourea again. Then, she could get back to her life.
    “Kara?”
    Her eyes sprang back into focus. She was leaning on the car, looking out over the parking lot. Braeden stood by the passenger’s side door, one hand resting on the hilt of his broadsword. She laughed and simultaneously stifled the urge to cry.
    “Are you all right?”
    She nodded and reached for her keys, the metal rattling as she pulled them out of her pocket. A dawning realization made her pause with one hand on the door handle.
    “Of all the—my keys survived those roots, but my seven hundred dollar phone didn’t? Are you kidding me?”
    “What about roots, now?”
    “Nothing.” She sighed and unlocked her door.
    She had to fiddle with the cracked handle until it opened, and when it finally did, she slipped into the driver’s seat. The cloth chair rubbed her bruised back through the tears in her shirt. She reached across the passenger seat to unlock the other door, but paused halfway. She could probably leave Braeden. Nothing was stopping her from driving off and pretending that this had never happened. Her fingers hovered on the handle, but she ultimately reached across the final inch of space and opened the door with another sigh. He unbuckled his scabbard and held it as he climbed in.
    Kara glanced through the rear-view mirror as Rowthe slunk into the forest with a swish of his shadowy tail. She said a little prayer to the engine, held her breath, turned the key, and breathed again only once the car started. Braeden’s sword hilt rattled against the window, and the prince in her passenger’s seat fidgeted with his seatbelt.
    “That doesn’t work. Just hold it if we pass a cop.”
    He laughed. “Fantastic. I can survive isen, but I’m not certain I could survive a crash in this archaic box.”
    “Something tells me you can’t exactly be a car guru.”
    “I told you that I travel out to the human world all of the time, remember? I usually find my way out here on isen hunts. I spent half of my adult life out here.”
    Kara took a deep breath and gripped the wheel tighter.
    Just go with it.
    “Right. So how do you find the isen?” she asked.
    She shifted gears, toying with the fantasy of driving her borrowed car along the old, hidden trail and straight into the lichgate. In her daydream, the gazebo exploded in what she considered to be just revenge. Lots of fire was involved.
    “We get reports of missing yakona, usually,” he said, answering the question she’d already forgotten she’d asked. “Whenever there are rumors of even one isen, I have to investigate. When Richard taught me to hunt them, it was the only thing I could do better than anyone else. Since Hillside is the closest thing I have to a home, this is how I repay them.”
    “I can’t tell which you hate more, isen or Carden.”
    He scowled and looked out the window as she turned onto the main road. She should’ve kept her stupid mouth shut.
    “Isen enslave souls. It’s hard not