Lumi Sparklewind's Arc

Chapter 3 of 4

The yellow roses still glowed too bright the next morning. Lumi tried to calm them alone. She pressed her hands to the petals and hummed her softest charm. The light dimmed, then flared brighter than before. Worse, new shapes moved at the tree line, drawn by the shine. Her magic was not enough. She needed the archive, and she needed a plan for the troll. She whistled the warden call again. Olly dropped from the branches without a sound. He landed on the porch rail of her cottage and studied the roses. "They're louder today," he said. "Every hungry thing in this forest can hear them. We can't wait for Crim Seeper to come to us. We set the trap." "With what bait?" Lumi asked. "The scrolls," Olly said. "He wants the old magic in the archive more than these blooms. We let him think he can reach it." A blue streak cut through the ferns and landed hard beside them. It was Rosie, Lumi's cousin, red curls wild, one eyebrow still missing from an old tracking spell. She had pulled Lumi out of trouble more times than either could count. She looked at the glowing roses and did not smile. "Forty-four," Rosie said. "My spell dragged me here. What did you break this time?" "The whole forest, a little," Lumi said. "But I have help now." "You always say that." Rosie folded her arms. "Then I end up fixing it. What's the plan?" Olly spread a wing toward the treehouse. "Every troll has one weakness. One thing that stops him and sends him back to the rot he crawled from. Crim Seeper's weakness is written in the true scrolls. I know where they're kept." They flew to the archive together. Olly dug through a locked chest and pulled out a cracked scroll. He read fast, beak moving. "Salt-iron and moonlight," he said. "Poured on him at once. It burns the dark magic from his gut." Lumi's heart lifted. "Then we set the bait here. He smells the scrolls. We wait above." Rosie was already gathering salt-iron dust into a cloth pouch. "I brought the salt. Of course I brought the salt." She tossed a second pouch to Lumi. "Don't drop it." They worked through the afternoon. Olly laid a fake scroll in the open window. Lumi called her butterfly and pulled its stored light into a jar to hold as moonlight. Rosie set the salt-iron along the sill. Night came. The ground shook. Crim Seeper crashed toward the archive, jaws wide for the bait. "Now!" Olly screeched. Lumi flung the light. Rosie threw the salt. The troll shrieked as the two struck together. Smoke poured off his skin. He clawed at his own belly, then dropped and sank into the dark earth, gone. The roses below dimmed to a soft, steady glow. The forest went quiet. But the true scroll had said more, and Olly's face had gone grim reading it. "There's a cost," he said. "The salt-iron drains the heart-tree's last strength. We may have saved tonight and doomed the tree."