"Are you excited for the festival, Mayor?" Barley asked brightly, bounding up the porch steps with a clipboard nearly as tall as he was. "Because the gnome brewers just challenged the Mycari spore dancers to a public performance duel, and we may need extra insurance. Again."


    I blinked at him. "The... festival?"


    Right. The Founding Festival.


    It was the single most chaotic event on the Graybarrow calendar. Neighboring towns came from all over to participate, bringing everything from performance troupes to enchanted pie contests. Some sent their quirkiest performers, others sent entire guilds. Graybarrow ran five overlapping parades, three simultaneous musical showdowns, and hosted a brewing feud that technically qualified as a magical siege and a public safety hazard.


    I sighed, set down my lukewarm tea, and muttered, "How did I forget that was this week?"


    Barley opened his mouth, but a flurry of shouting from the square cut him off.


    "He said my brewing lacked bite!" yelled a furious gnome—Pibbin—as he swung wildly from a flagpole by the seat of his trousers.


    Yuuhi descended from a rooftop, exasperated and sparkly with what looked suspiciously like enchanted jelly. "Mayor, we need a ruling. Again."


    I squinted toward the smoke curling up from the square. "Someone tell me what Pibbin did this time."


    Barley raised a clipboard. "He dumped volatile fermentation fluid on someone else''s root keg. Said it was ''scientific sabotage.''"


    A furious voice echoed from somewhere above: "It was a precision experiment!"


    I sighed. "Pibbin’s suspended for the next hour. Both legally and literally."


    Yuuhi pinched the bridge of her nose. "He’s rigged a barrel-launcher."


    "...Of course he has."


    I stepped into the square.


    Even before Barley reminded me, there’d been plenty to deal with—enchantment failures, animals acting strange, and ill-advised magical experiments. The gnomes had gotten into another licensing argument over their distillery carts. The Mycari escalated a prank war involving bioluminescent spores and mildly hallucinogenic toadstools. The Kindlings wanted to monologue about civic pride over fire-pylons during lunch rush.


    Just another week in Graybarrow.


    And now, I realized with a groan, it was about to get even worse.


    The Founding Festival was only a few days away.


    Typical.


    "Mayor!" Barley reappeared, this time skidding in with wild eyes. "The ribbon charms! All of them!"


    "Define ''problem.''"


    "They’re spelling things."


    I would literally rather fight a dragon in my underwear again.


    We followed the glow toward the town fountain, where the enchanted ribbons—meant to dance cheerfully in the breeze—were now corkscrewing through the air in a twisted spiral.


    Yuuhi arrived and peered up. "Is that... a limerick?"


    Barley winced. "A rude one. About goats."


    Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.


    I narrowed my eyes. The ribbons flickered and rearranged again.


    NOW ACCEPTING SACRIFICES.


    I took a deep, steadying sip of tea. Uselessly cold.


    "Barley," Yuuhi barked, storming over with her sleeves rolled and eyes blazing, "did you steal from the restricted scroll bin again?"


    Barley shrank. "It was just a scrap! Nell said it was probably fine! The label was faded! I wanted to help."


    "It was labeled Caution: Sentient Templates, in burn-etch and glow-ink. In three languages."


    "Well, the glow wore off!"


    FEED ME THE STRONGEST GNOME.


    Barley, still hunched and guilty, glanced up. "I mean... if it wants the strongest gnome..."


    He hesitated. Then mumbled, "We could offer it Pibbin."


    "Tempting," I said, deadpan.


    We spent the next hour wrestling the rogue enchantment, calming enraged gnome brewers, and negotiating a ceasefire between the Kindlings and the poetry booth. The Mycari attempted a synchronized teleportation rehearsal that ended with half of them inside the bakery and one inside my filing cabinet.


    By nightfall, I was scorched, sticky, and absolutely done.


    Back on my porch, Roku lounged by the door. Barley idly flipped a fizzing pebble. Yuuhi leaned on the railing, sipping something pink. Too pink to be natural.


    "You going to survive the festival, Mayor?"


    "Maybe."


    "The betting odds are even."


    I sighed.


    ***


    The following day arrived with the faint scent of burnt dough, a Kindling shouting match two blocks away, and—thankfully—a complete lack of dramatic summoning glyphs.


    I’d half-expected that crimson glow under my feet again. It didn’t come. Not for several days.


    Part of me was relieved—this town was a spark away from combustion, and the festival was already falling apart. The other part... missed her. Not that I’d admit it. Especially to her. Kira wouldn''t let me hear the end of it.


    I rolled my shoulders and headed toward the square.


    Preparations had progressed—or at least mutated. The square was a mess of optimism, poor planning, and weaponized enthusiasm.


    Gnomes bickered over barrel sizes. A Mycari trio tried to hang spore-lanterns that floated off the moment they turned their backs. Someone had enchanted the weather charm to be “cheerfully random,” which now meant rotating between sunshine, sleet, and confetti storms every five minutes.


    And beneath it all, something felt... off.


    Magic thrummed in odd pulses. A cart levitated three inches off the ground, then thunked back down without warning. The air tasted faintly of static and lavender. Familiars were acting jumpy. Even Roku refused to step past the edge of the forest trail that bordered the town.


    Yuuhi joined me near the eastern path, her eyes narrowed toward the woods. "Something’s wrong with the weave. You feel that?"


    I nodded. The tension wasn’t just festival nerves. It hummed underfoot, subtle but sharp, like standing on the edge of a spell that hadn’t quite finished forming.


    I motioned to Roku. "Stay."


    He didn’t argue.


    Yuuhi looked like she wanted to follow, but I waved her off. "Keep an eye on Barley. And maybe Pibbin. Especially Pibbin. He always drinks excessively during festival time."


    "Take this," she said, tossing me a stone with a ward sigil etched deep into its face. It pulsed once, gently. "Just in case."


    The woods greeted me with familiar shadows and loamy quiet. I walked the edge slowly, letting the subtle shifts in the weave guide me. Something had been tampered with.


    Near the base of an old root-twisted oak, I saw it: the faint gleam of something angular and out of place.


    I knelt.


    A beacon.


    Concord made.


    Buried halfway in the earth, worn by time, likely long dormant—until recently.


    The casing was cracked. Dirt shifted oddly around it, like an animal had dug too close and jostled the mechanism.


    I brushed more soil aside, revealing the activation runes—dim, but faintly humming.


    Something had turned it back on.


    Just enough of a pulse to stir the weave.


    My jaw clenched.


    So that''s what had been meddling with the town''s magic.


    No wonder the animals were acting strange.


    I disabled the core with a flick of intent. Then I stood there a long time, letting the silence settle around me, the weight of old memories stirring beneath the roots.


    Concord Tech didn’t just turn up by accident. They''d planted it this far in the Outskirts...


    Bastards.


    I didn’t tell Yuuhi.


    Not yet.


    But as I stood under those tangled boughs, one thought wouldn''t leave me alone: Kira.


    It had been days since she''d summoned me. The quiet should’ve been a relief, but it wasn’t. Not entirely.


    Back in town, the chaos would only escalate. The festival would grind ever forward, whether we were ready or not. And if she did summon me again—well, maybe it was time to take a little initiative.


    That evening, I found Yuuhi scolding her apprentice, Nell—a sharp-eyed young mage usually buried in books, now elbow-deep in something fizzing and ominous. Her gloves smoked faintly, her robe had acquired at least three new scorch marks, and her hair looked like it had lost a battle with a lightning spell. Probably had. Nell had insomnia, a reading addiction, and questionable boundaries when it came to forbidden spellcraft.


    “If Kira calls on me in the next two days,” I said, “I’m inviting her to the festival. Portal and all.”


    Yuuhi didn’t look up. “Took you long enough.”