One by one, the coven brought their offerings…
Ollie went first. He knelt at the circle of air and laid the blue jay's quill within it. For a moment, nothing happened. Then a breath of wind rose from nowhere, stirring the mist, and the quill dissolved into a hundred tiny feathers of blue-green light that spun upward and vanished into the ring.
Heila came next, to the circle of water. She unstoppered the little vial of Ashlynn's tears and let them fall, drop by drop, into the soil. Each one glowed with a pale, inner light, splashing on the ground before it sank into the circle without a trace. Ashlynn felt them go, the happy ones and the sad ones together, and her throat tightened.
She knelt at the circle of earth herself.
