Chapter Thirty-Three
Walker
F reya might never love me, but I couldn’t let her face the ghosts of her past by herself. I didn’t realize how much revisiting her dead goddessmother would cost her, however, until I found her broken on the bedroom floor.
“She’s gone,” she repeated.
I crouched beside her and tried to harden my aching heart. Snot and tears covered her reddened face, and when her eyes met mine, the wealth of the sadness in their depths broke the last of my defenses.
I pulled her into my arms.
Friends hug, right?
As Freya collected herself, she breathed deeply into my neck and left a trail of goose bumps in her wake. I swallowed. Without meeting my gaze, Freya jerked away from me, wiped the mess off her face, and stood on shaky legs.
“Sorry,” she mumbled and cleared her throat. “I should tell you what I learned.”
There she goes, I thought, pulling away again.
I reminded myself I shouldn’t have expected otherwise, shoved down my hurt, and rose to my feet.
“Yeah,” I said and ran a hand through my hair. “Yeah, of course.”
Freya recited what Josephine’s projection had told her, though from how her retelling awkwardly paused and continued, I was certain she left out the more personal details. As Freya spoke, she paced, and I could practically see the wheels of her mind turning. I listened intently and tried to grasp everything she recounted.
“So,” I said, “the voice Elle heard in her head as a child—that was this sorceress? The sorceress who Cady is apparently supposed to stop because whatever the High Witch wants to do with Elle is not going to work?”
Freya nodded. “And my mother did protect the chimera, though I’m not sure how. I’m also not sure how she managed to disobey the High Witch without incurring her wrath.”
Freya paced, and I turned over what she had told me again.
“This is so frustrating,” Freya growled. “There has to be more!”
“Wait,” I exclaimed, “Josephine said ‘where my spirit still thrives, I’ve left you the information you need’? Doesn’t that seem kind of redundant?”
“You’re right,” Freya replied and chewed on her lower lip. “Josephine was never one to repeat herself, and I was clearly already speaking to the remnants of her spirit.”
An idea struck me.
“Do you think there’s something else here?” I asked. “Some other clue?”
We hesitated then launched into action. While Freya investigated the dresser, I searched the closet, and Arion sniffed under Josephine’s bed. I cast out magical feelers, but I sensed nothing but the remnants of old spells. After digging through an exorbitant amount of shoes, dresses, pantsuits, and fancy coats, I emerged from the closet empty-handed.
“Unless she’s still haunting her high heels,” I said, “I found nothing.”
Freya cursed under her breath. “There has to be more.”
She walked into the hallway, and her magic hummed. I wondered if she cast out her own magical search, and my suspicions were confirmed when she darted toward the elevator. I followed her along the pristinely white tiles and ignored the pictures of young Freya, Sybil, and Josephine.
Freya approached a small, weeping fig tree. Though its leaves were green, the top layer of soil was dry. Freya’s magic buzzed again, and my breath caught.
“She’s in the tree?” I asked. “That’s the one she tripped me with when she first met—she twisted its roots around my ankle.”
“My mother gave it to her,” Freya murmured.
She ran a finger down one of the drooping branches of the tree, and I fought the urge to try to hug away her sadness. Arion rose on his hind paws, sniffed the soil, and hissed.
“This doesn’t feel like the music box,” Freya explained, “Josephine’s power imbues it, but this has something different too. Something old.”
I closed my eyes and willed my magic to sense foreign power. Though Freya’s magic came to my immediate attention, something darker loomed beyond it. The closer I got to the tree, the more apparent the ancient magic was. Something thrummed in its soil, quietly but consistently. It was as if the magic had always been there but tuned to such a low frequency, it could go unnoticed.
I sighed. “Here goes nothing.”
Before Freya could stop me, I grabbed the base of the tree and squeezed my eyes shut.
Nothing happened.
Freya cleared her throat. “What were you expecting ?”
I opened my eyes and cursed. “I don’t know. Something? Maybe for an Indiana Jones style secret passageway to appear?”
Freya raised a brow in confusion, and I sighed.
“You never appreciate my references,” I muttered.
Freya snorted. “You’re just mad that not everything responds to your cool, rare warlock magic.”
“Jealous?” I mocked, but Freya’s attention returned to the tree.
She ran her hand down the length of it, and magic reverberated in response to her touch.
“I don’t think it’s actually the tree,” Freya mused.
She dug her hands into the soil. Magic boomed and raised the hair on the back of my neck.
“Something’s in the soil,” I agreed.
We dug into the earth and scooped it aside. Magic roared louder, and the tree roots scraped my fingers. Freya and I shoveled more dirt out with our hands and reached deeper into the pot. Behind us, Arion mewled and paced. When my fingers brushed something hard, foreign, thunderous magic stole my breath, and lightning danced on my skin. I pulled back and caught my ragged breath.
Freya noted my reaction and dug deeper.
The moment her hands grazed what hid in the bottom of the pot, her magic swelled, and wind lifted the ends of her curly locks. She sucked in a breath, forced both hands into the soil, and pried a square object out. As soon as it was freed from the earth, she dropped it on the tiles. I studied the dirty object.
“It’s a book,” I realized. “Huh.”
???
Freya
Soil covered the book, but an emerald cover shined underneath it. Though its magic was so ancient and potent I wanted to recoil, I forced myself to smear a hand across it.
“There’s no title,” I said.
Now that it was free from the earth, I realized the hint of Josephine’s magic had stemmed from a spell meant to conceal and protect the book. The magic in its pages felt nothing like Josephine’s.
Now, the book’s magic was free to thrum in the air.
It roiled through the room like a dark cloud. Though it didn’t crawl over my skin like the magic of the dark witches or chill me to my core like Madame LaLaurie’s power had, something about it was sinister. It filled me with a sense of foreboding.
“Something is wrong with that thing,” Walker whispered.
I gulped. “It’s the only clue we have. We must open it.”
Regardless of my words, I hesitated. There was something wrong with the book—I could feel it in the air.
Cursing, Walker flipped the book open to a random page and hissed. As I studied the drawings, my mouth fell open. My curiosity overwhelmed my repulsion toward the magic. I flipped to another page, then another. The pages were thick—not made of paper, but papyrus. Graphs and equations and a strange language covered them. Some parts had been crossed out, then rewritten, then rewritten again.
“This is some of our most basic herbology,” I said, “but the way it’s written, it’s like the owner of this book was figuring it out on her own.”
“Or his own,” Walker argued. “It could be a warlock.”
I scoffed. “Sure.”
Warlocks had existed before, but the beastly magic before me was all witch.
I flipped to a page deeper in the book and gasped. Magic pounded so loudly and deeply, it rattled the blood in my veins, but I couldn’t shut the book. I was too fascinated. The spell wasn’t written in any language I recognized, but something about the symbols’ harsh lines and sudden curves was familiar.
“Those look like the ones in the cave,” Walker said, “before they translated into the words your mom taught you.”
I trailed a finger against the crimson ink and hissed. The text stung my skin and blazed red, even after I removed my hand from it.
“It’s written in blood,” I realized and snorted. “Appropriate, I guess, considering this is one of the most gruesome blood spells I’ve ever seen.”
I understood the drawings on the page well enough to recognize the dark magic.
“Are you okay?” Walker asked.
I nodded but closed the book. Its roaring magic dulled to a low thrum, and I took a breath of relief.
“Do you think this belongs to the sorceress?” I asked.
“It has to, doesn’t it?” Walker said. “I just wonder who or what she is. You’ve never heard of her, right?”
“Never,” I said.
I thought of the blood spell and shivered. “She’s nothing good. We need to show this to the Elders.”
With one hand, I grabbed the book and gritted my teeth against the magic pulsing under my skin. We hurried into the elevator and down to the lobby.
Gloria waited for us at the doors. The woman had an uncanny sense of timing. Her gaze immediately homed in on the book in my hands.
“What,” she snapped, “is that?”
“The key to figuring a way out of the mess I’ve made,” I answered confidently.
For a long moment, Gloria pondered the book in my arms.
“Elder?” I asked.
Gloria snapped out of her reverie and nodded.
“Very well,” she said, “the rest of the Elders are waiting for you in the lobby.”