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Aster giggled. “Oh, Saige, you mentioned him being beastly, but you failed to mention how dreamy he was.”
Evelyn froze as Cyrus caught her gaze. He brushed past her as he set the books on the kitchen table.
“You find me beastly, Princess?” he said with a smirk. Those eyes of his held a level of suggestion Evelyn couldn’t handle.
“The description was not used as a compliment, Huntsman,” she said.
Goddess, Cyrus’s smile only grew.
Evelyn turned her attention to Aster, ready to change the subject. “What else did you bring?”
“Father’s honeysuckle wine, five-year vintage.” Aster held up the growler covered in dust.
Evelyn gasped with excitement, taking it off her hands. “He’s a saint.”
“And my mother’s apple crisp cookies.”
“Also a saint,” Cyrus said, grabbing the bag of cookies and helping himself.
Hours later, they were gathered at Evelyn’s makeshift kitchen table with open books scattered between them along with piles of scribbled notes. The fire danced rays of orange and red onto their goblets of wine. Maxie had curled herself in the middle of it all, sound asleep amidst their research.
Cyrus pored over a book about vampyr lore, the spine frayed from cracks threatening to split at any moment, while Aster deciphered McKenna’s journal, jumping between one book to the next. Evelyn read through a large volume of Callum and the History of Beasts. She landed on a page depicting the rat-like demon she and Cyrus had defeated days ago, apparently called a confach. It had terrorized the ruins for three centuries.
Interesting.
The book itself held eight centuries’ worth of history. Nothing depicted anything remotely close to the vampyr. It was not a creature of this land, as Evelyn had predicted. She searched for the possibility another creature could be at play, but nothing killed like the vampyr either or aligned with the state in which the victims were left.
One particular passage drew her interest regarding a young witch who’d transformed herself with dark magic and earned the name “banshee.” Her coven had bound her magic, an extinct and outlawed practice amongst witches in the new age. A witch cut off from her magic often led to death, which sadly befall the “banshee”. The people of Torren claimed the wind still carried her dying cries, but the story felt like a fable to warn children from staying out at night. It held no actual answers regarding the murders.
Evelyn sighed, looking over the list she’d made of the victims’ situations. Both young women had been drained of blood and possessed blue-hued skin, and they’d both been bitten in intimate areas. Both had body parts missing, though which parts differed. Eyes and a heart.
In the margins, Evelyn had noted the small details related to witches, black candles at the Kerrys’ home and McKenna’s journal written in Olde Script. Evelyn struggled to find a connection.
“Anything with the journal?” she asked Aster.
“Well, it appears McKenna’s notes are about magic. Research, really. Not necessarily how to use it, but about it. The history of it. The energies. Spells versus enchantments.” Aster flipped to another page. “She never mentions who told her these things, though.”
Cyrus ran a hand through his beard. “Let’s forget who was teaching her for the moment. Why would she want to learn it if she’s human? I thought magic was part of a witch, not learned.”
Evelyn nodded. “You’re right. It can’t be learned per se, but perhaps McKenna did have magic.”
“But you said the McCarthys weren’t witches?” Cyrus said.
“They aren’t,” Aster said. “Though there’s a chance their ancestors were. During the great burnings, many families stopped using their magic to protect themselves from persecution. Not using magic starves it, and it’s possible over generations the McCarthys diluted their magic enough that it left their bloodline. Perhaps McKenna was one of the first to have it again. Rare, but not impossible.”
“I agree.” Evelyn nodded. “That is a possibility, but McKenna and her family would’ve noticed she had magic around age five. Doesn’t it seem odd they never sought guidance from the covens close by? Why wait until she’s twenty?”
Aster shrugged. “That reason alone is why I don’t believe McKenna had magic. When magic resurfaces in families, it’s celebrated, not feared.” She gestured toward the book. “I think this is mere interest, not necessarily teachings or personal use.”
Another dead end. They all sighed.
“Any mention of the vampyr?” Evelyn asked.
Aster shook her head. “No, but”—she turned the journal so they could all see it—“this word here means ‘white.’ She writes it often, followed by another word I can’t translate.”
“Does that mean anything to either of you?” Cyrus asked. He had learned Aster was a witch earlier in the evening.
“Not me, no,” Evelyn said.
