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“Unfortunately, not to me either.” Aster turned to Cyrus. “Anything in the lore of vampyr?”
Cyrus ran his hand through his hair and let out an exasperated sigh. “Sadly, no, nothing that I don’t know already. I’m still wondering how it would’ve made it across the Sapphire Sea, considering sunlight and the need to feed. Thus far, we’ve only come across evidence of one vampyr. It would’ve taken a whole crew to get here.”
“There’s no way they would’ve gotten through Morrow’s Harbor,” Evelyn said.
Aster and Cyrus gave her questioning looks. She felt the need to elaborate, but doing so might reveal her ties to the efforts against the vampyr back home. Fine. They both knew she was a witch, and her knowledge of vampyr already gave away she was most likely from Sorin. The push and pull of keeping others at a distance and letting them close warred within her. It was becoming exhausting holding it all back, and the trust she had built with Cyrus and Aster so far made it difficult, too.
Evelyn’s identity as a witch was out. The intricacies of the prophecy were deep-rooted in the witch culture back in Sorin, and Evelyn hoped it would take considerable time or luck before either of them drew conclusions that she was Daughter of the Goddess.
That’ll be you one day, Evelyn. Protecting our people, defeating the darkness.
Evelyn’s mother’s words resurfaced from all those years ago. As she sat in her dimly lit studio with books all around her, a sense of purpose overcame her, despite being an ocean away from her coven. These murders were a part of the efforts against the vampyr, too, and though she didn’t imagine this had been what her mother envisioned, it felt close enough, and revealing what she knew only helped.
“Morrow’s Harbor is situated in northeast Sorin at the cusp of Drystan,” Evelyn said. “It’s heavily guarded by werewolves and witches alike. Though it’s the nearest passage from the Void to the Sapphire Sea, there’s no way a ship of vampyrs could make it through without raising an alarm and being taken down.”
Cyrus considered. “I suppose that’s a fair point. I’m sure news of such an attempt would’ve reached these shores by now if they’d succeeded. Anything on the beasts of Callum, Saige?”
Evelyn sipped her honeysuckle wine. “Well, I did learn we slayed the infamous confach, but other than that, no. There’s one mention of an abhartach, a demon that drinks blood, but it doesn’t turn their victims blue.”
“True,” Aster said, “and the abhartachhas been buried under a slab of enchanted rock for centuries. The chances someone released it would be slim.”
Evelyn sighed. “What about where Fiona’s body was found? Any significance regarding Lake Glenn? Castle Connacht had demons.”
Aster mused. “Lake Glenn is a gorgeous sight, but folks have gone missing there for centuries. They say something lies in the deep, but no one’s lived to say what, exactly.”
Cyrus crossed his arms. “My guess is a kelpie. Water, dragged to the deep, never seen again. That demon fits.”
“Right.” Evelyn sighed. “But it doesn’t fit Fiona’s death or the rest of the murders.”
Nothing in Aster’s texts pointed to another creature, but the missing body parts didn’t fit with a vampyr, either. Something wasn’t right.
The fire crackled. Maxie’s ears twitched, and she rose, stretching out all her legs and flailing her paws open. Evelyn expected her to come greet her as she always did after a nap, but her familiar, the cheeky cat, weaved her way over to Cyrus.
Aster pouted. “She wasn’t that friendly with me.”
Maxie rubbed her forehead against Cyrus’s beard. He still appeared rather uncomfortable around Maxie, but he relented and picked her up. Maxie’s eyes closed to half slits in contentment, and Evelyn melted from the tender sight.
Considering Maxie’s behavior, Evelyn’s feelings must’ve been brewing deeper than she’d realized. Whatever these feelings were, she couldn’t act on them. She was Daughter of the Goddess, technically betrothed to another, and she was still on the run from her duty and title, the most important factor of them all. Two young women had just died at the hands of a vampyr. She needed to regain her focus.
She looked over her notes, tallying all the books she’d read through. One book she’d yet to open, green and weathered, sat under the title Witches and Fae. Pages of various lengths and shades stuck out, and the spine’s leather cracked from repetitive opening.
Evelyn wedged it free and recognized Aster’s last name, Arklow, etched in gold on the front.
“Is this your grimoire?” Evelyn asked.
Aster nodded, a steaming mug of tea in hand. “Started that beauty when I was four summers old.”
It’d been some time since she’d come close to a grimoire, let alone held one. Her own sat in her old apartment in Nua, most likely collecting a layer of dust. Her father and mother had created the book themselves, sewing the pages into the spine, enchanting the cover to recognize her, engraving the leather front with her name. Just her name. Evelyn Carson. No third-born. No protector. No Daughter of the Goddess. It’d been her gift at her sixth birthday, and Evelyn’s childlike glee remained, overshadowing her nostalgia.
She ran her hands over Aster’s emerald-green cover, made of a thick bark instead of leather. The buzzing magic felt different than her own, lively instead of hot.
Fitting.
“Do you mind?” she asked Aster.
Her new friend shook her head. “Not at all.”
Evelyn flipped to the first page, settling on the first words of every grimoire.
