Bran stood by her, holding his hands like Aisling—raised before him, palms toward the ceiling—and stared into the flickering candle flames. “May the Mother take her home. May the Father steal our tears. May she ever rest.”
Aisling mouthed along silently to his prayer, tears glittering in her eyes. They worshipped no gods or goddesses in the Gallagher coven, for those deities carried the names any true witch stood against. But the eddies of the mortal world and the power found in Nature? They would always bow to that.
Bran let his hands drop down to his sides. “Come on. Let’s get the grimoire and see what can be done for the geas.”
Aisling pulled her phone out of a pair of black skinny jeans that were a little baggy on her. The jeans were his, and she’d taken the string from the joggers to use it as a makeshift belt. She’d found a pair of his old flip-flops that were too big for her but worked for now. He hoped Mac managed to get her clothes from the house.
Aisling rapidly tapped away at her phone before lifting it up for him to see the screen.I only saw a glimpse of the light before Mom told me to run. The spell hit me when I reached the trees. It hurt, but then Mom’s bracelet activated, and I kept running until I reached the cabin. I stayed there overnight.
“When did it attack?”
After it got dark.
“Was Mom the only one home?
Aisling shook her head.Dad was there.
“Ray was found in the forest. It must have taken him when it went looking for you.” Bran didn’t know why, unless the light wanted to play with its food. He didn’t say that out loud, though. “I’m glad it didn’t find you.”
Aisling scrubbed at her eyes with the back of her hand, and he pulled her into a hug. She was too young to have gone through such a trauma, and as much as Bran wanted to grieve, he knew he had to be strong for her.
“I swear I’ll do everything to keep you safe,” Bran confessed into her hair.
Lights could never get through witchmarks, but Bran knew from their coven’s history what could, and he had to prepare for that possibility.
He held Aisling for a minute, rubbing her back, before letting go. He urged her out of the way and then crouched to reach the latch made to look like a knot in the wooden floor plank. With a grunt, Bran lifted the wooden door to their mother’s basement stillroom that doubled as a storage place for the Shoppe’s extra inventory. Bran took the steps one at a time down into the dark, Aisling following at his heels.
He found the switch that would turn on the overhead light without needing to feel for it, the location ingrained in memory. The bare lightbulbs down there were soft white, brightening a space no one but the three of them ever entered, and now it would just be him and Aisling.
The concrete walls of the stillroom were painted white to help make the space feel bigger. The floor was painted a dark moss green, while the pentagram circle that touched all four walls was a riot of colors from the flowers designed into it. The witchmarks representing the Gallagher coven were painted bright gold, the magic imbued in the circle glowing softly as Bran and Aisling stepped onto the floor. It recognized and welcomed them, a faint buzz tingling against his skin.
One wall was fitted with a metal shelving unit where the Shoppe’s extra inventory was kept. Wooden shelves had been drilled into the rest of the walls, with a tall cabinet centered against one. A rectangular worktable sat in the middle of the stillroom, jars and sachets scattered across it, and a hot plate sitting next to a chopping board. Herbs, plants, and vials of liquid and oil ringed the cutting board, with empty jars and tins stacked at one end of the worktable, filled ones at the other. Lughnasa had recently passed, and the potency of some plants was stronger after that holiday. His mother must have gone foraging in the forest.
He wondered if that was how the lights had found her and followed her home.
It should have been peaceful, being in their mother’s favorite space, but Bran only felt broken.
Bran approached the cabinet and opened the wooden doors. He scanned the interior, frowning when his gaze settled on the empty spot between two leather-bound books on the top shelf where their coven’s grimoire should have been. The space was wider than his hand, the grimoire holding centuries of his coven’s spellwork history, andit wasn’t there.
Aisling tugged fiercely on his shirt, trying to get his attention. Bran glanced at her, not liking how wide her eyes were as she pointed at where the grimoire was always stored when their mother wasn’t using it.
“Did Mom take it back to the house with her?” Bran asked, thinking of the worst-case scenario. That whatever had followed her home had done so to deprive their coven of power.
Aisling shook her head before writing out another text on her phone.You know Dad never liked it staying there.
Fear left Bran cold, more than the air in the stillroom could. He turned away from the cabinet and knelt over a line on the pentagram’s circle. He pressed his palm flat over a gold-painted witchmark, seeking out the magic embedded in it. He blinked back tears at the touch of magic, the last remnants of his mother’s power there in the space she’d built and maintained. He sent a pulse of magic through it, watching as the gold shimmered against the floor in a wave, washing through every painted line until it returned.
“The circle is intact. No one broke through the spells,” Bran said slowly. He made a fist with his hand, letting the protective magic in the pentagram fade away. Aisling patted his shoulder, but he didn’t need to look at her to know what she wanted to say, but couldn’t. “I know that doesn’t mean anything if Mom left with the grimoire.”
Which meant the grimoire could beanywhere.
Including in the hands of the enemy.
Bran strangled the urge to panic the same way he’d strangled his grief, shoving it down into a hard little knot that sat heavy in his chest. “Maybe she left it upstairs.”
Maybe it was tucked away behind the sales counter or somewhere in the apartment. Maybe, if they were lucky, the police had taken it as evidence, and he could get Mac to retrieve it for them somehow.
Maybe the history of the Gallagher coven wasn’t missing, only temporarily misplaced.
