He’s standing on the first rung of the attic ladder as my ghost uses the fresh boost of power from the séance we just performed to burn off Mabel’s wards, but my brother doesn’t know patience. Or subtlety.
“Give me a second. I’m almost done,” E shoots back, clearly annoyed.
The séance was awkward, all right, but Nick didn’t seem to notice anything out of place—not the way E’s hands slid over mine and squeezed them as though he was promising far more once we were alone.
I pretended to focus on the spell, on the smoke curling upward, on the runes, but all I felt was him. The memory of our kiss still burns my lips, a spark I can’t shake, no matter how hard I try.
A sharp tang of burnt plaster hits my nose, the scent tickling the back of my throat. My pulse skitters. If E can’t destroy the wards barring passage, we’re back to square one. And Nick will be grumpy as hell.
My brother steps forward with his arms lifted toward the ceiling. “I think it’s working.”
A mix of anxiety and excitement ripples through my gut as I follow him up the ladder, half expecting the runes upstairs to flare again and punch us straight back down on our asses.
But no.
We’re in.
The attic smells of dust and asbestos, the kind of staleness that settles into your lungs and nestles deep. Crimson symbols crawl across the slanted walls, half burned off, the rest glowing in angry shades of scarlet, peeking between stacked wooden crates and solid beams. Candles crowd the shelves and crates and lay in clusters over a heavy desk littered with parchment scraps. A thick leather-bound book embossed with the Bloodraven crest—a scarlet upside-down tree forming a circle—towers at its center. It must be Mabel’s book of shadows, where she keeps her most secret spells and recipes.
“So many candles… Can you light them, Maxie?” Nick asks.
I send a tentative flicker of fire forward, and the wicks catch one by one. A warm, wavering light blooms to life. Every nook and cranny, every scrap of parchment is flooded in a yellow-orange glow—everything except the dark, swirling mass of nothingness that emanates from a mirror leaning against the far wall. The glass undulates under my frozen stare, its surface untouched by light.
A nervous gasp pops out of me. “Blimey. Is that a mirror?”
Nick’s gaze zeroes in on it, and he tiptoes closer.
The dark blotch swallows the electrical glow emanating from Nick’s flashlight instead of reflecting it. Why would Mabel keep a mirror here, in the house? All mirrors are connected to the place between worlds, and this one isn’t even warded?—
Nick switches off his flashlight and lets his arms fall at his sides. “By the Dark One… That’s no mirror.”
“There’s nothing in it,” E says. “No reflection, nothing.”
Unease crawls up my spine.
A low whistle escapes Nick. “No wonder Mabel worked so hard to keep us out of here. This is a passage into Faerie.”
My breath catches. “What?”
“A special kind of passage that allows travel to and from one single location in Faerie,” Nick answers, raising a shaky hand to the void with a wide-eyed, reverent expression.
“You mean anyone on the other side could just step into the house at will?” I say.
“Yes.”
My brother turns his attention back to the piles of parchment and kneels over the huge map sprawled across the floorboards. “I’m sure we can find where it leads to on this map.”
He kneels over the massive map, but my attention is drawn to the ceiling instead.
Above our heads, a giant tree is painted directly onto the wood, stretching from floor to ceiling and across the sloped roof. Its trunk and branches twist in rich shades of charcoal, vermilion, and gold to form a canopy that feels less painted than grown.
My fingers lift of their own accord, grazing the bark of the painted tree. The wood beneath the paint feels prickly and warm, like something ancient is pressing back against my fingertips.
A gasp quakes my throat when I notice the names written in fine calligraphy along the smaller branches. Hundreds and hundreds of names sprawl across the canopy, no doubt written in Mabel's hand.
The ones on the right side of the tree are rendered in charcoal streaks, rough and violent, marking the darklings and creatures born of ice, shadows, and storms. The light Fae occupy the other side, the names from the Spring, Summer, and Sun courtspainted in gold. Every bloodline in Faerie is compiled here, from royals to commoners—almost as if Mabel was searching for something. Or someone. In the middle, where the sap of the tree bleeds out, the witches are mapped. Near her bloodline, some of the names have been burned off and stand incomplete, probably to keep them safe.
Many branches split and fork outward, only to weave themselves together again.
