Page 103 of A Time of Witches

“Oh God,” Essie said breathlessly. “I can’t remember now…”

Lilith pressed the phone to her face, her throat too tight to speak.

“Lilith.” This was Essie’s mom voice. The one she used when Amara tried to run out in the street. The one she used when she turned around once and didn’t see Amara at her side at City Market. The one she used when love scared her so deeply, it brought out a rage of fear.

“Lilith, don’t you dare let me forget you, do you hear?” There was a catch to Essie’s voice. “You have been the constant in my life, the one who was there for the new kid on the block living with her nana because her parents had just been killed. You’ve been there ever since. When I was in sixth grade and swore I’d marry Gill, and he broke up with me the next day. When I got my period before you and thought I was dying. When I graduated from college and was so happy I drank a handle of vodka to celebrate and puked my guts out. You held one of my legs when Amara was born because that epidural made me forget the lower half of my body, and Eugene was chasing down some drunk guy through Chippewa Square.”

She pulled in a hard breath. “I can’t tell a story in my life without you being in it. You are stitched into the very fabric of my existence. I can’t lose you.” Her voice broke. “I love you, Lil.”

Lilith’s face stretched with the force of her pain, hot tears running silently down her face. “I love you too, Ess.”

Lilith didn’t know when she fell asleep, but the chime of her alarm went off way too early at 4:00 a.m. Early enough to return to the manor before the household from the seventeenth century could wake.

She looked at the world clock on her phone, confirming it was 11:00 p.m. in Savannah. Essie would still be awake, likely waiting for Eugene to get off work, so she could keep him company while he ate his warmed-up dinner.

Lilith’s phone was practically a new device, all the text messages gone, hardly any photos remaining. But she’d had Essie’s number memorized for well over a decade and tapped out a quick message.

Thanks for talking to me last night.

Dots danced to the left of the screen as Essie replied right away.

But when the message came through, a frisson of fear tightened through Lilith.

Who is this?

Lilith tightened her grip on her phone and replied: Lilith. Did my number delete itself again?

Her phone buzzed with a reply, and Lilith’s heart slithered down to her toes.

Sorry, hon. Wrong number.

A chasm ripped open in her chest. But there was no time for tears. No time for grief. She had a job to do.

Grabbing a pair of jeans and a fresh shirt, Lilith dressed hastily and stopped in the kitchen to grab a bottle of cinnamon for amplification, some more bay leaves, and a few cans of cat food.

She would fight for Sybil’s life, for her own existence, and for all the women who came before her.

And she would fight for Essie.

There would be no leaving the manor until she had answers.

Chapter Fifty

Lilith

The scullery maid was the first to wake, yawning as she slowly plaited her wheat-blond hair.

Lilith bristled with impatience.

One day.

She had one day to discover who had betrayed Sybil.

The scullery maid’s tasks were mundane, stacking wood in the hearth to light. Filling a cauldron with water and hooking it to the crane to hang over the flames, all while still rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

Lilith listened in the Great Hall for the telltale groan of the floorboards above to announce someone else had roused.

Silence.