Page 52 of Wretched Thorns

Tara shook her head. “No, Mère told me he took it from her, but she somehow made her way into Mère’s dreams without the charm.”

Her thumb closed around the new charm.

“Grandmère made this one as a replacement for me.” Tara looked over her shoulder to the den where her grandmother was busy working with Rowena. “Serena’s gonna need a new one, too, Mère.”

“Keep looking in the box, baby.”

Tara spun back around to the box and sure enough there was another soft dark cloth rolled up in the corner between a scrying bowl and an old book.

Eli’s head lifted sharply.

Tara noticed the look immediately. “What?”

Eli took his glasses off slowly.

“You’re that Tara.”

Now it was Tara staring at him.

Eli looked briefly toward his brothers before looking back at her.

“College, uh, murals… uncommissioned murals...”

Something shifted across Tara’s face. Fast enough she probably thought nobody caught it.

Jasper caught it anyway.

Eli settled his glasses back on.

“Nashville,” he said quietly. “You’re her friend from Nashville.”

Tara swallowed hard once.

“Yeah,” she said. “I am.”

Nobody in the kitchen spoke for a second after that.

Because suddenly this wasn’t just Celie Toussaint’s granddaughter standing in Rowena’s kitchen.

It was someone who loved Serena too. Someone who had known her a lot longer than the rest of them.

Grandmère reappeared in the doorway beside Rowena and took one look at Tara’s face.

“We’re going to find her,” she said.

Tara closed her hand tighter around the charm.

“You don’t know that.”

“Yes,” Grandmère said calmly. “I do.”

Tara turned abruptly and headed for the screen door before anybody could say another word.

The door slammed behind her.

Rowena’s eyes lifted toward Dex.

Dex was already standing. He followed her out without hesitation.