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I place mine over hers, palms facing down. Her callused fingers brush over my wrists, and her grip goes from gentle to fierce in a split second.

Her power is cool water that slips under my skin. The smell of the sea fills my nose.

I close my eyes as she presses at my mind. Her power is probing. Testing. It finds the cracks I left for her, and the water-like magic surges through. It’s a testament to her strength—and a warning that I can’t let my guard down for even a second.

She hums, and her magic reverberates in the air. Salt and water and something sweet, like honey or burnt sugar.

Sybil flips through memories, lightning-quick, flashing behind my eyes. Growing up at the cottage, my mother teaching me simple spells. Sitting cross-legged in the forest opposite her, encouraging a flower to bloom.

Even faster, moving forward in time.

At the same time, she’s tasting my power. Her fingers drag across the leather bracelet on my wrist, the one that hides the stone with the concealment charm. She can see me with my Mark, the snaking vines up over my neck and jaw. She sees the demons and the wolves from that night. The bright light, the way it felt to travel by magic. My mother’s face looming out of the dark in my bedroom, startling me from sleep to urge me out.

She finds the barrier and pushes at it. When I don’t give, she applies more pressure. Her grip on my hands tightens. Her power sharpens into a spear, and pain lances through my head.

But it doesn’t give.

Jesus, she’s strong. But maybe, for once, I am stronger.

Cold sweat dots my brow by the time she withdraws.

Her hands relax and pull away with her magic, receding like the tide.

I open my eyes and drop my hands to my lap to hide my tremble.

“I don’t know what to make of you.” She exhausted herself. Her eyes are bloodshot, her lips twisted. “You’re full of secrets.”

“But is she Lenora Dreamstone’s daughter?” Amy asks. There’s true reverence in her voice.

“The one and only, who is alive and well,” she confirms. “Until three nights ago, at any rate. Come with me, Astra. I’ll make good on my promise to help you locate your mother. The old gods will hold me to it. But then, you must leave.”

My legs shake when I stand. I muscle through it and grab my bag. She leads me down the hall toward the back of the house. We enter a room no bigger than a closet tucked under the staircase. She’s tiny enough to pass under the doorframe without bending, but I have to duck to not smack my head.

There’s fabric on the walls, and two small chairs at a tiny round table. A pitcher of water and a stone bowl wait for us in the center.

She gestures to the fabric. “This helps me keep the visions straight. And this,” her hand moves to the bowl, “allows me to show guests the visions. Please sit.”

“You said you knew my mother? Personally?”

She hums and sets up for us. Water splashes into the bowl. “Her mother brought her to my coven—a different one, far from here—when she was just a young girl, begging us to teach her. Lenora was having frightful nightmares about one of her teachers dying. She’d wake up inconsolable. Non-magic interventions were unsuccessful, and at a certain point, her mother was willing to try anything. The poor man. Doctors discovered his cancer only a couple months later, and he was dead within the year. Lenora and her mother stayed for a few years while she mastered her powers, and only rarely did they get the best of her. But she went on to serve many masters…”

It’s strange to think that my mother had a whole life before me, and all I have is the stories she told me. I couldn’t say if they were real or fiction, trumped-up truths or downplayed for a child’s ears.

“Do you have anything of hers?”

I nod once, leaning down and grabbing the pouch of stones from my bag. I keep ahold of the stones and hand her the empty pouch, which she sets on the table in front of her. She rests two fingers on it and closes her eyes.

We sit in silence for a moment. She sways slightly, and soon, a scowl forms. She mutters, then reaches up and clasps an amulet that hid under her shirt. She squeezes it, mumbling faster.

I hold my breath, but hope swells. The hairs on my arms stand up straight with the crackle of energy flowing through and around her.

This is it—the answers that I need. I can feel my mother’s essence. It’s a live thing in the room with us.

Or maybe it’s just my imagination.

All at once, the tension breaks. And with it, my hope drains.

Sybil opens her eyes and sags back in her chair. With a look of regret, she withdraws her hand from the pouch. “I cannot see her. All I can sense is that she’s alive, but she’s masked in shadows. It could be her own magic protecting her, or it could be something else.” She examines my face. “I will read your future. If it intersects with her… if there’s a possibility of it, then we will find it. All I need is a drop of your blood.”