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My friends readily agreed, with palpable relief that they weren’t getting busted.
“Good. Now, you three stay out of trouble. Wren and I are going to head home,” Mom said.
I waved goodbye to my friends. Eva pointed to her phone and mouthed,Text me.
I nodded, and then followed my mom home.
Because that’s what it was now, I realized, whether we wanted it or not: home.
18
The four Vespers sat around the living room back at Lightkeep Cottage, each of us at a loss for words. The events of the past few hours had rocked each of us to our foundation and now, though we had more to talk about than ever, no one seemed to know how to begin.
Asteria would have known what to say, I felt sure. But she was gone, and here we were, trying to sort it all out without her. I knew she hadn’t planned it that way, but I couldn’t help but feel frustrated at her regardless.
And I knew I wasn’t the only one.
“Damn it all, Asteria,” Persi muttered, staring into the fireplace where Rhi had lit some candles.
Rhi didn’t answer, except to sigh and plop another piece of pie onto Persi’s plate. No one had been hungry enough for dinner when Rhi had offered it; and yet somehow, we’d now eaten almost the entirety of one of her blueberry pies that she’d had cooling on the counter, along with an entire gallon of vanilla bean ice cream. Because, as Rhi declared while slicing it, “When you get a bomb like that dropped on you, you get to eat as much pie and ice cream as you want. That’s the rule.”
And generally, I am a rule follower. At least when it comes to pie.
“I still can’t believe neither of you ever knew about this,” my mom said, rubbing her temples the way she always did when she felt a stress headache coming on. “Like, seriously, not a hint, not even toward the end?”
Rhi shook her head, digging some melted remnants from the bottom of the ice cream container. “She talked a lot about family the past few months, about our heritage, our roots, and, of course, about reconciling with you. But no. The tiny detail of the centuries-old blood covenant seemed to have slipped her mind.”
For once, my mother wasn’t alone in her frustration at Asteria. All three sisters had found common ground in their collective shock.
“Well, Ostara will be happy, at least,” Mom sighed.
“Ostara, happy?” Persi snorted. “There’s an oxymoron if ever I heard one.”
“I just mean, there’s always been such a weird power struggle between our covens. At least now it makes sense. When the Covenant was formed, the Second Daughters weren’t a part of it. That’s likely rankled her ever since,” Mom said.
“Why weren’t they included?” I asked. “They must have wanted to bind the Darkness as much as we did.”
“Sure, but only to save face,” Persi said, licking her spoon. “You’ve heard the origin story by now, right? You know about the lost Second Daughter?”
I frowned, trying to remember. “Yeah, one of them served the Darkness, right? Like, she turned villain, or whatever?”
“Yes, but not because she was a rebel or a misfit or anything. The Claires have always dabbled a bit in darker magic than they should. They’ve got a reputation for it; a reputation Ostara’s spent her life trying to clean up.”
“Wait, so you think the Vespers didn’t trust the Claires enough to make the Covenant together?” I asked.
“Ding, ding, ding!” Persi replied, pointing her spoon at me. “The Lost Second Daughter—”
“Sarah,” Rhi told her. “Her name was Sarah Claire.”
“Right, Sarah. Well, she might have been a weak link, but she couldn’t have fallen to the Darkness without a thorough grounding in the dark arts. The Claires opened that door in their practice, and of course, one of them would eventually walk through it.”
“Yeah, I thought it was weird they had all those books on dark magic,” I said.
My mom looked down at me, frowning. “What books?”
“Oh, uh…” I almost choked on my last bite of pie. “In their library. Nova showed us. There was a whole locked cabinet full of books she wasn’t allowed to even look at.”
My mom and I had decided it was best to come clean to Rhi and Persi, and admit I’d overheard the conversation about the Covenant. But I still hadn’t told them—or my mom, for that matter—that we’d actually been searching those books, or why. I wasn’t entirely sure what was holding me back—except that my mom’s decision to stay in Sedgwick Cove still felt too precarious. If I told her someone had used dark magic to try to kill me, she’d pack up the car, Covenant or no Covenant. And also, I told myself, the danger would be passed as soon as the Covenant was renewed.
