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Because that was what I had realized on our long, silent walk back to Lightkeep Cottage. Whoever had worked that wicked spell down on the beach must have known about the Covenant. I didn’t believe for a second that the Conclave were the only ones to know about it. After all, five of us had learned about it by accident just today. Over the years, there surely must have been others. And getting rid of a Vesper probably seemed like a good way to prevent it from being renewed. My attacker probably thought my mother was a lost cause and saw me as the potential third Vesper witch who might be convinced to stay and renew the Covenant. Of course, if they’d just taken a little time to get to know me, I think they would have realized I was no threat at all. Not a bit of magical training, and not a scrap of obvious magical ability; I was hardly worth even bothering to get rid of.
But now my mother had surprised everyone. The Covenant would be renewed. I just had to stay out of trouble until that happened. When it was over, I could come clean about what happened on the beach. My mom would be pissed at me, of course, but it would be too late by then. We’d be tied to Sedgwick Cove in ways even she couldn’t sever.
I wondered if I was supposed to feel upset. I was moving away from my friends. I was getting pulled out of high school in a thriving city and being forced to make a new home in a tiny town. I wouldn’t have a choice in any of it. Any normal kid would have been throwing the mother of all rebellious teenage tantrums.
I was quietly celebrating instead.
Yes, I would miss my friends, especially Poe and Charlie, but we had social media and the train to keep in touch; and thankfully, I seemed to be making new friends already—friends who had helped me in pretty significant ways. And it was hard to be upset about being pulled from Portland High when my new education was going to require learning literal magic. And then there was this house, this town… I belonged to it in a way I could never belong anywhere else.
It was already home. We were just making it official.
“Did Ostara say anything abouthowyou renew the Covenant?” I asked, after a few minutes of silence.
“We’ll meet with the Conclave again tomorrow night, and they’ll walk us through the ritual,” Rhi answered. “Once it’s completed we can… can move on. Figure out what’s next, for all of us.”
She looked at my mom as she said this and smiled gently. I was glad to see that Mom could return the smile, even if it was a little strained. Maybe she was more reconciled to all of this than I thought.
A buzzing sound startled us all. Persi swore and pulled her phone from her pocket, glancing down at it for a moment, looking thoughtful. “I should take this,” she said, jumping up from the couch and heading out into the gardens through the French doors.
“Is that who I think it was?” Mom asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Probably, and don’t get me started,” Rhi said tartly. “I still haven’t recovered from the last time I had to nurse her through a broken heart over that one.”
I’d seen enough from the hydrangea bushes to know they were probably talking about Bernadette. I didn’t feel like it was my place to ask for more details, curious as I was about such an odd coupling; but at least I was comforted by the fact that, from now on, I’d be privy to all the Sedgwick Cove gossip as it unfolded.
I tried to hide a yawn, but my mom spotted it.
“Bed sounds like a good idea, don’t you think?” she asked.
“Oh, I’m glad you said it first. I wanted to be with you all, but I could happily have gone to sleep an hour ago,” Rhi said, sighing with relief.
I glanced at the clock. It was a little after nine o’clock, but it felt like midnight. I guessed discovering that the safety of an entire town depended on your family left you a bit worn out.
I hugged my mom—the kind of hug that lasts a long time and says a lot without saying a lot—and headed up the stairs. As I passed the front door, I saw Persi out on the porch, still talking animatedly on the phone. I wasn’t sure if I hoped things worked out for her and Bernadette, or not. I’d spent just enough time with Bernadette to understand that, while she was definitely beautiful, she didn’t seem particularly stable. I knew that was a result of her harrowing magical gift, but still—it didn’t seem like a great basis for a lasting relationship.
I looked around for Freya in my room, but a quick glance out the window confirmed that she and Diana were patrolling the garden chasing fireflies, so I went to bed without her. My last thought, as I fell asleep, was that it seemed like everything might finally work out okay.
My dreams had other ideas.
It began as my familiar childhood nightmare, standing upon the shore with the Gray Man beside me. But I was no longer the child I had been. I did not hold his hand. I did not feel safe. For the first time, I looked at him with true fear thrumming through my body. He reached for me. I turned and ran. Sand slipped under my feet as I stumbled my way across the beach, away from the water. When I reached the gate of Lightkeep Cottage, I turned to look behind me to see if he followed, but he stood where I had left him, staring after me with that strangely featureless face. I turned back to the gate to let myself into the garden.
He stood in the garden, waiting for me.
I screamed and ran, hopping the fence with an agility I could never manage while awake, and flew up the porch, slamming the door behind me, not stopping until I reached my bedroom. From there, I looked down into the garden. There he still stood, staring up at me.
A creeping feeling began in my bones. I looked down at my hands clenched on the windowsill and saw ants and beetles and spiders forcing their way through the cracks around the window frame, scuttling across my fingers. I screamed again, stumbling back from the window, and turned to face my room.
To face him. Because of course he was there. I’d known it before I turned around.
His form shifted strangely, as though it was harder to appear human when in motion. His limbs elongated, his neck stretched grotesquely as he leaned toward me.
“I have waited for you, Little Bird.”
The words materialized in my head, though the sound was one of skittering legs and whirring wings. Every hair on my body stood at attention. I wanted to run, but my body wouldn’t obey me. Without knowing why my hand drifted to the necklace Asteria had given me. It felt warm, like a warning.
The Gray Man reached for me, his arm lengthening, stretching, winding through the space between us.
I opened my mouth to scream, but a hiss sounded through the room instead.
