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Enora laughed. How beautiful the sound was. “Be well, Celeste.”
“I love you,” I said as the image faded, hoping she heard me. “Thank you!”
I woke up slowly, recognizing the soft cotton sheets beneath me and Fenris’s sturdy warmth by my side. I blinked as I tried to commit every moment of the dream to memory, from the way my mother’s voice had sounded to the exact shade of silver in her eyes.
“The answers you seek will be found under the moon and stars.”
What does that mean? Enora wanted to tell me something, but what?
I carefully got out of bed, grabbing the Handmaiden grimoire from the nightstand and retreating to the small armchair in the corner. There was no way I was going back to sleep after that dream, so the least I could do was leaf through the pages to see if I’d missed it somewhere.
As I scanned them, I came to an old script describing the origin of the Handmaiden lineage.We’re drawn to the moon. The stars. The skies above. We are called to these things, by the blessing given to us by…
I squinted at the handwriting, unable to parse out the messy scribble. It was hopefully nothing too important, but I picked it back up a few lines down.
…not the only ones with a predilection for the realm above. As we move with the moon and her stars, the Aurora witches go to the sun and her sky. Their history is just as long as ours.
I frowned, wondering what was in the middle, but I could try to decipher that later. Or I’d ask Morgan for some help. She’d surely learned how to decipher messy handwriting after all that research.
I turned the page, reading over the spell that’d allow me to tie the Lunar Lord to his fated mate and sighing. By now, I’d memorized it line by line, but I still felt like a little girl pretending to play at magic rather than a powerful witch.Iwonder how the Handmaidens felt when they gave the first Lunar Lord his power.
Now that I thought about it, I hadn’t seen anything about the spell that did as much.Well, this book isn’tthatold. If it’d been written down, it wasn’t in this grimoire.If these were all Grant could recover when Fenris asked the ex-hunter to investigate my Handmaiden lineage, it might be lost to time.
I looked back at the book in my lap while following my mother’s notes. I’d read them several times before, and this was the part of the grimoire that spoke most of the moon and the stars…but none of this made much sense in the context of my death mark, or the upcoming eclipse.
Am I just not understanding this? Am I looking in the right place?I sighed and looked out the window as dawn broke.I’m running out of time.
Chapter 18
Fenris
Fenris’s Private Villa
Isla Lobo, Panama
Time Until the Eclipse: 9 Days
I rubbed my temples as I walked, wondering how many other bizarre twists of fate would strike before the eclipse was upon us. It’d been twenty-four hours, yet Gilbert refused to leave the containment room. While I appreciated that the vampire wanted to be as safe as possible around our allies, if I needed him, I didn’t know exactly what I’d do except to send Piers out alone.
I’ve never seen Piers this focused, and I’m not sure how that will translate in the field. Uncertainty is the last thing I need right now.
The Argentinean members of the Order of the Stars hadn’t turned up any further information on Sabine, nor had anyone in neighboring countries. I hadn’t expected them to, but I was still frustrated. With the eclipse over a week away, I knew we’d need to leave the safety of Isla Lobo for Peru soon, and the factthat Sabine had once more disappeared into the shadows didn’t exactly fill me with confidence.
I paused as I passed the library before backtracking to peer inside, smiling when I spotted Celeste tucked in one of the overstuffed chairs, still poring over the Handmaiden grimoire.
“I’d be surprised if you haven’t read it twelve times over at this point,” I said quietly as I walked over.
She glanced up and smiled. “I could read it twelve times more and still find something new every time,” she said warmly.
“It’s a beautiful heirloom from your ancestors,” I said, taking the armchair next to hers. I sometimes wondered if I’d be as intrigued if I were to suddenly find a record from past Celestial Pack members. Though I’d lived several centuries, I hadn’t been around for our beginning.
“It is,” she said, closing the book and smoothing the cover. “Even if there was nothing written inside, I’d treasure knowing it had belonged to other Handmaiden witches.”
“Well, luckily for both of us, that isn’t the case.” I nodded at the tome. “Do you feel ready to perform the spell that’ll tie the two of us together? I imagine it isn’t usually meant for one witch on her own.” I didn’t doubt Celeste’s ability, but if it was a spell meant for several people, it was out of her hands. Never mind my suspicions that witches were supposed to perform this spell on the Lunar Lordandhis Lunar Bride—the Lunar Bride shouldn’t cast it herself. I didn’t want Celeste to try if it ended up killing her.
Celeste sighed. “I do and I don’t,” she said, flipping the book back open. But instead of looking down at the pages, she looked at me. “I had a dream last night. About the eclipse, and my mother. My birth mother, I mean. Enora. I think I’m missing a clue here, and I just wanted to look through everything again.”
I nodded. “Have you eaten lately?”
