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“I really don’t understand it. Ava told me I need to stop thinking like a mortal. She said I need to open my mind, to redefine what’s possible and impossible.”
“That’s pretty cryptic.”
“It is,” Bella agreed. “How can I possibly know what I don’t know?”
I dipped one of the carrots in the pasta sauce, which improved its taste considerably. So I grabbed the pot and poured sauce over all my carrots.
“I suppose this is where your search for Thea’s grimoire comes in?” I asked Bella.
“Yes. Well, I hope so, anyway.” She watched me drown the carrots with a strange sense of fascination.
“How did you learn that Thea even had a grimoire?”
“Actually, it came to me in a dream.”
I perked up. “A dream?” I wondered if Bella’s dream was connected to my dreams. “What kind of dream?”
“It was fractured, like a few fragments of memories. Flashes of the grimoire, of Thea with it. None of it was very focused or concrete. Mostly it’s a feeling, actually. A feeling that the grimoire is important.”
“Ava could be manipulating you.”
“Oh, I’m sure she is. She could have asked Grace to send me the memory of my mother just as Grace sent Nero a vision of you and your daughter. But that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t try to find the grimoire. Like you said, the past is the key to our future.”
“Yeah. And all of this is related.”
“I think so too,” said Bella.
“Is there anything specific you can tell me about Thea’s grimoire?”
“Only that it has something to do with me. I saw that it came to town, here to Purgatory, right when I came here.”
“So that you could later find it?” I wondered.
“Likely.”
“Maybe it’s Thea’s game plan. Or Ava’s.” It was certainly food for thought. “Nero said you didn’t find the grimoire today. Where in town did you look?”
Bella talked me through the places they’d searched in Purgatory.
“You certainly were thorough,” I finally said when she was done talking me through her day, several minutes later. “I’m surprised you thought of Shadow Alley. I was sure I was the only one of us who knew that place existed.”
During my days living on the streets, I’d hidden there often.
“I’ve gone to Shadow Alley a few times to heal the sick,” Bella said.
“And the Sunset Tower?” I shook my head. “I’ve actually never heard of that place.”
“It’s not actually a tower,” she told me. “The name is a trick. I healed a guy there once too.”
And here I’d thought I knew Purgatory better than anyone. Apparently not.
“I actually found something at the Sunset Tower,” Bella said.
“A clue to Thea’s grimoire?”
“I’m not sure.”
Bella reached behind her and took a folder off the side table. She opened it to reveal an old piece of parchment.
