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“Leda, I’m sure you didn’t mean to project that thought to everyone in the house,” Harker said, amused.
I frowned. “Did I?”
“I heard it,” Zane said.
Gin raised her hand. “Me too.”
Calli nodded. “Yes.”
“So did I,” Tessa said happily.
Bella cleared her throat uncomfortably. So I guess she’d heard it too.
My cheeks warmed. “Well, shit.”
Nero was right. My magic was all off. It was just too powerful right now. I’d tried to project my thoughts to only Nero but I’d overshot and sent it to everyone instead. This was worse than the Fever. It was no wonder since I had a baby magic powerhouse growing inside of me.
“So, what’s the verdict?” I asked Bella, who’d meanwhile performed the dating test on the two new pages we’d collected from the Sea of Sin.
“They are as old as the other two,” Bella reported.
Like there had ever been any doubt. This whole thing—my siblings’ past—had been meticulously planned.
“Which makes all four parchments older than the four of you,” I commented.
“Yes,” said Bella.
“Those pages were buried for a long time, since before any of us were born.” I voiced all my thoughts aloud. There was no point in trying to think to myself anyway, since I was apparently broadcasting to everyone. “Like someone knew exactly where Calli would find Bella, Zane, Gin, and Tessa.”
“Or someone buried the pages, then made sure Calli would meet each of the four children at those exact spots,” Nero said.
I nodded. “Someone like Gaius Knight. But Calli hasn’t heard anything from him for so long, not since the mission that led Calli to me, the last of her children she found. After that, Gaius just vanished without a trace.” I looked to Calli for confirmation.
“Yes. I thought he’d been killed on a job, but given what we’ve seen, now I’m not so sure anymore. More likely, after I’d taken you five in, I’d served my purpose and he had no reason to see me again.”
“It seems Thea’s grimoire is related in some way to not only Bella, but to Zane, Tessa, and Gin too,” I said. “But why? Why did Ava lead Bella down this path? And what does the demon have planned for all of you?”
“Let’s find out.” Bella stacked the pages together. There was a flash of magic, then the four pages were one.
“Cool spell, but…” I stared at the still-blank page in her hand. “Wasn’t something more supposed to happen?”
“The pages were supposed to combine to reveal the parchment’s secret,” said Bella. “I’d hoped it was a map that would lead us to Thea’s grimoire.”
“Maybe it is and we still need to decipher it,” Harker suggested. “Look there.”
Bella took a closer look at the page. “The parchment isn’t entirely blank.”
“It looks pretty blank to me,” I told her.
“There’s a…shadow. I can’t read it.” She shook the parchment. “The pages combined together into one, so there’s magic at play here. There has to be info in there, secrets hidden inside the parchment. I will need to decipher the page in order for us to use it.”
“So, a recipe for some really good cookies?” I asked hopefully.
Bella was already grabbing a few books. “There must be some way to expose the secrets of the paper. I must consult my books.”
But Calli closed Bella’s books and pushed them aside. “There will be plenty of time for that later. Right now, we have more pressing matters. This is the first time in two years that we’ve all been together, the first time in too long that Zane is with us. We must savor moments like these, for who knows when they will come again.” With that said, Calli set a cheesecake on the table.
Some time later, after a lot of cheesecake—and a lot of familial banter—dessert was over. Calli had been right. It was about time we were all together again.
