by Lily Velez
Zoe, who was staying a floor below us, stood out in the carpeted hallway, her chest rising and falling rapidly. Her eyes were large and wild.
“What is it?” Connor asked, stepping back so she could come in.
Either she didn’t hear him or she was too stunned to move. She held up her phone, looking between us. “Something’s happened,” she said. “The Council of Elders has been found dead.”
35
Our search for The Book of Fates became a frantic one in the passing days.
Samhain was now only a week away. Jack’s locator spell (he’d acquired new ingredients on his own this time, disappearing in a blast of wind before any of us could protest) hadn’t worked, just as Zoe had predicted. Granted, the surge of power from his magic had caused every last candle in the library to flare tall and bright, and the room had shaken violently until cracks ran down its floor and walls. But when the spell was said and done, we were still as empty-handed as we’d been at the start.
I was beginning to wonder if The Book of Fates was in the library at all, a library that had turned into quite a madhouse in the wake of our desperate hunt. The brothers had foregone all library etiquette, tearing books off the shelves in haste and letting them fall to the floor if they weren’t of their clan. Only Rory bothered to leave his part of the library just as he’d found it, calling to mind how immaculately organized he’d kept the greenhouse back at St. Andrew’s.
“Here’s a thought,” Connor had announced one evening when everyone’s frustration was steadily mounting, speaking to no one in particular, his feet surrounded by a growing mountain of books. “Why not catalogue these libraries by clan, not by their subject matter or what year they were written or whatever bloody system these Guardians have in place?”
Zoe crossed her arms, eyes simmering. “Oh, we’ve inconvenienced you, have we? Gods forbid that you, Connor, be in any way inconvenienced by something. That’s typically the point when you make yourself scarce, isn’t it?”
“Is that what you think?” Connor slammed a book shut with a thud, a plume of dust shooting upward. He tossed the book to the pile around him. “Well, we can’t all be the spitting image of perfection like your Patrick Doherty, now can we?”
Before things escalated, I hurried over. “Guys, now isn’t really the time—”
“Stay out of it,” they both shot at me in unison, their glares never once leaving each other.
Blinking, I stepped back and walked away just as they resumed their bickering. Lucas appeared beside me and tugged on my hair before draping an arm over my shoulders with a grin. “Ah, don’t take it personal, Scarlet Ibis. You get used to it after a while. I, personally, was starting to worry that one wasn’t eating the head off the other yet.”
Back at the hotel later that night, I let myself stew in a hot shower for longer than usual. The scalding water relaxed the muscles in my neck and shoulders, and breathing in the steam helped clear my mind. I hadn’t recovered my cell from the hunters, so earlier I’d used the hotel phone to check in on my dad. The news wasn’t good.
“We’ve been trying to contact you to update you on his condition,” the nurse on the other end had said. I listened, my heart like a block of concrete in my chest as she told me my dad had taken a turn for the worse in the past forty-eight hours, with more than one organ system beginning to slow down.
“The doctors aren’t hopeful, I’m afraid. Now is the time to be calling family and friends.” Which was hospital talk for ‘the end is coming; make sure everyone’s had a chance to say goodbye.’
I couldn’t sleep after my shower, though I couldn’t tell if the nausea was from the hospital phone call or from me coming off the tail-end of drinking Kai’s blood. I wondered around the penthouse suite only to discover insomnia had visited us all. Lucas was shoveling crisps into his mouth as he watched one of those late night talk shows that hosted celebrities and musical performances. Rory was sketching at the dining room table, and Connor was nowhere to be seen. Assuming he was back on speaking terms with Zoe, he’d most likely joined her for one of her nightly sluagh and hunter patrols. Ever since the news about The Council, not to mention our run-in with The Black Hand, she’d made it a point to do reconnaissance several times a day, especially while we were in the underground library.
“It gives me something to do,” she’d said
“You’re not afraid of them?” I asked. The girl had nerves of steel to brave Dublin on her own in the wake of The Black Hand’s attack. Even if Connor sometimes accompanied her, I wouldn’t have risked it either way with all the dangers lying in wait for us in every shadowy corner.
“If I let myself be afraid of them,” she said, filling a revolver with silver rounds, “then they’ve already won.”
I found Jack on the hotel balcony, once again listening to Maurice’s voicemails, except the phone in his hands wasn’t his own. It belonged to one of his brothers, I assumed, and he’d simply used it to dial into his message inbox. Despite the hour, he was still in the clothes he’d worn earlier. It was weird to see him without his black coat, though, as if he wasn’t quite complete now that it was gone.
He turned to me as I joined him at the railing. In the halo of the street lamps below, you could just make out the gentle mist of rain that descended upon Dublin, but we were protected under the balcony’s awning, the raindrops playing a soft beat against its stretched cloth. As they’d done ever since our confrontation with The Black Hand, Jack’s eyes flew immediately to the cut on my cheek. The wound no longer stung, but that hadn’t kept the guilt from shadowing Jack’s face every time he saw it. I wanted to tell him he couldn’t continue holding himself responsible, but I already knew by now that Jack carried the weight of the world on his shoulders and probably always would.
“Have you been able to get in contact with Seamus yet?” I asked. The night Zoe had told us about The Council, we’d immediately woken up Jack, whose first response had been to call his uncle, who’d still been Elsewhere at the time. But every last call only rang and rang and rang before ultimately going to voicemail. Seamus’s body hadn’t been found among the Elders, so the hope was he’d already left by the time the Reaper had arrived. Because that was the one thing we had no doubt about: the Reaper’s obvious involvement. Six powerful witches slain with a dark ritual just on the horizon? Their blood was most assuredly on the wayward witch’s hands.
Jack leaned against the railing, a sigh sliding out of his throat in a long, smooth breath. “I can’t help but fear the worst. Even if he managed to evade the Reaper’s attack on The Council, there were plenty of dangers waiting for him here. Hunters, the sluagh. Something has to have happened. Otherwise, he’d be here with us right now.”
I wanted to believe Seamus was perfectly safe, perhaps only hiding out somewhere until it was safe enough for him to emerge. The last thing the Connellys needed was to lose yet another important figure in their lives. We stared out at the busy city in silence for a while, both of us lost in our own thoughts.
“I saw you on the hotel phone earlier,” Jack said eventually, facing me again. “Your expression completely changed. Was it the hospital you were speaking with? Is your father all right?”
I was tempted to lie. Not because I wanted to withhold anything from Jack but because I wanted to pretend, even if just for a moment, that I was living in another reality. A reality without the magic and the monsters and the mayhem. A reality where I was just an ordinary girl with an ordinary guy, and my ordinary father was waiting for me at home, completely healthy and safe. In the end, I went with the bitter, inescapable truth, relaying everything the nurse had told me.
“Oh, Scarlet,” he said, my name in his brogue like a gentle caress. “I’m sorrier than you know.”
“Yeah,” was all I could say back. My throat tightened, and I nearly choked on the word.
“Come here,” Jack said softly, opening his arms to me.
Though he’d only held me once before, his embrace was familiar, as i
f I’d known it all my life. This time, as I leaned against him, a tear did escape me, rolling slowly down my cheek. I was surprised by the show of emotion, but then, I had just nearly been killed by an extremist group mere days ago. I had just made a bargain with a demon I wasn’t sure I could entirely trust. And the one thing that could bind the Reaper and help my dad continued to elude us, leaving everyone’s morale at an all-time low. Throw in a spell of insomnia, and it was any wonder I wasn’t outright bawling. I’d known people to have bigger outbursts just from missing a meal.
I didn’t think Jack had noticed the tear, but his thumb slid across my skin, collecting the drop before it could continue its descent. “We still have time,” he said, speaking into my hair in a way that sent shivers through me.
I closed my eyes and kept my arms looped around his middle, not wanting to let go, my head at rest against his firm chest. I thought I could fall asleep like this, be lulled into slumber by the metronome that was his steady heartbeat.
“I hope one day you can forgive me,” he said then.
I pulled back and opened my mouth to ask what he meant, but of course. His attention had returned to Mary-Anne’s cut.
“Not just about this,” he said, smoothing his thumb over the Band-Aid, feather-light. “But for what you had to do to free us.” In the distance, a siren wailed, making Jack’s words sound even more ominous.
Was that what most bothered him? The favor hanging over my head and the demon who pulled the strings? I put my hand over his, trapping his fingers against my cheek. “What’s done is done,” I said softly. “And if I had to do it again, I would’ve made the same choice. There was no way I would’ve let the hunters take your life. Besides, we still have a Reaper to stop, and I’m not giving up yet.”
36
Samhain was in six days, and we still hadn’t found The Book of Fates.
“I’m completely knackered,” Lucas said, collapsing into a chair beside me in the library. “I could sleep for a hundred years right about now.”
I had my face in my hands, but I sat up at his arrival. It was becoming a struggle to keep my eyes open. Actually, it’d been a struggle for the past three hours. I reached for the coffee cup beside me. The liquid had cooled considerably, but I was hoping the caffeine inside would still do its trick. I was simply glad the nausea from Kai’s blood had finally left me for good this morning. “What time is it?”
“Half two,” he said, which I’d learned meant it was thirty minutes past the hour. I guessed that meant Samhain was actually in five days then. “And I’m pretty sure a few of the books I just went through were ones I’ve already looked at. Meaning I’m clearly going mad.”
The words didn’t mean anything to me at first, but then I stiffened. “Wait. Do you think the ordinary grimoires are rearranging themselves the way Zoe said the really powerful ones do?”
Lucas balanced his chair back on its rear legs, considering it as he took out a deck of cards and began shuffling it. “I wasn’t thinking that at all actually, but now I am. Bollocks. I’ve been on a carousel of books for over a week now. What a nightmare.”
My stomach sank. If the books in here were playing musical chairs every time we left, then it was no wonder we were hardly making any progress with our search. And if only a few titles were pulling the wool over the boys’ eyes each day, it’d make sense they wouldn’t notice it until later in the game. Especially if they were as mentally exhausted as I imagined them to be. Nevermind the possibility that grimoires from one brother’s section could be relocating to another brother’s section, meaning the boys wouldn’t even know it if someone had already gone through a book.
I rubbed my temples, feeling a migraine coming on. I’d never been a glass-half-empty type, but I could feel the time slipping away from us as if I were watching the sand rush down in a giant hourglass.
Zoe stomped past, muttering under her breath. It was time for another patrol, but it looked like she well intended on going at it alone.
“Trouble in paradise?” Lucas called after her with a grin.
With a quick flick of her wrist, she sent his chair toppling over.
He yelped and landed hard on the stone floor, his cards flying into the air and settling all around him like fallen leaves. He started to move but decided against it, making himself comfortable on the ground. “I think I’ve earned myself some sleep anyway.”
As always, Zoe armed herself liberally and then slung her black backpack over a shoulder. When I’d first seen its contents what seemed like ages ago, my stomach had soured at the crossbow and knives inside. A femme fatale for sure. While I’d initially thought her insane for surveying the city for threats on her own, I was coming to admire the sheer audacity of it all. Not to mention the selflessness. The idea was that Zoe would lure any threats away from Dublin to protect the Connellys while they continued their search. A true ally when so many had turned their backs on Jack and his brothers.
“Stay safe,” I offered as she made for the catacombs.
That feline smirk danced on her lips. “Gods forbid.” And then she was gone.
Leaving Lucas to catch his sleep, I wandered through the library for a time, begrudgingly picking up after the boys if only because it pained me to see books scattered all over the ground like storm debris. I didn’t know if I was shelving them properly, but considering the possibility some of the books were rearranging themselves anyway, I didn’t think it mattered.
Eventually, I found my way to the Tree of Life mosaic. I’d paid homage to it every day we’d been here, something about it calling to me, as if it had tied an invisible string to my heart and gave a gentle tug whenever I was near, reeling me in. Jack had told me the seven main limbs of the tree each represented one of the druidic lines that had survived The Burning Times.
“The limb in the center represents my own clan,” he said. “The Ó Conghalaigh clan. Connelly is one of the many anglifications of the name. We’re the largest of the seven, made up of more septs, or branches, than we can possibly count or keep track of. Though it’s fair to say a good portion of those families would prefer we not keep track of them at all.”
Because it was safer that way, was the unspoken reason.
Remembering Jack’s words, I ran my hand across the mosaic’s smooth tiles, an ache in my heart. My experience with The Black Hand came unbidden to my mind, making me feel sick. I couldn’t get past Mary-Anne’s vile words, the way she’d spoken so calmly about practices that were the stuff of nightmares. More specifically, I couldn’t get past what she and the others represented. Generations of senseless hate that had resulted in the loss of innocent lives again and again and again. Including the disappearance of what was likely my own clan, The Lost Clan. It was hard to believe an entire people had been decimated by other human beings. Something like that, death and destruction, wasn’t human at all.
A lump formed in my throat, and I bowed my head slightly, paying respects to the dead. I understood more than ever now why some witches chose to live among the Sightless, hiding their identity, keeping their descendants in the dark. I understood why entire branches of a clan would forever cut off ties, parting ways with their heritage and magic. What other way was there to avoid persecution?
I heard Zoe return and peeked around a bookshelf just as she was setting her backpack onto a table. It hadn’t been more than an hour since she’d left, so if she was back this early, it meant the city had been quiet as far as threats went. Much to her chagrin, I was sure.
I looked back to the mosaic. These people had been terrorized for far too long. I stopped. No, not these people—my people. The truth of it had struck me while I’d faced Mary-Anne. I was no longer on the outside looking in. This was my heritage, who I was and always would be. I might’ve known nothing about this world for the past seventeen years, but the veil had finally been lifted, and I had no intention of turning my back on it, even at times when it felt like too much to bear. As Zoe had said, if I shrank back in fear, then I was lett
ing the hunters win. And not just the hunters, but the Reaper, the monsters, all of it.
I wouldn’t let that happen. I owed it to those who hadn’t been able to embrace their true selves. A sense of pride flared up in me like a steady flame. I couldn’t change history. I couldn’t save those who’d already been lost. But I could make a small difference by embracing who I was and working toward a world where witches no longer had to live in fear.
I pressed my fingertips to each of the tree’s main limbs. It was my way of connecting to the members of each clan, of promising myself to a cause that was probably too big for someone who hadn’t yet fully come into her magic, but one that was still worthwhile, one I couldn’t walk away from even if I wanted to.
When I reached the center limb, the one representing the Connellys’ clan, I felt the bump of an uneven tile. Furrowing my brow, I looked closer, tracing arounds its edges. Yes, there it was. One palm-sized tile didn’t lay quite as flat as the ones beside it. The grout around it wasn’t as aged either, as if it’d been a later installment. A repair most likely. I knocked on it. I expected to feel the solidness of a wall directly behind it. Instead, there was a hollow echo.
My heart started racing.
The tile was covering a cavity.
“Jack!” I called out. “I think I’ve found something.”
Within seconds, the others were gathered around me, and I summarized my findings. Jack hammered the side of his fist against the tile, but it wouldn’t give.
“I’ve got a better idea,” Connor said. “Step back.” He took out his gun and shot at the spot three times in quick succession. Plaster and tile shards exploded on impact, and I was only glad I’d shielded my face in time.
Jack waved away the dust and dove into the cavity with his hand. When he frowned, my stomach sank. I’d misled them. The cavity was empty. He pulled back, scraping dirt and dead leaves out of the nook.