Saffie jumped to her feet. “Elizabeth Bishop.”
Elizabeth looked up and gasped. “SAFFIE!”
They stared at each other for a second and then Elizabeth tackled Saffie in a hug. My jaw dropped. She was touching a ghost like it was a real person, like she was solid shaped and not an apparition. They held each other for a long, long minute before Elizabeth finally pulled back. Saffie’s eyes glistened with tears and even though Elizabeth was dead, I saw them in her eyes too.
“Oh, my dearest, Saffie. You’re free!” She cupped Saffie’s face in her ghostly blue hands. “Have you seen your mother yet?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Saffie said with a sniffle.
“And your uncle?”
“Him too.”
Elizabeth sighed and dropped her hands. “Just look at you…and Marked! I’m so sorry I frightened you back in Salem, but you were blocking me and I—”
“No, no. It’s okay. I’m glad you did.”
Tegan stumbled forward until she stood just beside me. “Elizabeth…”
She turned and smiled, then cupped Tegan’s cheek. “Tegan. I am so proud of you.”
“We couldn’t have done it without you.”
She grinned her ghostly grin. “You found my notes?”
Tegan nodded. “Thank you.”
I had no idea what they were talking about but I was hypnotized by this situation.
“Now, where’s Riah?” Elizabeth glanced around at everyone and then frowned, which was an odd expression on a transparent blue person. “Saffie? Where’s Riah? I thought he’d be here with you by now.”
“He…he…he was.” Tears poured over her cheeks. “He’s my soulmate.”
Elizabeth wiped her tears. “I know, dear. You have no idea how hard it was to keep that a secret from you two.”
“Why did you?”
“Because it would have brought the Seelie King’s attention on you and you did not want that.” She looked around again, glancing behind people. “Where is he? I had hoped to say hello to him after all these years.”
Saffie groaned and scrubbed her face. “They took him!”
“Who took him?”
“SAGE,” Saffie cried and balled her hands into fists. “She took him, and the others, and now we can’t find them.”
Elizabeth gasped. “Princess Sage took Riah?”
Tegan nodded. “Along with Bentley, Paulina, Amelia, and Landy.”
“That’s why I summoned you.”
Elizabeth frowned and her blue shade darkened. “But—”
“I found Althea’s note,” Tegan said.
Elizabeth’s face fell and my heart sank. It wasn’t a good expression.
“Please, Elizabeth,” Saffie begged with her hands pressed together like she was praying. “I need to get in to Seelie Realm so I can save them.”
“I can’t tell you—”
“Please—”
“Because I don’t know.”
The air left my lungs faster than a popped balloon.
Tegan gripped her crystal necklace. Light flashed and then a leather-bound book appeared in her hands. The pages flipped on their own before finally stopping. Tegan turned the book around and showed it to Elizabeth. “I found it. The notes says she told you.”
“Yes…and no.” Elizabeth pressed her palm over the Book of Shadows. “I cannot tell you because I never knew. Althea used magic to put the note in the locket, directly and without telling it to me. For safety. All I knew was that should anyone ever need to enter Seelie, the instructions for getting there are written in the Book of Shadows. I never needed to know—”
“But we do now,” Saffie whispered.
“There were other Hierophants between me and Bentley. Someone had to have looked at that piece of information.” Elizabeth took Saffie’s hands in hers. “Do not give up hope, Saraphina. This Coven you have right now is the strongest any Coven has ever been. You are the chosen ones for defeating Lilith. You can do anything. And you have endured worse. You will find who took him and you will make them pay.”
Saffie sniffled and pushed her shoulders back. “I will.”
Elizabeth smiled. “Now send me back and summon other Hierophants after me.”
“Okay.” Saffie licked her lips and nodded. “I can do that.”
“And Saffie? When you do get him back? Summon me so I may rest knowing your soul is at peace.” She ducked down to meet Saffie’s eyes. “Okay?”
When Saffie nodded, Elizabeth dropped her hands and stepped back into the flowery pentacle. Saffie raised her hands and exhaled long and slow. Elizabeth smiled…and her ghostly form vanished into thin air.
There was a beat of silence as we all stared at the spot she’d just been.
“Now what?” Braison asked. “Who do we summon next?”
“Oh shit. we should have asked who was the Hierophant after her!” Easton groaned.
Constance shook her head. “She wouldn’t have known. She would have been dead. Evaline was the first to ever retire.”
“Louise Bryant,” Tegan said while reading from her book.
Tennessee frowned. “Was she Hierophant after Elizabeth?”
Tegan nodded. “Yep—”
Royce scratched his jaw. “Do we wanna call the next one? Or do we need to skip ahead a bit?”
“I will call each and every single one of them in order until there isn’t one to call.”
Silence.
Tegan flipped her book around and showed a long list of names. “I’ve got ‘em all here.”
“What if none of them know?” I heard myself ask before I could stop myself. When everyone’s eyes turned to me, I shrugged. “Who do we summon if none of them know?”
“Althea herself.” Tegan held her hand up. “I’d rather not. Her soul is finally at rest after three centuries of holding the Gap together. I don’t want to disturb her without great, great reason.”
“I agree.” Emersyn shuddered. “There could be consequences.”
“Lovely.” Tennessee sighed. “All right, Saffie. Let’s go through the entire list until we get an answer. Ready when you are.”
I glanced over to the three dragons and almost smiled. Koth was trying not to look disturbed by summoning the dead. Maddox wasn’t bothering to hide it. Silas looked like he was judging us.
“Everyone might as well take a seat,” Timothy said softly.
Everyone sat except for Tennessee, Tegan, and Koth. The three of them stood in a line, and I pitied the fool who came across them.
Saffie took a deep breath and then licked her lips. She pressed her palms to the ground again and golden glitter swirled through the pentagram. “Louise Bryant. Come to me.”
The fairyflies swirled around again and then that same blue light shot up in a pillar to the sky. The blue haze morphed into another woman wearing a dress similar enough to Elizabeth’s. Her hair was pulled up in a tight bun on top of her head and her eyes turned up slightly at the edges.
“Louise Bryant?”
She blinked, then looked to Saffie. “Yes?”
Saffie held her left hand out, revealing her XIII Mark. “I’m Saraphina Proctor, the —”