“Bronagh shot this idea down already.” Reagan shifted from foot to foot, clearly uneasy. “Oya, we should just go inside.”
“That’s right. It’s incredibly foolish.” Meiner scowled at Cora. “It’s dangerous and completely stupid to attempt it.”
Cora ignored this, gaze locked on Dayna’s face. “Three victims to go. Just how many witches do you think are in this town? One of us is next, and you know it.”
Meiner remembered the look on Dayna’s face when she’d said she would do anything for her coven. Anything and everything.
“Absolutely not,” Meiner said, at the same time as Dayna said, “I’ll do it.”
CHAPTER FIFTY
DAYNA
Meiner seemed deeply unimpressed. She kept glaring at Cora, fists clenched at her sides, a muscle twitching in her jaw. She looked like she was barely holding herself back.
But Dayna couldn’t help agreeing with Cora. The risk was worth it. It was worth it because of Margery, because the memory of her bloody eye sockets would be with Dayna for as long as she lived. Because she barely slept anymore, lying awake obsessing over each breath, feeling her legs twitch and shake.
But mostly it was because she was desperate for a way to protect them. To keep her coven safe.
They were the only real family she had left.
What her father said shouldn’t have surprised her. She’d realized this on the car ride back to the house. He’d always been strange and secretive about her mother. It had taken him ages to even reveal she was mentally ill. And when he had, he’d skirted around the subject. Wouldn’t tell her what it was, or what Fiona’d done. What her behavior had been like, or when she might be well enough to come home.
Maybe he’d thought he was protecting her. Or maybe he didn’t want to risk Dayna telling anyone.
“I can pull you out if need be,” Cora reassured them. “It’s not hard.” When Meiner gave her a suspicious look, Cora shrugged. “I’ve been researching. It seemed like a good plan in case we kept coming up against dead ends. Which…we have,” she said pointedly. “It wouldn’t have worked before because none of us have touched them, but since the dog bit her…”
Dayna shivered, reaching up, fingers grazing the bandage on her shoulder. The idea the wound gave her some kind of connection to the brothers was unsettling. It made her want to curl in on herself and hide. But it might be to her advantage, the perfect solution.
It didn’t even matter that her burst of power from the ascension was so depleted, since scrying depended on the favor of your god and not your personal store.
Dayna took a deep breath, turning back to the others. “Okay, how do we start?”
Cora tapped the roof of the Datsun, where she’d balanced her “Resting Witchface” water bottle. “It’s juice. Dark enough to use in a pinch. It will do in a pinch. We need a bowl, though.”
Reagan looked doubtful. “There’s a plastic bucket we collect eggs in.”
Meiner shot her an irritated look. “Oh, so we’ve agreed to this now, have we?”
Reagan didn’t reply, just moved to the side of the house, looking for the bucket. Dayna turned to Meiner, putting a hand on her arm. The other girl blinked and looked slightly subdued though still sullen.
“It’s my choice,” Dayna said quietly. “She’s not forcing me into anything. You didn’t see the— You didn’t see Margery. I can’t let that happen to anyone else. To any of us.”
Instantly her thoughts flooded with horrible images. Reagan, sprawled on the grass, bloody and still. Or Bronagh, her face pale and drained of life. Brenna’s crow feathers scattered in the dirt…
No. Dayna shuddered, telling herself to stop. She could drive herself mad thinking like that. And that was exactly why she had to do this.
Meiner still looked like she wanted to protest, but Dayna shook her head, jaw clenched. She wasn’t going to risk losing anyone.
Meiner must have seen something in her face, because her brows shot up, and she took a step back.
Reagan returned with the bucket—she’d rinsed it out, but it still smelled faintly of chicken coop—and set it on the hood of the car. Cora leaned over, wrinkling her nose, before dumping the contents of her water bottle into the bucket.
“There now, we’ll scry with this. Dayna, you’ll be in the center. Scry like you normally would but try to picture the dog in your mind.”
Dayna took her place in the semicircle. They stood close, close enough that her right shoulder was touching Meiner’s and her left brushed Cora’s. Scrying had never been her strong suit, and the dark liquid was harder to see into than the crystals had been, but she knew the logistics. Focus on the surface of whatever you were using—it could be anything, a bit of dark glass, a lake that reflected the moon, or apparently, an egg bucket filled with juice—and let your gaze go soft. Go someplace else in your mind, Yemi had once told her. Be open to anything the surface is telling you.
Dayna blew out a heavy breath and tried to soften her gaze. Tried to make her mind open.
The liquid was dark and smelled faintly of grapes. It was reflective enough that she could see their warped faces in the surface. Even with the curve of the bucket blurring their reflections, she could see the deep frown on Meiner’s face.
Dayna straightened her shoulders, mentally shook herself. She couldn’t think about Meiner right now. This was too important.
For a couple of minutes it seemed like nothing would happen. Dayna blinked slowly, almost sleepily. There was something mesmerizing about the purple-black liquid. Maybe the way the light rippled off, or the shapes of their warped reflections.
Something shifted subtly in the dark surface. One of the girls had moved, Dayna thought, faintly annoyed. But then, no, it was another shape. A face had appeared and then disappeared, not one of theirs.
Her shoulder throbbed now. A deep, pulsing pain, like a heartbeat. It sent a shiver down her back, but she stayed where she was.
A second passed, then two, and each one seemed to deepen the silence around them. There should have been noise, she realized. They were outside, on the farm. There should have been the distant sound of chickens clucking and scratching, the thump of hooves and breathy chuffing of horses in their paddocks. But there was nothing, only silence.
Her throat was suddenly tight, and every breath seemed labored, harder to drag into her lungs.
The liquid rippled, and Dayna wanted to refocus her eyes, to shake herself out of it. To stand up and gulp air back into her lungs. Meiner was right; this was a bad idea. This was dangerous.
Only…she didn’t seem to be able to move.
Something was drawing her down, down into the liquid, into the black surface.
And now she was someplace else.
She was aware that she was at the coven house. That her body stood, muscles locked, in a semicircle with the other witchlings. That there was a bucket that smelled faintly of chicken crap and grapes within a few inches of her face. But…she was also in a hotel room. Or what looked like one.
Her panic dissolved the slightest bit. This was a vision, just like the last one, and Cora could pull her out if she needed to.
Dayna looked around at the room, at the dark cherrywood armoire, at the stone fireplace and the gold-framed oil paintings. It was dim inside, lit only with dull electric lights in lamps along the wall. Her gaze was drawn to a number of smudgy black sigils scrawled across the wallpaper, which was probably why she didn’t see him right away.