There were two queen-sized beds with dusty velvet canopies in the center of the room, with a nightstand between them. An emerald-green washbasin and pitcher sat on top. On one side of it lay a thin silver box with a moon etched on the lid, and on the other, a leather guest book embossed with the name of the inn.
Beside the window in the far corner of the room was an overstuffed armchair, and in it was a man.
He sat barefoot and cross-legged, facing away from her at an angle, and he was surrounded by a scattering of white paper, pages spilled across the carpet, smudgy ink drawings she couldn’t make out. In the dim light she could see his shape, his broad shoulders, and the way he sat stiffly upright.
She stepped closer, heart slamming at her rib cage. He was hunched over, resting an elbow on his knee, smoke curling up from the glowing ember of a cigarette between two fingers. With the other hand he was writing on the wall in jagged black letters.
There were names scratched into the pale wallpaper. Even in the dark she could read the first few, before the scrawling writing sloped off beneath his hand.
Crichinbel
Lugh Laebach
Bé Chuille
Morrigan
At the end of one of the beds sat a blue-and-white ice chest. It was nothing more than a plastic beer cooler, but something about it drew Dayna’s eye.
The figure shifted, and Dayna’s attention snapped back to him. The wound in her shoulder shot a sudden, hot lance of pain down her arm.
On the couch the figure stiffened, began to turn.
Something arrested her. Froze her bones in her skin. Or maybe it was Dayna doing this to herself, maybe she couldn’t let herself move until she knew who it was, who was doing this.
She stood still, skin crawling, as the figure turned to face her. In the dim orange glow of the room, she met his eyes. They were light blue, an unnerving color, glittering in the half-light. His expression flickered, caught between shock and anger, and in that split second she had a flash of startling recognition. She knew him from somewhere.
And then the lights went out.
She’d been wary before but still aware she was in a dream. Her body was at the coven house, surrounded by her friends. She did not feel as though she could be touched.
Now that thin reassurance was extinguished, insubstantial as a guttering candle flame.
Fear crashed through her like a cold wave. It was a primal thing, instinct-driven and without direction, and she stumbled back blindly.
A rattling sound, scraping, like something metallic being dragged across the floor, and Dayna was suddenly breathing in desperate gasps. The air had turned cold, so cold each breath burned.
In front of her the darkness shifted, and she watched, the soles of her feet rooted to the floorboards, as shadow unfurled from shadow. The darkness took form, rising from the ground. Her mouth had gone completely dry, and so when the tendrils of inky blackness reached out, she could only let out a small, strangled gasp as something brushed her arm.
A rattle, a clank. Chains, she had time to think, before a voice spoke in the dark, and her mind was wiped clean by the terror.
Hello, little witch. Remember me?
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
MEINER
Something had gone wrong.
Meiner had checked Dayna several times throughout the scrying session. Each time she’d been blank, not serene perhaps, but concentrating. She glanced over at Cora, irritated to see her smug expression.
The third time Meiner checked, Dayna’s face had changed. Her eyes were wide and glassy. Not in a peaceful way, but with the kind of raw terror that sent a spike of adrenaline through Meiner’s core. Before she could react, Dayna’s body jerked violently. Once, twice. As if she were being shocked. Her arms were tight at her sides, like some invisible force held them there. Her eyes rolled back into her skull.
“Dayna.” Meiner reached out, panicked, startled when Reagan caught her wrist with a cry of “Don’t!”
There were two reasons for this, she realized. One was that you never woke a scrying witch, just as you never woke a sleepwalker. It could be jarring. Ripping their consciousness out of whatever place it was in and slamming it back into their body never went well. It had to return slowly. She’d forgotten.
The other reason was horrifyingly evident to all of them.
There were black marks appearing on Dayna’s pale arms, first on the left side, just under her bite, then on the other. A moment later Meiner recognized them for what they were—handprints—and bile rose hot in her throat.
“Someone do something,” she snapped, hands hovering over Dayna’s shoulders. She wanted to grab her, to yank her out of the grasp of whatever had her. Dayna’s face was pale, and her entire body shook and jerked in response to something Meiner could neither see nor hear.
“Get Bronagh.” Reagan’s voice was high and strained. “Get the Callighans, quick.”
She was about to force herself to turn away, when Cora reached out and snatched the bucket from the hood of the car. Reagan screamed, just as Cora slammed the bucket to the ground, cracking the plastic, sending the black liquid gushing out into the dust of the driveway.
Dayna’s eyes were wide and white, and her body spasmed once more, a final, violent jerk that snapped her head back. Then she went limp.
Meiner dove forward, arms outstretched, catching her under the armpits before she could collapse onto the driveway. She grunted, struggling with the other girl’s still form.
“Let me see her.” Reagan was there now, looping one arm around Dayna’s waist, helping to keep her upright. She pressed her fingers against the side of Dayna’s throat, and there was silence, only the sound of Meiner’s own ragged breath in her ears. Then Reagan sighed, shoulders sagging.
“She’s just passed out.”
“We should get her to the Callighans’.” Meiner looped her other arm under Dayna’s knees and hefted her up against her chest, so that Dayna’s head was lying on her shoulder. She could feel the pulse in Dayna’s temple, her heart beating hard. Meiner’s own heart felt like it might burst, and her whole body was trembling.
This was Cora’s fault.
She could hear Cora hurrying behind them and forced herself to keep marching for the farmhouse. Making sure Dayna was okay was the first and foremost thing. There would be time to deal with Cora later.
They burst into the house, Reagan leading the way, talking breathlessly and so fast that Yemi—staring wide-eyed with alarm at the slumped figure of Dayna—had to tell her to slow down. The Callighans looked shocked when she explained, leaving out the part about Cora suggesting it. But Grandma King’s eyes narrowed, and she shot Cora a suspicious look.
Cora flinched and looked away, and the anger boiled in Meiner’s stomach again.
Instead of allowing it to spill out, she moved into the living room, followed by the rest of the witches, to lay Dayna gently on the couch.
Surprisingly it was Yemi who snapped at them. She stood with her hands on her hips, a bundle of smoldering sage still gripped in one hand. “How could you have done something so completely boneheaded? I expected better of all of you. I’ve been cleansing the house like mad, thinking it was the energy from the ceremony making the back of my neck tingle, when it’s just you lot being incredibly irresponsible.”
Meiner felt guilt surge in her stomach, and Reagan looked shame-faced. Cora was the only one who looked sullenly mutinous.