“Nothing else was getting results. We had to.”
Yemi stepped forward, positively towering over Cora now, jabbing a finger in her face. “Listen well, girl. There’s a reason we don’t scry that way.” Yemi snapped one hand out toward Dayna, making the three of them flinch. “This is the reason, you foolish girl.” She turned her attention to her daughter. “Maybe I shouldn’t have let you ascend. Maybe you weren’t ready for the responsibility.”
Meiner didn’t know Yemi well, but from the shocked look on Reagan’s face she guessed this type of temper was rare for the older woman. “I’m sorry, Ma—”
“Abeg o! I don’t need your excuses.” Yemi waved her away, and Reagan trailed off, dropping her gaze to the floor.
“Will she be all right?”
“She’s fine,” Cora muttered, “Just passed out.”
Meiner curled her hands into fists at her sides, grinding her teeth. She wanted to seize Cora by her collar and shake her, but she couldn’t let her temper get the better of her. Not when Dayna might need her.
The older witches ignored Cora, crowding around Dayna on the couch.
“Same treatment as last time.” Bronagh sank down beside her, smoothing a hand over Dayna’s brow. “Plenty of water and food when she wakes. She’s all right. Though this has undoubtedly left its mark.”
Brenna leaned down and pressed a finger to the black handprint on Dayna’s arm. “In more ways than one, I’m afraid,” she said grimly. “It’s alarming that Carman has this kind of reach, trapped as she is. I hate to think of her resurrected and brought back to full power.”
There was a moment of tense silence after this.
“She’ll really wake up?” Meiner finally said. In the shocked whiplash of this chilling announcement, she was finding it difficult not to pace. She wanted to move, to do something, to wake Dayna up. To tell her that following Cora’s mad plan had nearly got her killed.
Cora. Her insides lit up with rage all over again. This was her fault. Meiner had warned her not to. She’d told her. And Cora had ignored her and nearly killed Dayna.
“She’ll be herself by tonight, I would expect,” Faye said.
“Cora.” Grandma King spoke for the first time. “Come outside with me a moment.”
Meiner should have felt a sense of satisfaction. She knew what was coming, and it wouldn’t be pleasant. Instead she found herself silently furious. She wanted to hit Cora, to scream, to rage at her.
Cora turned reluctantly, and Meiner moved to follow, fists clenched. Her insides were seething, restless with hot anger. She pictured herself seizing Cora’s arm and wrenching her around, planting her fist in the blond girl’s face.
As if sensing this, Grandma King turned, shaking her head. “Not you. You stay here.”
“This is my business, too,” Meiner snapped. “A member of my coven nearly got someone killed. If I’m supposed to be a leader someday—”
“A good leader wouldn’t have let this happen in the first place.” Grandma King tugged her sweater up higher around her throat and turned for the door, as if the conversation was finished. As if she hadn’t just thrown a lit match onto Meiner’s gasoline temper.
She wanted to take off after Gran, fury burning through her.
She wanted to scream at both of them, to drag Cora back inside and force her to look at the black marks on Dayna’s arms.
And then Bronagh said, “She’s waking,” and Meiner’s temper fizzled out as quickly as it had come.
On the couch, Dayna took a deep breath, eyes fluttering momentarily before opening. She blinked, looking around, bewildered. At the Callighans and Yemi, standing over her, and at Reagan, who hovered just behind them looking incredibly guilty. Her gaze drifted from them to Meiner, and some semblance of memory must have returned, because her eyes went wide, and she glanced down at her arms, wincing.
“Yemi, food,” Bronagh snapped, and Yemi squeaked, flapping her hands in the air, her face alarmed.
“Oh aye. I nearly forgot. I’ve got her lunch in the fridge.” She bustled away into the kitchen, and they heard the slam of the refrigerator door.
“Try to take deep slow breaths,” Bronagh instructed. “And tell us what you remember.”
Dayna blinked. For a second, she only stared at the roof. Then she looked straight at Meiner, who felt a chill drop down her back. Dayna’s eyes were darker than before, it seemed. Or maybe it was an illusion caused by the shadows behind them, the weight of her gaze. As if she’d lived through years in three minutes of scrying. As if she knew things now she shouldn’t.
Dayna turned back to Bronagh. “I know where they are.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
MEINER
She and Dayna wanted to leave right away, as soon as Dayna remembered the name of the inn on the guest book. But Bronagh said they should wait, that they weren’t rushing this because the next target had to be one of them, and they would take the proper precautions before waltzing straight into the lion’s den. She’d given Dayna a sharp look as she said this, and that seemed to have quelled her. Meiner still felt restless and pent-up, pacing the living room as Yemi and the Callighans prepared a protection spell, until Faye snapped at her.
Grandma King and Cora had been gone too long, and there was no reason for them to leave her out of this. She was just as much a part of the coven.
But…they’d been acting this way for the past week now, hadn’t they? Disappearing together, speaking in low voices, exchanging a look when they thought Meiner wouldn’t notice. She’d written it off at first, thought maybe Cora was trying to suck up to her grandmother. But…that wasn’t quite right, was it? Gran had never responded to anything Cora had tried in the past.
Now that she thought of it, the way Cora had reacted when she’d gone through Gran’s things had been strange. She hadn’t asked about anything Meiner had found, and she’d known Gran had been doing black magic, too, that she might still be doing it. In fact…what was it she’d said?
She’ll kill you if you touch her stuff, especially that.
How had Cora known about the book? Meiner had never seen it before. At least, she didn’t recall it. And now she could only think about the smug look on Cora’s face, the blood under her nails….
Gran used to use blood in her rituals. Or…still did.
They’d been outside for too long.
She left the Callighan sisters burning bay leaves over Dayna and stomped out onto the driveway, insides blazing. It was noon, and the sun was directly overhead now, the sky a clear blue color, the forest around the farm vibrant and green. It was a beautiful day, and Meiner was far too angry to appreciate it.
She’d been so stupid.
Maybe they’d been doing it together all this time.
The thought shook her, because it made a horrible kind of sense. Cora had been the one who’d been possessed in the circle. Maybe it hadn’t been Gran who invited something in after all; maybe she’d simply been instructing Cora.
Meiner paused in the middle of the driveway, heart pounding hard against her rib cage.
The more she thought about it, the more furious it made her. They’d been doing it under her nose all this time. Cora had probably been laughing at her.