All the words Meiner wanted to scream after her seemed to have turned to ash in her mouth, and she stayed frozen in place as Cora vanished into the house, slamming the door shut behind her.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
DAYNA
They left the house in a convoy, Dayna riding in Meiner’s rust bucket Datsun, and the rest of the witches piled into Reagan’s minivan. Grandma King stayed behind with Cora, who Dayna suspected was in for a long lecture.
The road they found themselves on was a winding, dead-end affair, with cherry blossom trees along both sides. It was not so much a road as a forest trail pretending to be one.
In spite of the late afternoon sunshine, Dayna was plagued by a persistent chill. The dark shape that had seized her in the vision had been unspeakably terrifying, filling her stomach with sick dread. She had felt hands on her arms, ice-cold fingers biting into her skin.
Whatever it was had gripped her so fiercely she’d felt it was about to break through her skin. In her panic, she’d reached into her own core and drawn out all the magic she could, tearing herself from the creature’s grasp.
It felt like she’d used up all her power at once, and yet she’d barely pulled herself free.
Dayna darted a sideways look at Meiner, who’d been sullen and silent for the entire car ride. She kept drumming her fingers on the steering wheel and glancing in the rearview mirror, brow furrowed.
The silence made Dayna antsy, and she wracked her brain for something to talk about, anything at all. She didn’t want to think about the fact that her arms burned in five perfect fingerprints on both sides. She’d rolled her sleeves up to look earlier and it had made her stomach roil, her skin prickling hot and cold with dread.
Her insides felt strangely hollow, as if she’d used the last of the extra magic from the ascension. She felt…drained.
After several more moments of sullen silence from Meiner, she finally worked up the courage to ask, “Did something else happen while I was…well, you know. Something you’re not telling me?”
Meiner blinked, narrowed her eyes at the rearview mirror, and answered without looking at her. “When what? When Cora nearly got you killed with the stupid, reckless idea you went right along with?”
Dayna sat up straight, bristling. “Excuse me?”
Now Meiner did look at her, and her face was dark. “You could have died. Cora doesn’t care about your safety; she cares about results, power. What those things can get her. If you listen to her, you could very well end up dead.”
“I’m an adult.” Dayna could feel her temper surging. This had been her choice; she’d known what she was getting into and she’d made a conscious decision that the benefits outweighed the risk. And now Meiner was lecturing her like…like she was a child or something, “And I’m a damn good witch, Meiner King.”
“Not good enough, though. You could have died.” Meiner cast a pointed look at the marks on her arms, and Dayna’s mouth dropped open.
Anger made her chest tight. She drew a breath and spat, “I’m ascended, which makes me a full witch. I handled it.”
At the word ascended Meiner’s mouth twitched down. Her fingers tightened on the wheel. “You don’t get it. Cora will get you killed. And when she does, she won’t feel any kind of guilt. She’s a monster.”
Dayna took a deep breath and tried to keep her voice even. Meiner wasn’t mad at her, not really. She was mad she hadn’t listened to her warning, maybe. She was mad at Cora. “I can handle myself.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter anyway,” Meiner muttered. “Because apparently as soon as this is over, we’re gone.”
Dayna stared at her in disbelief. “You’re seriously leaving just like that?” It shouldn’t have been an issue; people had long-distance relationships all the time. But they weren’t actually together, and the way Meiner was talking…Her throat felt tight, and she didn’t know how to ask the question she wanted to.
“There,” Meiner said, her voice flat. “There’s the address.”
The car hunkered under one of the trees, engine idling bad-temperedly. Meiner’s hands were nervous on the wheel, fingers tapping an uneven rhythm. Dayna sat on her own hands to keep from fidgeting. She didn’t want to sit here; she wanted to argue, to seize Meiner by the collar and make her look at her. They needed to talk about this, to fight about it instead of sitting there in angry silence. But the inn beside them was probably where the murderers were deciding on their next target, and now was simply not the time.
The inn itself was unspectacular. Somehow rustic without being quaint, like someone had slapped a B and B sign on the family cabin. The shutters were green, and someone had planted begonias in the window boxes.
There came the familiar squeal of a fan belt, and Reagan’s patchwork van pulled up behind them, her mother in the passenger seat. The witches spilled out of the van one by one, with Bronagh the last to climb ponderously out of the sliding door.
“Callighans in front,” Bronagh said. “If the brothers aren’t there, we go through their room, see what we can find. If they are there, well”—she lifted her brow, expression dark—“they won’t be happy we’re dropping in on them like this.”
Faye followed close on her grandmother’s heels. She rotated her wrists and cracked her knuckles. “I do hope they’re in.” She tilted her face to the windows of the inn and showed all her teeth in an approximation of a smile.
The driveway leading to the inn was a narrow dirt lane with a red mailbox at the end, and the name of the place—the Willow Moon Inn—was stamped on it in the same gold letters that had been on the leather binder.
The front door was unlocked, and the foyer, which was done in rich red and burnished gold wallpaper, was empty when they walked in. The small, cluttered desk at the front was unmanned, and there was a bell sitting in the center of the papers and files. The grubby index card beside it read, Ring for service. Reagan reached for it, and Brenna tapped her shoulder, shaking her head.
“We don’t want to tip them off if they’re here.” The Callighans moved behind the desk, and Bronagh began prying open one of the cupboards on the wall. Rifling through the folders inside, she pulled one out with a noise of triumph.
“Guest log.” Bronagh set the book on the desk. “Look for three people, same room. The place isn’t big.”
They crowded around the desk, and Brenna flipped through the book, which consisted of rows of orderly handwriting logging each room number and the amount of guests, their check-in and -out time and the date. She skimmed until her finger had reached today’s date, her long nails a splash of red against the faded pages. There was only one entry of three, and it was a check-in with no check-out.
“That’s them.” Dayna took the book from Brenna, and when she rolled a fingertip over the black lines of the words party of three, a shiver seemed to trail down her back. The man from her vision might be there. When she walked in, would she feel the same way she had in the vision? Would she find herself frozen on the threshold, arms stiff at her sides, chest tight as she struggled to drag in breath?
She clenched her fists, trying to force her thoughts away from their usual course, from fixating on her breath. “This is them.”