“Thank you all for coming at such short notice,” Ostara said, inclining her head. She gestured to the chairs that had been placed in the circle for us as we all dropped into them, Rhi and my mother looking wary, and Persi wearing an expression more closely suited to defiance.
“It’s not as though we had much of a choice,” Persi said, her voice quiet but fierce.
Ostara opened her mouth, presumably to say something dignified and diplomatic, but Lydian had neither the time nor the patience for that.
“Oh, give it a rest, Persephone,” Lydian snapped. “You sound like a petulant child.”
Rhi smothered a smile behind her hand, while my mother made a valiant effort to disguise a snort of laughter as a sneeze. Meanwhile, Persi glared at Lydian, though I noticed she didn’t quite have the courage to talk back again. It was almost unnatural to see Persi back down from an argument, and I had a feeling Lydian was one of the few people who could produce such a response.
“I acknowledge this summons was rather abrupt, and I do apologize for that, but it was for good reason,” Ostara went on, as though she hadn’t heard the exchange. “We knew that you wouldbe as anxious as we were to know the results of our examination of the lightning sand, and so I sent the summons as soon as we had anything to report.”
I’d been tense before, but now every muscle in my body felt coiled like a spring. I’d been right: this was about the events on the beach, and the interrogation I’d feared was about to occur, with my mother and aunts as a captive audience. My stomach roiled with nausea.
When I’d called on the elements that night on the beach, fire had answered my plea with a bolt of lightning. The lightning had struck the sand, turning it instantly molten, and then the liquid sand had risen up and created a sort of cage, trapping the Gray Man inside. It had all happened so quickly, both in and out of my control. To this moment, I had no idea how much of the night’s events I could really even claim credit for. It felt as though the power had belonged to the elements themselves, not to me. All I’d done was call for help… hadn’t I?
It was all such a blur, such a haze of adrenaline and fear.
“Wren, as I’m sure you remember, the Conclave closed the northernmost stretch of beach so that we could have the time and space we needed to examine the lightning sand. We not only physically roped off the beach, but we took magical precautions to ensure people would steer well clear of the area so that we could keep others safe while we worked, undisturbed.”
I had a momentary vision of the five Conclave members there in front of me, dressed like the witches from Macbeth, down on the beach with a massive cauldron over a driftwood fire, and I felt an almost irresistible urge to giggle. For heaven’s sake, I had to pull myself together, or they’d all think I was cracking up under the pressure of everything that had been thrust upon me in the last two weeks… and maybe I was. I refocused on Ostara, who was still speaking to me, and tried to pick up the thread of what she was saying.
“…used every protective spell we could think of before we began to examine it in earnest. We feared what might happen if we unintentionally freed the Darkness. All we wished to find, at first, was proof of its presence. Once we had that, we could determine how it was connected to the lightning sand.”
“We were so sure of it,” Xiomara said, her deeper, more melodic voice picking up the thread of the story now. We all turned as one to listen to her. “We could sense the strength of the Darkness, the power of it. It seemed, at first, that the Darkness itself must be trapped inside, like a beating heart in the cage of a chest.”
“What do you mean, at first?” my mom asked, her voice sharp. But I’d caught it, too, the hesitation in Xiomara’s tone. It made my heart stutter.
“I mean that it soon became clear that what we were sensing was not the Darkness itself. It was the traces of the magic it left behind,” Xiomara said.
I shot a look across the sofa at Rhi, Persi, and my mom. They all looked as bewildered as I felt, so at least I knew it wasn’t just me.
“I’m not sure I follow,” my mom said. “I thought the Darkness was trapped in that… that sand cage. Are you saying that isn’t the case?”
“We must be realistic, not wishful,” Zadia said, somewhat sternly. “We would all like the Darkness to be contained somehow, but that was never very likely, was it? Especially when a novice witch was involved.”
I felt a surge of guilt and fear. A moment ago, I was worried that I didn’t even understand what I’d done—and now, I was scared that whatever I’d done, I hadn’t done it right. I opened my mouth—I wasn’t entirely sure why, but I expected that I was preparing to apologize. Luckily for me, Persi was easily offended and leaped in before I could so much as clear my throat.
“A noviceVesper,” Persi said, tossing her magnificent hair and adjusting her posture so that she resembled a queen on a throne. “I think we can all agree that that is nothing to sniff at.”
Zadia smiled and inclined her head in acknowledgment, which seemed to satisfy Persi. Ostara, however, proceeded more carefully.
“Naturally, Wren’s lineage as a Vesper indicates that her potential is great,” she said. “But with no training or knowledge, it is unlikely that her actions on the beach, however admirable or impressive, were sufficient to trap the Darkness permanently. No Vesper has ever been able to do that.”
“And no Claire, either,” Lydian barked, and Ostara had no choice but to nod curtly in agreement, her expression somewhat sour. I heard a soft exhalation beside me, and saw that Persi was making no effort to hide her smile at Ostara’s expense.
“My point,” Ostara said, injecting her voice with a ringing note of authority, “is that Wren, whatever her powers, whatever her intentions, was unlikely, on her own, to have trapped the Darkness permanently. We have now determined that she has not. The Darkness is not contained within the lightning sand. The vessel is empty.”
This piece of information could not help but chill every person in the room. My mother was so tense beside me that I thought she might shatter with the pressure of keeping herself so tight and still. Unsure what else to do, I raised my hand like I was in school.
“Yes, Wren?” Ostara said, a note of amusement in her voice.
“I was just wondering… if the sand didn’t trap the Darkness, then why did everything stop when the sand closed around it?” I asked. “Why didn’t it simply keep coming for me?”
Everyone turned to Ostara expectantly, and she suddenly looked like she would have much preferred not to be on the spot.
“We’re not entirely certain,” she admitted.
“You meanyou’renot entirely certain,” Lydian snapped. “I’ve told you my theory, and I’m damn certain.”
