“You won’t,” Bernadette cooed. “You won’t do that. You love me. I can see it in your eyes.”
Persi looked up and met Bernadette’s eye then, her expression calm and steady and edged just a little by grief. “I do love you. But I will no longer allow myself to be exploited because of it. And yes, I do promise you, I will do it. I will not do it happily, but I will do it, and you would be smart not to test my resolve on that point.”
Bernadette’s top lip curled into a snarl, and she beat her hand against the bars again.
“Be careful,” I whispered to Persi. “You’re pissing her off.”
“No, I’m pissing Sarah off. There’s a difference,” Persi said, still with an admirable facade of calm, even as the tiniest of tremors crept into her voice.
“Aren’t you worried that she’s going to… I don’t know, fight back?” I asked.
“She can’t. The spells on this place have utterly decimated her powers, and Sarah is powerless without a living witch to carry out her bidding. Her connection to Bernadette is the only thing keeping her here. It’s time to sever the connection between the two, and send Sarah back beyond the veil where she belongs.”
“But once Sarah is disconnected from Bernadette, what will stop her from just… I don’t know, hopping straight into you or me, like an empty Uber?” I asked.
“It doesn’t work that way,” Persi said. “Once she exits Bernadette, we will trap her in an object. Then we destroy that object. That should send her back beyond the veil.”
“What’s the veil? What does that even mean?” I asked.
“It’s the only thing that stands between us and the beyond, and Sarah Claire is on the wrong side of it. But after this Cleansing, we will have cut her ties here. The beyond will claim her again.”
I felt like my head was spinning. I had to push a swirling mass of questions about the afterlife away for the time being, because Persi was now rolling up her sleeves to perform the next part of the Cleansing spell; and I suddenly found I wanted to have all my wits about me for whatever the hell was about to happen.
“What object are you using to trap her? Can you just use… anything?”
“No,” Persi said. “You have to use something that has a blood or life connection.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning either something the spirit handled while alive, or something handled by a member of their bloodline,” Persi said, and she tapped her finger on a book she’d pulled from her bag.
“What is that?” I asked.
“A book from the Manor. I took it from the library when we were summoned there. Unexpectedly helpful, that summoning. Instead of inventing some kind of pretext for entering the Manor, I was invited.”
“You mean you stole it?” I asked.
Persi gave me a withering look. “You mean did I take one of Ostara’s own items to solve a problem that she created? Yes, I did.”
But I was hardly listening. I’d just remembered what I had sitting in the bottom of my backpack. Something else stolen.
“Persi, would something that Sarah Claire actually owned work better?” I asked.
Persi rolled her eyes. “Almost certainly, but we don’t have anything that she?—”
“I do,” I replied, as I reached into my bag. I pulled out the mirror and laid it on the table.
For a moment, Persi could only stare at the mirror in undisguised shock. Then she looked at me with something akin to wonder. “Should I even ask how you came to have this sitting in your backpack?”
“Probably not. It was Nova. I told you she was determined to see this through.”
Persi smirked. “I knew I liked that girl. Okay, well, we’d better get started. Dawn isn’t far off.”
“Is this safe?” I asked her.
“Should be,” she replied.
“Shouldbe?”
