“Yes, yes. I don’t see any reason to think Miss Claire here won’t be perfectly fine after a hot cup of tea and a soak in the bath,” Rhi said, tucking her tins and beakers into her apron pocket, and guiding Nova gently toward the dais. “Here you go, dear heart. Sit back against this and keep holding that gauze there, all right?”
“No!” I cried out, and Nova stumbled back in alarm, falling into Rhi, who only just managed to keep her feet.
“Wren, what in the world…?” Rhi gasped.
“I don’t… don’t think we should touch it,” I said, trying to sound calm, but unable to quell the note of hysteria in my voice.
“Why? What is it?” Rhi asked.
“It’s the reason she lured me here,” I answered.
Rhi’s eyes widened, and she took an awed step back from the dais, staring at it as though it had materialized right out of the ground in front of her.
“Rhi, please!” my mother said, and Rhi seemed to snap out of her fixation.
“Right, yes. Sorry. I’ll make sure she’s…I’ll be right back.” Rhi helped Nova take a seat on a different lump of rock, one a good ten feet from the dais, and then scurried from the room. I thought I heard her call something out in the night, but the wind made it hard to hear. When I could no longer see her, I turned to my mother instead, the unanswered questions pouring out of me now.
“How did you know where to find me?” I asked.
My mom held up her cell phone. “I just tracked your location. See? Not just handy for lost pets.”
“But—”
“The tracker led us to the playhouse, but we couldn’t find a way inside. While Rhi started trying to pick the lock and Persi was trying to find a good sized rock to hurl through the nearest window, I circled the building, looking for another entrance. When I came around the far side of the building, closest to the rocks, the signal on the tracker got stronger, and so I followed it until I saw what looked like an HVAC vent. I’d barely bent to examine it, when voices started drifting up out of it. I heard her threatening you, Wren, and I just… I couldn’t wait for locks or broken windows. I focused my magic on the bushes and plants on all sides of me, and gave them one command.Take me to that voice.And they did.” She looked at the vibrant instant gardenthat had literally exploded into life to help her and smiled a fond, wistful smile. She stroked the petal of a nearby Rose of Sharon blossom, and then looked past it to the crumbling dais, her expression turning grave once again. “You said that’s why she brought you here,” she said, pointing at it. “What did you mean? What is this place?”
“How much did you hear?” I asked.
“I knew she had a gun, and that Nova was down there with you, and that she was threatening you, and…” my mother shuddered at the pain of the memory, and hugged me again.
“Well,” I said, “according to Veronica, we’re looking at the source of the deep magic.”
I wouldn’t have thought my mother could go any paler, but somehow she managed it. Her eyes widened, her lips pressed into a tense, stressful line. It took what felt like a very long time for her to answer.
“The source?” she verified.
“Yes.”
“Well, that’s… probably not good,” she concluded.
No, it was decidedlynotgood. But there was no unknowing it now.
“I guess we’d better tell Persi to pass along the message and get the whole Conclave down here.” My mom shook her head. “Veronica Meyers, of all people. I just don’t understand.”
“She’s only a Meyers in name,” I said, shaking my head. “It’s the mask she wears to hide the fact that she is actually a Kildare.”
My mother’s mouth dropped open. “But the… how do you know about?—”
“Persi mentioned them to me,” I said vaguely. There was no need to explain the exact circumstances under which I’d learned of the existence of the Kildare coven. There would be time for that later.
“It sounds like a lot unfolded before we found you,” my mom said.
“There’s so much to tell you. But…” I threw an uneasy look at the dais, felt the tugging of its strange lure, heard what could have been whispers. But what I no longer felt was Asteria’s presence. The cavern suddenly felt sinister again, even with Veronica gone. “Can we get out of here?”
My mother shuddered and nodded. “Yes. I think that’s an excellent idea. And we’ll need to stop at Xiomara’s house on the way.”
Xiomara’s name flicked some switch in my brain, and I felt a sickening wave of fear all over again. “Wait, Mom! Bea! Someone needs to check on Bea! Veronica put some kind of sleeping spell on her and?—”
“Bea’s fine. She’s more than fine. In fact, she’s the reason we’re here,” my mother said, managing a semblance of a smile.
