“What do you?—”
But there was no time to finish my question. At that moment, Rhi walked through the opening to the cavern and holding her hand, looking at once cautious and pleased with herself, was Bea. She smiled at me, and I smiled back.
“How?” Nova asked hoarsely.
“I think I’d better let Bea tell you that. She’s had quite the night herself.”
Back at Xiomara’s house,everyone had crowded into the too-small living room—the Conclave, my mom and her sisters, Nova, Eva, and Zale. There had been no trace of Veronica anywhere around the theater. The Conclave had instructed Sedgwick Cove’s tiny police force to set up a perimeter and search for her,both near the playhouse and up at the Meyers’ palatial beach house. It was a formality; no one really expected to find her. Veronica had shown her hand, and now she had no choice but to hide herself for the time being, unless she was a fool and, as Lydian wisely observed, “the Kildare coven didn’t produce fools.”
It was a long night. Eva, Zale, Nova, Bea, and I sat in Eva’s room, all of us bleary-eyed and exhausted, as the Conclave met —calling us in one at a time to tell our parts of the story, so that they could piece it all together from multiple angles. It was a little like waiting with your friends outside the principal’s office after you’d all gotten in trouble. Not that I’d ever been sent to the principal’s office—I’d been a bit of a goody-two-shoes before I started waging magical war with ancient evil entities. While Nova was downstairs being questioned by her own mother, we all sat around and listened to what had happened to the others.
“I knew something was wrong the moment we started reciting,” Eva said. “Something was almost imperceptibly different, like seeing the world in a mirror or something. Everything was right, and yet it was wrong. It was disorienting and weird, but once we started, it was already too late. We couldn’t stop.”
“I think I felt something, too,” Zale said, shaking his head ruefully. “But I couldn’t swear to it. I was such a nervous wreck about the pageant, wanting everything to be perfect, that I chalked it up to nerves at the time.”
“And then?” I prompted. I’d been incredibly eager to hear what it was like to be under the spell on the stage.
“And then… nothing,” Zale said, with a shrug. “Absolutely nothing.”
“Seriously?”
“Me, too,” Eva confirmed, nodding. “I think I heard the music start, the part right at the beginning with the pan flute?And then the next thing I remember is having to cover my ears because of the feedback from the speakers, and there was Bea right next to me.”
“It was like I blinked, and the entire pageant was over,” Zale wailed. “All that work, and I don’t have a single memory of it. And all anyone could say was how amazing it was!”
“Everyone else was under a spell, too,” Eva said, shrugging. “Maybe it was terrible, and they were all hexed into enjoying it.”
Zale gasped and then geared up to retort, but I cut him off. “Not everyone was under the spell,” I explained. “It was designed to affect all the witches present, except for me. Everyone else was riveted, Zale, trust me. And so was I before it all went to hell. I promise.”
Zale gave a whoop of glee. Eva rolled her eyes.
“Sure, the whole thing was a ploy to hijack the festival and hand Sedgwick Cove over to the Darkness, but the important thing is that theyclapped,” she grumbled in disgust.
“But they did!” Zale said. “I heard that part.”
“So what happened next? After you all woke up, or whatever?” I prompted.
“All of the witches were really confused when they snapped out of it,” Eva said. “We didn’t have any trouble convincing them they’d been under some kind of spell, too. They believed it right away.”
“Why do you think that was?” I mused to myself out loud, not really expecting that anyone would know the answer, but Eva laughed. I looked at her in time to see her reach out a finger and playfully flick at one of Bea’s braids. “We all knew Bea would never come down to that festival alone, unless it was a real emergency. The second I saw her face, I knew there was some serious shit about to go down.”
I turned to face Bea, who was doodling quietly on the corner of one of her sketches, her lips fighting a smile that would havegiven away how pleased she was with herself. “Okay,” I said, nudging her knee with my foot. “Now I want to hear it from the hero of the hour.”
Bea’s complexion darkened as she blushed. “I’m not a hero,” she muttered.
Eva rolled her eyes. “Bea, just tell us what happened, okay?”
Bea bit her lip, then set her pencil down, and watched her own fingers while she spoke. “I knew something wasn’t right about that lady. I knew it the first time I met her, over at the pageant rehearsal. I wasn’t sure exactly what it was, but I knew I didn’t like her.”
“Neither did I much, but I figured it was just the rich yuppie thing,” Eva muttered.
“But I didn’t think about it again, until she came to the restaurant at the end of the lunch rush today,” Bea went on, her little brow furrowed as she sifted through the memory for the relevant details. “She came in with that tall boy, her son…”
“Luca,” I said automatically, and then felt my own cheeks flush. I hoped no one noticed. I felt a pang of pity for him. What must it be like up at his house, the local police officers searching for his step-mom, having no clue what was going on…
“Right, Luca.Heseemed nice,” Bea qualified. “He waved at me and smiled, but that was it. But thenshe,” she shaped the word like it was a curse, “came over to me and wanted to see what I was drawing. I got really scared, because, well… I’d started drawing her while she was standing at the counter, talking toabuela. I… I didn’t want her to see, so I turned the page.”
“Yes, I remember that,” I said, nodding. “I remember her talking to you.”
