The effect was instantaneous. The paper sucked up the blood like a desiccated sponge, and from the place where it disappeared, lines began to appear, swirling and spreading across the surface like veins. The lines curved and looped into words and soon, the formerly blank page wascovered in writing. The heading at the top read “A Spell for Concealment.”
“Oh my goddess, it is,” Rhi whispered. “It is. It really, truly is.”
“Really is what?” I finally burst out. “Is anyone going to tell me what’s actually going on here?”
My mom tore her eyes from the book with difficulty. She opened her mouth, as though struggling for the right words.
“Mom, can you, like… take care of that?” I asked weakly. “It’s dripping down your whole arm.”
“Huh? Oh!” My mom pulled the blue bandana out of her hair, and wiped the snaking trail of blood from her forearm and wrist before wrapping the cloth hastily around her thumb. I didn’t bother mentioning that it was filthy—I was too eager to hear her answer.
“Well?”
“We’ll… we’ll have to perform some more tests, just to be sure?—”
“Oh, come on, Kerridwen! What other tests do we need?” Persi cried. Her eyes were bright with a wild, enthusiastic light.
“I don’t think we should jump to any conclusions,” my mom began defensively, but Persi cut her off again.
“Jumping? Who’s jumping? The conclusion is right in front of us. What else can it be but the truth?”
“The Conclave will want to?—”
“Oh, screw the Conclave!” Persi snapped. “We don’t need them to quaver and argue over what we can already see with our own eyes!”
“Which is WHAT?!” I shouted.
Persi turned her sparkling eyes on me. “That after being lost for centuries, the Vesper grimoire has finally come home!”
Her words crackled in the air like an incantation of their own.
“I don’t understand. We already have a grimoire,” I said, gesturing over to the kitchen counter where a huge leatherbound book sat propped on Rhi’s cookbook stand. It was the same spellbook we’d been using for all of my lessons, the book Rhi cracked open every time she was baking or looking something up.
“That isagrimoire, Wren. Notthegrimoire,” Persi said, as though that clarified things.
“Huh?”
“Oh, come on!” she snapped impatiently. You know the story, don’t you? Rhi, have you been neglecting to include the family history in this so-called education?”
“Of course not!” Rhi retorted, looking offended. “Don’t you start criticizing me when you keep flaking out on her lessons to go off galivant?—”
“Then you know the story of Sarah Claire and the night of the Covenant,” Persi interrupted, ignoring Rhi’s criticism.
Yes, I knew it. We’d been discussing part of it just that morning, when Rhi, in her explanation of familiars, explained about Diana’s role in our coven’s history. I tried to remember the story—Sarah on the cliff top, frantically trying to complete her spell before she was discovered, and Diana’s arrival just as she began the incantation.
An incantation in a stolen book…
An incantation summoned with blood…
“Holy shit!” I gasped, as the pieces finally clicked together in my brain. “Is that… that can’t be the same book!”
“I wouldn’t have believed it myself, if I hadn’t just watched your mother prove it,” Persi replied. She reached forward and pulled the book toward her.
“Be careful!” Rhi complained, as Persi flipped none too gently back through the pages until she found those mysterious words again.
“In sanguine tuo, clavis ad vim occultam,”she read out loud, her voice vibrating with barely suppressed triumph. “In thy blood, the key to hidden power.”
“That’s what it means?” I whispered.
