“I’ve already thought of that,” Rhi plowed on, laying the Binding implements out on the table. “That’s why we’re not Binding the book to us directly.”
I frowned. “But you said we have to Bind it to our coven. Aren’t… aren’t we the coven? So how?—?”
But as though in direct answer to my question, there was a sudden whirl of fur, and two shapes leapt up onto the kitchen table: Freya and Diana. Rhi grinned as she reached out and scratched Diana between her ears. Diana closed her one eye lazily, deigning to accept the show of affection.
“Oh!” I said, as the realization hit. “Will that… is that going to work?”
But Persi and my mom were also smiling broadly, and so I had my answer.
Together we sat around the table. Freya and Diana sat patiently asRhi plucked several long hairs—black for Freya and white for Diana—from their lustrously fluffy tails, to which indignity neither cat seemed to object. She placed the hairs inside the grimoire, right on top of the page with the Latin inscription, murmuring an incantation under her breath. As she did this, my mother lit the candle, and Persi began scratching a sigil onto the inner layer of the birch bark with the sharpened tip of the feather, her head bent low over her work, so that her curtain of dark hair hid her from view. After less than a minute’s frantic scratching, she flung the feather aside with a triumphant, “Done!” And thrust the bark into Rhi’s waiting hands. I caught barely a glance of the spiky, complicated sigil she created.
“What does it mean?” I asked, as it passed under my nose.
“It makes the grimoire discoverable. Wherever it is, the coven familiars will be able to see through any glamours or enchantments obscuring it with their inner eye,” Persi explained.
Carefully, so that the bark didn’t split, Rhi wrapped it carefully around the outside of the grimoire, and secured it with the green ribbon. She also secured several more black and white cat hairs into the knot as she pulled the bow tight. Then she hovered her hands over the grimoire for a few more seconds, her eyes closed in concentration. Finally, she opened her eyes with a satisfied sigh.
“It is done,” she announced, dropping her hands to her sides.
Freya and Diana both sniffed at the book, as though inspecting her work. Then, as though declaring themselves satisfied, they leapt off the table and disappeared, tails whipping around the corner.
“Now what?” I asked.
“Now we remove all signs of the Binding, so the Conclave isn’t clued in,” my mom said. “And then, we wait.”
We didn’t have to wait long. Within a few minutes there was a sharp knock on the door.
“Here we go,” Persi muttered, rising to answer it. “Once more unto the breach.”
10
For the next hour, I sat on the couch with a cup of tea in my hands, answering question after question from Maeve and one of her fellow officers. Luckily, I didn’t have to make up some kind of story about what I’d been doing in the woods, because like everyone else in Sedgwick Cove, Maeve was a member of a local coven, and therefore didn’t even bat an eye as I described the ritual at the Shadow Tree, and the flame that led me to Jess’ body. She simply nodded along calmly, and scribbled on her notepad.
While this questioning went on, the members of the Conclave arrived one by one. They never knocked or rang the doorbell, and yet my mother and aunts somehow knew when to rise wordlessly and open the door for them. I glanced at Xiomara as she walked through the living room, her eyes burning with a question she couldn’t ask out loud. I excused myself from the officers with a mumbled, “Be right back,” and went over to join her where she stood in the doorway. Xiomara gave Rhi a pointed look, and after a moment’s hesitation, Rhi shrugged and returned to the kitchen.
“Are you all right,mija?” Xiomara asked.
“Yeah, I’m okay,” I said, and watched her purse her lips at the lie.
“How much have you told them? About Asteria?”
“They know she contacted me in the spring. They know we’ve been trying to reach out since, but without success. I didn’t get into the specifics of last night, only that Asteria is confused. But,” I bit my lip, hesitating.
“Escupelo! Just come out with it, child!”
“I haven’t told you everything.”
Xiomara raised a single eyebrow, waiting.
“Just… don’t be mad. It wasn’t my decision. Well, it wasn’t all my decision.”
“What haven’t you told me?”
“You’ll see. The whole Conclave will know in a minute. Anyway, I’m sorry.”
At that moment, Rhi brushed past us again and opened the door to Ostara, who swept in like a queen about to preside over her court. Despite the fact that it was nearly midnight, she was impeccably put together, makeup airbrushed and hair swept into an elegant chignon. In that moment, I realized that the reason she always ruffled everyone else was because she never looked ruffled at all, no matter how dire the circumstances. Then I wondered if it was a spell, which caused a hysterical bubble of laughter to force its way up my throat. I slapped my hand over my mouth to stifle it.
Ostara’s arrival was like a silent command. Without her saying a word, we all stood up and followed her into the kitchen. I could feel the collective tension that bloomed at her appearance. The air was buzzing with it. Between that and the constant undercurrent of magic, I felt almost dizzy.
