“Nova, I told you. Asteria told me I need to trust her.”
Nova looked like she was battling with the impulse to argue with me, and I was pleasantly surprised when she swallowed her questions and shoved her curiosity down with an impressively unbothered shrug.
“Fine. But we still need to understand what the hell happened tonight.”
“Agreed.”
Nova looked around furtively. “Do you think we should try to search the room while she’s gone?”
“And look for what?” I asked.
“I dunno,” Nova shrugged. “Weapons? Additional dead bodies?”
I gazed around skeptically. “I don’t know, Nova. It looks like it’s mostly dirty clothes and leftover iced coffee in here.”
Nova rolled her eyes. “We’re not looking for the obvious, Wren. We’re looking for what’s hidden.”
As much as I trusted Asteria, she was only human, living or dead, and therefore must be susceptible to the same weaknesses as the rest of us. So, I agreed that we should probably do just a bare minimum of snooping. Jess could still be hiding something—from Asteria and from us. Better to have as much information as possible when confronting her. `
Nova and I started on opposite sides of the room, opening drawers, feeling under the mattress and between the dresser and the wall. We moved as quickly as we could, knowing Jess could be back any second, and praying that she was taking her time defrosting her recently reacquired body so that we wouldn’t be caught. I dug quickly through her suitcase while Nova stuck her hands into a pair of battered Doc Martins and the pockets of two oversized flannel shirts hanging on the back of the door.
“What’s this?” Nova asked suddenly. She had opened a drawer in the bedside table, and pulled out a small leatherbound book.
“I don’t know, a Bible? Isn’t that what they usually put in hotel bedrooms?” I suggested.
Nova snorted. “Not in Sedgwick Cove. No, it’s old, Wren. Like,reallyold.”
I hurried over to join her. The book was made of battered, ancient leather, and the words inside were in a language I’d never seen before—neither of us could make sense of any of it.
“Any ideas?” Nova asked, after we’d closed it again.
“Not really,” I said. “I know it’s not French or Spanish.”
“Or Italian,” Nova added.
“It’s… do you feel something strange when you touch it? A sort of… energy?” I whispered.
Nova nodded. “Yeah. This definitely isn’t a normal book. It might be…”
“A grimoire?” I asked, the word falling easily from my lips, even as Nova seemed about to say it.
She nodded. “Witch or not, this is a spellbook of some kind, I’m sure of it.”
We heard footsteps in the hallway, and Nova lunged for the bedside table, stashing the book back in the drawer, and sliding it carefully shut. But then the footsteps stopped, and we heard a muffled voice out in the hallway. Nova and I traded one silent look, and then both tiptoed over to the bedroom door and put our ears against it, listening.
I recognized Jess’ voice right away, and the long pauses between her words meant that she was talking to someone we couldn’t hear. Then I remembered she’d taken her cell phone along, and realized we were eavesdropping on her half of a phone conversation.
“I know. I guess this is going to be more complicated than I expected,” she said with a sigh. “I know. I know. And you’re sure it’s not anywhere on our map? That’s so weird. Yeah, I’m sure. Oh, come on, Cat, do you seriously think I can’t tell?”
Nova and I looked at each other, but I could tell from the expression on her face that she was as mystified as I was. Withouthearing the other side of the conversation, it was almost impossible to understand what Jess was talking about. Still, we kept listening.
“I don’t know, I’ll have to try again, but it will be tricky,” Jess went on. “I may need to enlist the girl’s help, and to do that I’m going to have to tell her at least part of the truth. Of course I won’t. Fine. Will you please just let me handle it? I can slip under the radar much easier if it’s just me. Yes, I’ll keep you posted. Bye.”
We heard Jess end the call and the footsteps started again. Nova and I scrambled as silently as we could back across the room, and just managed to resume our seats as the door opened and Jess appeared, clad in oversized pajamas, with her masses of dark hair damp and piled on top of her head in a messy bun that was still dripping onto her shoulders, leaving wet spots on her gray t-shirt.
“You two done tearing my room apart?” she asked, smirking. “Because I can go dry my hair, too, if you need more time.”
I suddenly felt as though I had an obstruction in my throat. I threw a panicked look at Nova, whose usually bored expression harbored just an edge of anxiety.
