But Rhi was shaking her head. “I opened the door. It was unlocked. She’s gone.”
All the color drained from my mom’s face. “We’ve got to find her.”
Rhi made an exasperated sound. “I know we do, that’s why I?—”
Jess appeared in the doorway, too, having heard everything. “I’ll help you. We can split up. Where might she have gone?”
“Jess, that’s a lovely offer, but you can’t help us, honey, the whole police force is looking for you,” my mom said. “But you and Wren can stay here in case she comes back.”
“I don’t want to stay here!” I said. “I want to help look!”
My mom rounded on me. “Wren, can you please just cooperate? I’ll feel much better if at least one member of our family is home and safe.”
“I’m not a child, Mom, you don’t have to?—”
“Look, not to interrupt the teenage rebellion, but… isn’t that Persi coming down the road?” Jess asked.
We all turned to look in the direction she was pointing in time to see a figure walking slowly down the shore road from the north. It was undoubtedly Persi. Her long tresses of black hair whipped around her face in the wind, just as the long skirts of her black dress whipped around her ankles. Her feet were bare, her arms crossed tightly over her chest, and her makeup ran in smokey tear tracks down her face.
Rhi dropped the plate she was carrying, and started jogging toward the end of the driveway. We all followed her as she began to call Persi’s name.
“Persi? Persephone! Are you all right? What’s happened honey, where were you?”
Persi didn’t answer. She just continued walking toward us, her face oddly blank.
We spilled out from the end of the gravel drive out into the road, my mom wringing her hands, Rhi still shouting Persi’s name. Jess bobbed anxiously from foot to foot.
“Do you think she’s okay?” Jess asked. “Where do you think she went?”
“I don’t know,” my mom replied, her voice thready with anxiety. “The only things up that way are the Shadow Tree, the Playhouse and?—”
“The lighthouse,” I interrupted. “Look.”
At that moment, appearing over the little hill in the road came Diana and Freya, flanking Persi on either side. A chilly mist was blowing in off the ocean, wrapping the three of them in a swirling haze. No one moved. We just stood there, transfixed, watching the three of them get closer. At last Persi stopped walking, still a few yards away from us, and the mist parted enough so that we could see her more clearly. Her arms weren’t just crossed over her chest. They were clutching something against her body. She grasped the something with both hands, and held it out so that we could see it.
“It’s the Vesper grimoire,” Rhi murmured, stunned.
“It can’t be,” my mother gasped. “She couldn’t have removed it.”
Persi was walking toward us again, and now she was close enough to answer.
“I couldn’t remove it, no,” she said, “but they could.” And she looked down with a nod of acknowledgment, first to Freya and then to Diana.
Of course. The grimoire had been bound to the cats. I stared in disbelief at Freya, who sat back on her haunches and began to groom herself unconcernedly. I barely managed to clap my hand over my mouth before an incredulous laugh burst from my lips.
Persi walked right up to Rhi, and held out the grimoire to her. Rhi hesitated only a moment before taking it reverently into her own hands.
“We have the Claire grimoire, too,” I said, holding up the package. “Nova came through after all.”
Persi grimly nodded her satisfaction. “Then it’s tonight. We end this tonight.”
21
Persi disappeared upstairs, and emerged half an hour later having washed her face and changed her clothes. No one asked for details about what had happened in the lighthouse. There would be time for that later. For now, we were focused on the night ahead, and what we were planning to do.
We waited for all the shops to close downtown, and then my mom took Jess to Shadowkeep to restock her supplies. Jess returned gushing about how the Shadowkeep inventory could rival the one the Durupinen used at Fairhaven.
“Fairhaven sounds amazing,” I said to her. “I hope I can see it one day.”
