Like a bolt of lightning, the memory that had been nudging gently against me like those flowers exploded into my mind, a memory trying to break through my initial fears and suspicions about this stranger now sitting beside me. Asteria had come to me while I met with Xiomara and given me a message. She had told me this would happen. What was it she said?
The girl will bring the book. Trust her, little bird.
I stared at the young woman beside me. She gave a kind of groan as she sat down and pulled a hair tie from her wrist, which she used to hoist her hair into a messy bun on top of her head, squinting into the sunlight.
Was this her? Was this the woman Asteria had told me about? I swallowed hard, my thoughts absolutely swirling now. Asteria might want me to trust her, but I still had questions.
“Sorry, what did you say your name was?” I asked, hoping against hope that she wouldn’t hear the tremor in my voice.
“Jess Ballard,” she repeated patiently.
“And… that book,” I said, pointing down at her bag, which she had taken off her back and was now leaning against her leg. “Where did you get it?”
“It was… well, kind of an accident that I found it,” Jess said. She seemed to be choosing her words carefully. “I work at a school over in England called Fairhaven. We have an extensive antique book collection, and one day some students sort of… stumbled upon that one.” She hiked her thumb at her backpack, in which the book was now zipped.
“You mean it’s a library book?” I asked.
“Well, yes and no. It was technically in our library, but it shouldn’t have been. I couldn’t find a record of it in our catalogue, and it was so different from the other books we had that I decided to get it examined properly by an expert, a Dr. Vesper. And that led me to you.”
“Wait, the person who examined it was also named Vesper?”
“That’s right.”
My mind was whirling. I’d never asked about Vesper relatives outside of Sedgwick Cove, so I had no idea whether what she was telling me was true. Still, it sounded plausible.
“So this Dr. Vesper said you needed to give the book to me?”
Jess paused just a moment too long before she said, “With a little investigating, we were able to determine that you were the rightful owner. I left some of Dr. Vesper’s notes on your family tree tucked in there, that I think will help explain.”
“You said the book is… is different from the other books?” I asked. “What does that mean exactly?”
Here, Jess bit her lip. “It just… didn’t quite fit in our collection. I’m not sure if someone had put it there by accident, or maybe they were trying to conceal it there. But however it got to be there, it shouldn’t have been.”
“And you came all the way from England to give it to me?” I asked.
“Yup.”
“No offense, but that sounds like an awful lot of trouble to go to. I mean, you don’t know me.”
Jess lifted a hand to her lips, rather like she was trying to smother a laugh. “I suppose you’re right, but… I just wanted to make sure it found its way home.”
“And its home is… me?”
“So it would seem.”
I took a deep breath. “Can I… see it?”
“Of course. It is yours, after all.”
Jess reached down into her backpack and pulled out the book once again. This time, when she held it out to me, I took it.
The very moment the book touched my skin, a frisson, like electricity, shot up my fingers, filling my body with strange, hot energy. At once, I yelped and the book nearly fell to the gravel, but Jess shot out a hand and managed to grab it before it did.
“What was that?” I gasped.
“What was what?” Jess asked, though she sounded more intrigued than confused.
“I… nothing,” I lied quickly. “Uh… static electricity, probably.
