“But it’s better now?”
“All is as it should be. You have done so well,” she said to me. “The Source is safe and stable again, and the spirits beyond it are connected with their loved ones again.”
I wanted to smile. I could feel it trembling at the corners of my lips. But then I felt my face crumple, along with my happiness.
“Why do you despair, my love?”
“Because it won’t last, will it?” I asked. “It can’t. The Darkness won’t stop its pursuit. It will never rest.”
“That is true,” she said. “I wish it were not so. But like the Vesper witches that came before you, you will stay the watch.”
I felt a lump in my throat. I didn’t want to stay the watch. I didn’t want to always be waiting for the next attack. I felt trapped, my momentary relief curdling into despair.
“Couldn’t we… couldn’t we just leave this place?” I asked, a note of desperation coloring my words. “We can still be a coven somewhere else, can’t we? Why do we have to stay? Why is this our fight?”
Her smile was slow and sad. “Do you not feel this is your home?”
“Of course, I do, but…” I shrugged. “I’ve known other homes. We could begin again somewhere new, couldn’t we?”
“Oh yes, I suppose we could,” she said. “But let me ask you this: could you really turn your back on this place, knowing that the Darkness might find a way to consume it? Could you find contentment, always looking over your shoulder, waiting for him to reappear?”
I wanted to say yes. The word was right there, stuck in my throat,threatening to choke me. But my lips wouldn’t give up the lie, because that’s what it was. I hated it, but it was true.
Asteria understood my silence. I could sense every one of my bitter, hurt, and angry feelings passing through the space between us.
“There’s one thing I still don’t understand,” I said.
“Just one?” Asteria asked with a hoarse chuckle.
“Well, one that’s pressing on me,” I clarified. “How did you know about the grimoire? It’s been lost for such a long time. Generations of our coven have sought it to the ends of the earth, and never tracked it down.”
“Ah,” Asteria said. “In life, I could never have unraveled such a secret. But in death, we share in the collective knowledge of our coven. The moment I passed into the spirit realm, I knew all that had been kept from us, for our own protection. And when Sarah Claire began her attack on the Source, I knew from whence help must come, and I sought it at once.”
“You contacted Jess.”
“That’s right.”
“But how did the Durupinen come to possess the grimoire in the first place?” I asked.
“Would you like me to show you?” Asteria asked.
“Can you?” I asked.
“Oh, yes.” Asteria said. “With your spirit gifts, I can share the memories with you. You already know how it works—Sarah showed you many of her own memories, I believe.”
I shuddered. I wished I could unsee those memories. They felt like intrusions inside my brain. But somehow, I didn’t think that anything Asteria showed me would feel the same way.
“It will be rather… disorienting at first. But you have earned these answers, my little bird, if you want them.”
I hesitated only a moment.
“I want them,” I whispered. “I want to understand.”
“Close your eyes,” Asteria said. “And brace your mind.”
I dutifully scrunched my eyes closed, but before I could figure out how to follow her second instruction, an icy blast of memory hit me like a violent ocean wave, dragging me under, tossing me through my own mindlike a ragdoll. For several long moments, it was nothing but a howl of sound and flashing images and deep, biting cold. But then I managed to steady myself and the images slowed, the sounds resolved, and I found myself once again dropped right into a memory that was not my own. There was no pain this time—though whether that was because I had chosen to experience the memory, or because the memory came from my own bloodline, I couldn’t say. Also, this time, I seemed to be an observer, rather than reliving someone else’s experience from their point of view. This realization calmed me, and I began to take in the details around me without the haze of fear or confusion.
I found myself sitting in Lightkeep Cottage as it had been when the very first Vespers lived there—I recognized it from Sarah’s memories, though the scene was much crisper and clearer than when I had seen it through the lens of her memories. Beside me was Mary Vesper. She knelt on the braided rug in front of the hearth, her hair a tangled mass around her chalk white face. She had smudges of dirt and blood on her cheeks, and her eyes were dark and wild with fear.
