This was the whole of their plan. He would run a diversion long enough for her to get the books and throw them immediately into the fire so everyone knew they were gone, and no one would be tempted.
Witches filled the kitchen, and Siobhan demanded, “Don’t tell me Ducky wandered into the library again, or are we actually under attack?”
Just then, Ducky started barking at the back door.
Cat repeated the mantra she told him,First there are spikes, then there are trenches, then there are projectiles in every bush. Stay back.
“Do you see something, boy?” Siobhan asked.
Cat hunched her shoulders. Neither of them had considered that a dark wolf in the dead of night at the edge of the lawn wasn’t even visible.
Ducky yipped, and then the back porch light went on.
“It’s here!” Siobhan screamed.
The other problem Cat hadn’t foreseen was that sending Mateo to the backyard would mean everyone would gatherin the kitchen, blocking exactly where she needed to go. She hadn’t wanted him in front because it was a residential street surrounded by houses.
“It’s real!” Niamh screamed. “They’ve come.”
“I hate plans,” Cat muttered. “Planning is stupid.”
She was going to have to make a move. The longer she gave them to get organized and arm themselves, the more likely someone was going to get hurt. If Mateo got a crossbow to the flank, she would never forgive herself.
She slipped open the pantry door to see both Siobhan and Niamh at the back door, while Dylan crouched in the sink, looking out the back window.
Alarms still blared and lights still flashed, and she counted on that as she slipped sideways, trying to make it look like she had just arrived in case someone looked back at her before she dashed through Siobhan’s door, which was fortunately still hanging open.
She crossed the threshold and held her breath, but either the alarm was indistinguishable from the ones already going off or the threshold wasn’t a trigger.
She risked leaning backward to slide the door slowly closed and then turned on the flashlight. The room was dominated by a bed in the center with disturbed black sheets. Around the bed against the wall, Siobhan had put a vanity, a chest of drawers, and a small desk. Everything was dainty and dark.
If I were a stolen grimoire, where would I live?
She opened a drawer in the vanity not big enough to hold one regular book, let alone two. She slid it home and rolled her eyes. She had one talent that was useful in one situation.
She looked at the mirror in front of her and angled it so she wasn’t in view and softened her gaze.
She called upon her magic.
This wasn’t exactly what divination magic was for, but she’d adapted it a long time ago.
I find things. It’s what I do.
If she could find three kids lost in a snowstorm, she could find two books hidden in a tiny room.
She didn’t go searching for the object but searching for the time when the object was already found, because everything lost is found again by somebody. No secret stayed buried forever.
The mirror was the worst for this. The surface of the glass reflectedeverything. Everything in the room, everything currently in her life, everything in her vision. Finding something useful was like searching for Waldo in crowds of Waldos, a tiny future in a sea of other futures.
That was if she could even get a vision at all. All she could feel was her pounding heart, which was going so fast it was honestly a little disturbing.
Calm down. You have to calm down.
Because saying that always worked.
He’s out there getting shot at by now. You have to focus.
Because that was going to be conducive to focus.
