‘I’ll go.’
The speed with which Jackson put himself between me and Cerian knocked the air out of my lungs.
‘No, you can’t.’
I thought of the promise I’d made to Virginia, Lydia whimpering at my side as he nodded at the two of us.
‘Has to be me. Can’t be my grandmother, and I’m not going to stand idly by and let Ashley volunteer as tribute.’
‘And to think you call yourself a feminist,’ Ashley clucked, but her voice broke as Jackson crossed to stand next to Cerian, as though we were setting up a game of Red Rover.
The Were snatched up the collar of his shirt despite the fact he went voluntarily and I knew he would never try to run,even if it meant his life. She had no idea what honour meant, not like Jackson.
‘It’s all good,’ he said, staring hard at me and his sister. ‘I was only going to be in the way. Tell Grandmother not to worry, I’ll be back tonight.’
‘We’ll see about that,’ Cerian said, yanking him towards the door like a dog on a leash. ‘Be seeing ya.’
‘Wait!’ I rushed at Jackson and threw my arms around his neck, pressing my face close to his. His captor looked away in disgust but Jackson only nodded when I pulled away.
We let them go, Lydia, Ashley and I, standing firm in the foyer as she marched Jackson down the steps, the darkening skies turning all the oaks of Lafayette Square into sinister silhouettes.
‘That wasn’t part of the plan,’ Lydia said shakily, a tease of thunder cracking in the sky. ‘We can’t let them take him, Em, we can’t.’
‘The plan has changed.’
I opened my fist to reveal Jackson’s silver chain and their mother’s opal ring.
‘What is it?’ Ashley asked, plucking it from my palm to inspect the stones.
‘Our advantage,’ I replied. ‘We just got it back.’
Chapter Forty-Two
The moon was set to rise at 8.21 p.m. and Morrell Park was a twenty-minute walk from Bell House. We had less than an hour between moonrise and the trial to accomplish too many things but we had little choice in the matter.
‘This isn’t exactly how I imagined conducting my first Becoming ceremony,’ I told Lydia as we changed hurriedly in the kitchen. My room was still haunted by the violence of the night before, just stepping inside to retrieve what I needed was difficult enough.
‘This should be a celebration, we shouldn’t be hurrying through it like this. There are supposed to be gowns.’
‘Em, do I look like a gown girlie?’ Lydia shucked off her jeans and tank top, trading them for a pair of cargo pants and white long-sleeved shirt. ‘Anyway, I’ve already been to more than my fair share of ceremonies and everyone knows the party afterwards is the best part. This is good. We burn through the yapping and skip straight to the good part.’
Cinching a belt around the carpenter jeans I’d borrowed from Jackson, I frowned.
‘I think you might be the first person in history to describe standing trial for murder as “the good bit”.’
‘Love to be a trendsetter.’ She held out her arms and struck a pose. ‘Same with the ensemble. Here we have Lydia Powell modelling the finest in Becoming ritual-slash-Were-combat chic. Long sleeves, long pants for practicality, metallic accents for flair and most importantly, pockets for snacks.’
‘Snacks and spells,’ I corrected. ‘Don’t get them mixed up.’
Over on the kitchen table, Ashley was lining up the concoctions she and Viriginia had been working on all afternoon, all of them wrapped in muslin bags except for one. The pouch in my back pocket, the smallest of them all but it was already dragging me down.
‘Ready?’
Virginia opened the door to the kitchen from the outside, glowing with pride in her long white dress, the traditional Powell family Becoming gown. The only evidence of their connection to the blessing, something so precious even Edwina couldn’t bring herself to destroy it. Since Lydia had politely declined the chance to dress up as her great-great-grandmother, Virginia elected to wear it herself, and despite her distress over Jackson’s disappearance and Lydia’s part in the trial, she still found time to whisper to Ashley how pleased she was to know that the thing still fit.
‘I can see the moon,’ she said, hurrying us down the steps and into the garden. ‘We’re ready.’
‘You know your lines?’ Lydia asked me as I picked up the ceremonial dagger I’d already warned her would be making another appearance.
