“Kallie, you sure about this?” I eyed her warily. “The last Unseelie spell you used to locate the key didn’t work.”
“Because I didn’t believe in my ability to perform it, which you must do if you’re going to cast fae magic,” Kallie stated. “But I trust that I can pull offthisspell, because the answers are already in my blood. We just have to unlock the memories. It’s the only way to learn where Amalie took the key.”
She was already climbing onto the table. “Let’s get this over with.”
Kallie sprawled across the table on her back. Marcus opened the book he’d been reading and began to recite a verse. “Phantom Doe of Shadow, Neva, Goddess of Time, take us back through distant past, make clear through path divine. Answers found in ancestors, hidden soon be known, through graves of ancient ones we dig, blood to blood, bone to bone.”
Kallie’s eyelids fluttered closed, and she went very still. At first, the vision seemed fairly peaceful. Kallie’s chest rose and fell evenly, and Alette rested gently on her nose.
Minutes passed. I wasn’t sure what Kallie was seeing, but she didn’t seem to be in any distress. We waited for her to awaken, hoping she’d see something that would help us.
Then, the room darkened. The sunlight filtered out from the windows, ending all the illusions in the room and leaving us in shadow. I lit a ball of Fire in my hand, so Marcus and I could see. Several things in the room crashed and broke, though I couldn’t tell from where. Books started flying off the shelves, and Alette gave a cry of alarm as she fluttered upward. The room shrank as it returned to its normal size.
Kallie started to convulse. Her body shook as her head slammed back against the table, like she was having a seizure, and a deep laughter infected the room. I didn’t know where it was coming from, and it scared the shit out of me.
Marcus immediately started to panic. “Fuck. Fuck, fuck, this isn’t supposed to happen!”
“What went wrong?” Charlie bellowed. He had to yell over the noise.
Marcus clutched the grimoire. “The meditation issupposedto be performed by an Unseelie sorceress, but since I’m a Seer and the magic is similar, we thought I’d do just fine—”
“Goddammit!” Charlie smacked his face. “Should’ve known you two would try to cut corners!”
Kallie’s body began to levitate off the table, shaking in tremors. “Marcus, make it stop!” I yelled.
“I… I don’t know how!” he yelped, flipping frantically through pages. “Oh, good Goddess, help!”
I frantically searched the room for clues. Above Kallie, a translucent force zoomed back and forth. It was nearly invisible, but not quite. I recognized it, because I knew the terrible feeling I got whenever these entities were in my presence. The insane laughter suddenly made sense.
“It’s the dark spirits,” I said, catching on. “They’re interfering with the ceremony.”
“Finally, something I can handle,” Marcus said frantically, throwing the grimoire down. He dug in his pockets for cedar oil and salt, and immediately started screaming at the spirits. “Get the hell out of here! Leave her alone!”
I heard their wicked cries as the dark spirits resisted Marcus’ orders to leave, and failed. Light came back into the room, and all the illusions returned as the area went back to the magical state it had been.
As Marcus chased the spirits off, Charlie reached out and grabbed Kallie, yanking her back down to the table. She slammed down onto it, and several books toppled off.
Kallie’s eyes shot open. She sat up on the table, and Alette landed on her head as Marcus ran the remainder of the spirits out of the hall.
Marcus panted as he came back to the table. “Kallie, are you all right?”
She blinked. She seemed to have no recollection of the dark spirits, or the scary shit that had just happened.
“The vision was so…vivid,” Kallie said. “I was acting as Amalie, through her eyes. Iwatchedas I stole the key from Atlantis. She was the girl from my first vision.”
“What else did you learn from the vision?” Marcus pressed.
Kallie paused for a short moment, as if recollecting everything she’d seen. “From what I saw and heard, the year was 1867. Amalie was in Atlantis, and she knew about the merfolk key. She’d been contacted by Neva, the goddess of time, who told her the merfolk key needed to be kept safe until the proper individuals could take ownership of it.”
“Demigods,” I murmured.
Kallie nodded. “She stole the key… she had help, but I couldn’t see who— some Atlantean diplomat, I think. The memory was murky. She and her ally planned to go to Darke Island… that’s all I could gather from what I saw.”
“Did you see where Amalie hid the key?” Charlie asked.
“I didn’t get that far,” Kallie complained. “The vision broke before I had a chance to see where she concealed it.”
“But you think she hid it on Darke Island?” he pressed.
