Chapter 20

20

T he word “room” was entirely wrong for the place in which we now found ourselves. A room was a box, straight walls, a ceiling, a floor. This place was a cavern—a space hollowed by the gentle but relentlessly greedy fingers of the ocean tide, weathering the rock away, millimeter by millimeter, over centuries. The floor was damp stone, polished smooth by the sand dragged over it by the undulating surf. The walls were pock-marked and twisted, a creation of jagged edges and sharp crevices. The air was briny and moist, moving in and out of my lungs like a tide as I gasped, trying to take it all in —to understand.

At the center of the room was what once might have been a stone dais, but was so worn down and broken apart, that it was now only an echo of itself. And upon the remains of the dais was a crumbled pile of ancient stone, built up into two piles, about waist high. It had once been something taller and grander, something… mystical. It was more knowledge than feeling, somehow. I felt no surprise or confusion upon seeing it. It was as though some deep part of me expected to see it. It felt at once like something humans had made, and somehow also something endemic to the location, forming from the ground the way mountains did.

But it wasn’t only its physical form that drew my eye to the stones. There was something absolutely magnetic about it. It drew my gaze, and I didn’t know how to look away. It was as though it was calling to me, over and over again, asking a question in a language I couldn’t comprehend, and yet was desperate to answer. I took an involuntary step toward it, but Nova grabbed me.

The feeling of her frantic fingers on my arm was like the breaking of a spell. I tore my eyes from the dais, and once I had, everything else about the room came rushing back to me. The cold, the damp, the sound of dripping water. Nova wasn’t looking at me. Instead, her gaze was fixed on the far side of the room, where two figures stood. The first was Luca, his posture relaxed, hands thrust into his pockets, an easy smile on his face. The second was Bea, looking frightened and withdrawn, her arms wrapped tightly around herself. The sight of them wrenched a cry of relief from my throat.

“Bea!” I cried.

“Wren!” The reply echoed around the space, so that it took me a moment to understand that both Luca and Bea had answered. They’d both said my name at the same time.

“Are you all right? I was so worried!” I said.

“Of course, I’m all right,” the answer came again; and again, both Bea and Luca answered.

I started forward, but Nova grabbed my arm again, holding me back.

“What are you doing?” I asked, trying to shake her off, but she held me fast.

“Something’s wrong,” she whispered. “Something is very wrong.”

“What are you talking ab?—”

Nova held up a finger, silencing me mid-question. Then she turned to Bea and Luca and said, “What is this place?”

Both of them simply stared at me, as though Nova hadn’t even spoken.

“Now you ask,” she whispered, nudging me.

“I don’t?—”

“Wren, just do it!”

I turned to Bea and Luca. “What is this place?” I asked.

“I don’t know! I’m scared!” came the answer, again from both mouths at the same time, in an identical intonation. Bea’s expression matched her words, but Luca’s was all wrong. He was still smiling, still looking as cool and casual as he had when I’d first seen him lounging in the ticket booth, upstairs.

“Do you see it?” Nova asked.

“I… what is it?” I asked, keeping my voice low now, even as fear began to skitter up my spine.

“I don’t know, but something’s up,” Nova said. “They only answer you, and they only answer together. It’s like I’m not even here. Does that seem normal to you?”

I turned back to them, biting my lip. “Bea, is that you?” I asked, and it was a struggle to get enough breath to raise my voice.

“Of course it’s me, Wren!”

Two voices. Two figures speaking to me, and only to me.

Dread exploded in the pit of my stomach.

“What’s happened to you, Bea?” I whispered. “Luca, what’s going on?”

And then suddenly, both figures laughed, a long, harsh laugh that sounded strange in their voices, and looked even stranger as their expressions did not change. They laughed and laughed, like I’d just told the funniest joke.

“My goodness, that was easier than I expected,” they both said to me, as their laughter died away. “Honestly, it was almost too easy. I’m rather disappointed.”

Nova’s fingers on my arm tightened, as we watched a third figure emerge from the shadowy corner of the cavern. The figure stepped into view with slow, measured strides, that nonetheless had a feline fluidity. Watching the figure come closer was more like being stalked, than approached. As the figure moved forward into the light, it revealed itself, piece by piece, like a puzzle clicking together in my head. First, the long, slender legs, then the sparkling, bangle-clad arms, then the shining halo of hair surrounding the flawless face of Veronica Meyers.

“Ms. Meyers?” I mouthed. There wasn’t enough breath in my lungs to say the words out loud, and yet she seemed to understand me perfectly. At the mere suggestion of her name, she twitched with annoyance, as though a fly had landed on her.

“I do believe I told you to call me Veronica,” she said, hitching her smile back in place at once.

“I don’t understand,” I said. My brain felt slow, like every thought was wading through molasses. I looked from Bea to Veronica to Luca, desperate for the pieces to fall into place.

“Oh, that much is very evident. I never imagined I’d be up against such an utter ignorance of magical knowledge. I mean, I knew you were unpracticed, but wow. ”

“Up against?” I asked. “Why would you be up against me? What are you even doing here? Did Luca call you?”

“Dear Luca,” she looked at her son beside her, his expression impassive, almost blank. “He did provide me with an in, however inadvertently. I really must remember to thank him when I see him.”

I looked back and forth between Luca and Veronica, feeling like someone had put my brain in a blender, and hit the button. “What do you mean when you see him? He’s… he’s right there.”

Veronica looked at the figure beside her, and then back at me with a pitying look. “My dear, you are even further behind than I thought.” She then bent over to whisper something in Luca’s ear. As she did so, she rested a single hand on his arm. A moment later, Luca was simply gone—crumbled away to nothing, like sand in the wind.

I cried out, taking a step forward, and raising my hands as though I thought I might be able to gather all the tiny particles, and reassemble him. The impulse died as quickly as it flared, and I froze where I stood, horror bubbling inside me.

Luca hadn’t been real. But then…

My eyes drifted over to Bea.

“There we are. Catching on at last,” Veronica said, and she crossed the space between her and Bea in a single long stride. She reached one long, slender finger out, and cocked it under Bea’s chin, pulling Bea’s face toward her, and then puckering her lips and planting a gentle kiss on the tip of Bea’s nose.

With a shiver and a whoosh , Bea vanished as well.

Veronica then turned to me, cocking her head to one side. “Surely, you recognize a glamour when you see one? Your family’s shop is crawling with them, after all.”

I turned to Nova, and she nodded, answering the question in my eyes. How could I have been so stupid?

I’d thought Bea and I had been the only two witches who hadn’t been affected by the spell at the festival. But now I understood: Bea wasn’t Bea at all. The real Bea was probably somewhere in that crowd back on Main Street, still hypnotized by the pageant. This Bea—the one I had followed here—had been nothing but an illusion, a piece of bait dancing on the surface of the water. And like the most gullible of fish, I leaped for it. And yet…

“I still don’t understand. How do you know about… about glamours and… You’re not even a…” I felt almost dizzy with confusion. I must have swayed because Nova put out a hand to steady me. When I locked eyes with her, she looked just as bewildered as I felt.

“Not even a witch?” Veronica finished my sentence for me, her lips exaggerating the final word. “I’m afraid that was just an assumption on your part, and a foolish one at that.”

“You’re a witch,” I repeated, and the words sounded wrong.

“That’s right. Do try to keep up.”

“I… how?” I asked, utterly unable to form a more coherent question.

“The very same way as you are a witch, Wren. I was born one. Surely you heard the story of the playhouse? That Victor Meyers fell in love with a girl from Sedgwick Cove, and then bought the playhouse. Did you never think, perhaps, that the woman he married might have been a witch?”

I blinked. No, I hadn’t considered it. I glanced at Nova, and she looked as surprised as I felt. Everyone in Sedgwick Cove considered the Meyers family outsiders, regardless of who might have married into it three generations ago.

Veronica clicked her tongue. “My, my, how soon we were forgotten. I’d have thought our coven had made a bigger impact than that. After all, the Kildare name once struck fear into the heart of this town.”

A memory stirred. The Keep. The name carved into the stone. Persi’s words echoed back to me: By all accounts, they made no secret of their affinity for dark magic. They rose quickly when they came, gathering allies and challenging hierarchies. Soon, it became clear that they were not content to simply coexist in Sedgwick Cove; they wanted the deep magic for themselves. They even tried to summon the Darkness, like Sarah Claire had once done.

Nova replied before I could. “The Kildare coven was driven out of Sedgwick Cove centuries ago.”

Veronica turned her eyes on Nova, giving her an appraising look. “And who are you?”

Nova swallowed hard but lifted her chin, looking for a moment exactly like her grandmother. “Nova Claire.”

Veronica’s pursed lips widened into a smirk. “A Vesper and a Claire? Well, if this isn’t poetic justice.”

“What do the Kildares have to do with the Meyers family?” I asked impatiently. I was sick of feeling clueless, tired of trying to catch up.

“They are one and the same now. Nova is correct; the banishment of the Kildare coven is common knowledge among the residents of Sedgwick Cove. What is much less well known is that the Kildares came back.”

This pronouncement was met with total silence. Veronica seemed to enjoy the shock she was inflicting on us. She paused a moment to savor our dumbfounded expressions, before continuing.

“The Kildares were patient—their lust for power was for their coven, not themselves; and so, they waited. They knew they would have to bide their time, would have to let generations slip by, before they could dare try to set foot in the Cove again. And so they did. But then my grandmother Paulina, and her sister Valerie, stepped into their power, and it was clear to the entire coven that it was time. My grandmother was incredibly powerful, and her sister almost equally so. Before they had even reached womanhood, they were wielding spells of such power, that even those closest to them feared them as much as they loved them. The coven gathered, calling the spirits of their ancestors, and made a decision. Paulina and Valerie would return to the Cove, and seek the source of the deep magic there.

“They changed their last name to Jaques and invented a back story. They arrived in Sedgwick Cove, claiming to be refugees from a coven in Europe, escaping the devastation and poverty that had laid waste to their homeland after the war. They were accepted with open arms, and spent several years working their way into the community, gaining trust and forging connections. They were very good at their deception. Before long, it was as though the Jaques sisters had always been a part of the magical fabric of the town. Only then did they dare begin their search.

They could only work at night, in secret; and even then, they had to be wary of other witches, and their nocturnal practices. After a few nearly disastrous failed attempts, they managed to forge a connection to the Darkness. They were able to rouse it from its slumber, just enough to gather some clues about the deep magic. And at last, the Darkness led them to the source.”

Here, Veronica paused, her eyes fever bright, ignited with the passion of the tale she was retelling. It reminded me of that night up on the cliffs, when Zale had told the story of the founding of Sedgwick Cove. Veronica knew every syllable of this story by heart, and had probably heard it a thousand times, just like the kids sitting bright-eyed around that bonfire, their lips mouthing the words like the chorus of a favorite song. Another origin story of this place.

“So where was it?” Nova’s voice sliced through the silence like a knife: sharp, quick, and dripping with skepticism.

Veronica raised an eyebrow, looking amused. “You’re looking at it.”

And all three of us together let our gazes drift to the dais, to the pile of rubble that had so captivated me when first I’d seen it. Now that I had turned attention to it, I could feel it again, the lure of it, almost like… an invitation.

“This?” Nova asked, and again, her voice sounded sharp, but this time with badly suppressed fear. “This… pile of rocks?”

“I understand your skepticism,” Veronica said, and her smile twisted into something more vicious. “After all, the Second Daughters sought this power as well. To know that another coven discovered what you could not… it must be galling.”

“One.” Nova snapped.

“Excuse me?”

“One Second Daughter sought that power. Only one. And she does not define us.”

I reached over and took Nova’s hand. She didn’t look at me, but she squeezed my fingers in acknowledgment.

“Pity,” Veronica said. “To think what you all could have achieved if you’d had the courage to follow in her footsteps. Still, I should be grateful. My grandmother certainly was when she realized that the source of the deep magic had been safe all those years, since our coven’s banishment. But almost as soon as she and her sister discovered this place, that safety was threatened.

“The town was struggling financially at the time. Tourist dollars were being exhausted before they reached Sedgwick Cove, as the southern coast of Maine became more and more developed. I mean, why drive four hours from Boston for some quaint Maine seaside charm, when you can get your fill of it barely two hours away? They had to find a way to bring in revenue, and so they voted that this piece of land could be developed,” Veronica explained. “It was a contentious decision. The population of the town was very divided over it. My grandmother thought it must be the work of adversarial magic. How else could such a decision be made at the same moment she had made this crucial discovery? But she didn’t give up—she couldn’t. She simply needed to find a way to secure the property herself. The prospect seemed, at first, impossible. But my grandmother was a tenacious woman. The only thing that stood between my grandmother and what she wanted, was money. And so, she set her sights on the easiest way for a woman in those days to get some: a man.”

She smiled as though this particular detail of the story was her favorite, like a favorite chord in a familiar song.

“And so, she made her way to the seaside resorts, and started flirting with the vacationing businessmen. It didn’t take her long to catch the attention of Victor Meyers. He was a Broadway producer, with an overflowing wallet and a wandering eye. He fell so hard for my grandmother that the love potion she’d brewed for the occasion was almost irrelevant. She used it as a bit of insurance, but Victor, my grandfather, was smitten almost as soon as he’d laid eyes on her. We’ve always had a certain something, the women in my family.” Veronica tossed her hair, looking matter-of-fact rather than self-satisfied.

“Anyway, he proposed right out there on the rocks, but not before she’d convinced him of the beauty of this place, the potential it possessed, the money it could generate. Victor was more willing than she could have believed, but it wasn’t only his love for her that made him leap at the chance to buy this property. He’d passed over an opportunity to purchase a floundering resort in the Catskills, and the friend who had bought it instead had turned it into a goldmine. Victor was bitter. He wanted to make his mark in a whole new place, somewhere no other producer had been. My grandmother convinced him that Sedgwick Cove was that undiscovered gem. He made an offer that the town couldn’t refuse, and they began construction on the playhouse as soon as Victor and his bride returned from their whirlwind wedding and honeymoon.

“Paulina feigned interest in the theater itself so that she had the excuse to be here on site, overseeing the building project while really trying to unravel the mystery of the source. She was able to use her persuasion and magic to ensure that a secret entrance was created so that she could reach this cavern, while the men who built it immediately forgot about it. Once this had been done, she was free to come and go as she pleased, and she could begin the grueling work of unraveling the secrets of this place.”

“And how did that go for her?” Nova asked, the effectiveness of her sarcasm marred by the slight tremor in her voice.

“Oh, very slowly, at first. The Darkness was still bound by the Covenant, and could not access the deep magic. Paulina tried every method of magical discovery she could find, but she, too, remained unable to connect to the magic. Her frustrations grew, but so did her determination. Paulina decided she had to convene with the Darkness again, and try to learn more. She did not expect the Darkness to give her all the answers she was looking for—she was not so naive about the creature she was dealing with. But she did hope it might tell her enough that she could come to understand the nature of the source—and through that understanding, she thought she may even be able to access the deep magic directly, without involving the Darkness at all.

“On the summer solstice, under the light of the full moon, she drew a circle and convened with the Darkness. What she learned within the boundaries of that circle changed our coven’s course yet again. The Darkness sensed Paulina’s greed, but did not seem to fear it. In fact, it laughed at her. What did it matter if she coveted what neither of them could have? Paulina was deeply troubled by this. ‘What do you mean by this?’ she asked, expending a great amount of magic—of herself—so that the question became in some way a command. The Darkness had no choice but to answer truthfully.

“The source remains impenetrable until such a time as a pentamaleficus of the first blood walks this shore again.”

Something was tugging at the frayed edges of my attention, trying to draw me away from Veronica, even as I sensed it had everything to do with her tale. My brain was trying to make a connection, but I was too slow, too confused, too scared…

As though she had heard my thoughts, Veronica’s faraway gaze became focused again, and she turned to look directly at me. Her eyes were penetrating, as though they could peer into the very corners of you, the hidden places you barely acknowledge to yourself, let alone anyone else. My blood felt sluggish in my veins as I looked into those eyes, trying to remember and not to remember something all at the same time.

“Come now, Wren Vesper. Haven’t you put it together yet?” she whispered.

And like a rubber band twanging, all the disparate parts of the situation snapped back into place, so that I could see it for what it was. It felt like a good, cold slap across the face, at once painful and necessary.

The pentamaleficus was an elemental witch who could command all five of the elements, including the element of spirit. I had recently shown an affinity for all five elements, the first four on the beach while facing down the Gray Man, and the final one just in the last couple of days, having encountered my dead grandmother’s ghost repeatedly. The Darkness told Paulina they needed a pentamaleficus to access the source of the deep magic. The Darkness had tried, repeatedly, to lay claim to me and my power since I was barely old enough to walk.

I was staring at the completed puzzle, and the picture it presented crashed down upon me, all at once.

“Whoa, Vesper! Stay with me here!”

It was Nova’s voice, and it was coming from above me. Without realizing it, I had fallen to my knees, which I supposed was better than falling on my face. My arms, which were trying to hold me up despite having turned entirely to water, wobbled dangerously beneath me. My stomach gave a lurch, and I had no choice but to fold forward and rest my cheek on the cold, damp stone of the cavern floor.

“Got there at last, have you?” came Veronica’s indifferent voice.

“What is she—” Nova began, but she was pulled up short as the truth burst out of me.

“It’s me. I’m the pentamaleficus the Darkness was talking about. That’s why it found me when I was just a child. That’s why it found me again, as soon as my grandmother’s spell of protection died with her. It’s why it almost walked away with me into the sea. It needs me. It needs my… my power, to access the deep magic.”

There it was. I had said it out loud, and I couldn’t take it back: the truth at the heart of all of this.

I looked up and found that Nova’s eyes had gone black as her pupils expanded, until it seemed they would swallow her whole face. Every bit of the horror I felt was reflected back to me in those eyes.

What do we do? those eyes seemed to ask me.

I don’t know , my eyes answered back.

“Now you understand. My grandmother couldn’t complete the work she had so faithfully begun. But still, the Kildares did not lose hope. We waited—perhaps not patiently, but diligently, and while we waited, we prepared. We studied our craft in secret. We taught our daughters and their daughters. We stayed in this place and ensured its survival, so that the source would remain protected. And we waited. We waited, of course, for you , Wren Vesper.”

The words now caused only a dull echo of the shock I’d felt a few moments before, but my body still trembled with it. Nova was now gripping my arm so tightly it was tingling.

“How did you know?” I asked, the thought slipping out of my mouth unintentionally.

“How did I know what?” Veronica asked, her voice smooth and polite, like a teacher clarifying a point in front of a class.

“How did you know who I was? That I had… arrived?” I asked.

“Oh, that was simple enough. We had bound ourselves to the Darkness so that we would know when it had awakened to your presence. Think of it as a magical alarm going off. It was my mother, the matriarch of the coven, who made her way to Sedgwick Cove then. She expected to find a powerful witch, fully attuned to her power, ready to become either a willing ally or a fearsome adversary. What she found instead… was a mere child.”

“It became clear, as she watched and waited, that our time to claim you had not yet come. Your grandmother saw to that. She was a powerful witch. She protected you exceedingly well, in more ways than I think anyone but we, who were trying to penetrate her defenses, could comprehend. Still, we had waited so long. What was a few more years? When you had matured, her protection would be useless. You would step into your power, and then step into our waiting arms. We could be patient a little while longer.”

“And then I came back,” I whispered.

Veronica’s smile widened, a cat-in-the-cream smile. “And then you came back.”