Chapter 12

CHAPTER TWELVE

VALERIA

C andlelight danced across my bedroom wall, throwing shadows on the dark floral wallpaper. My phone lit up abruptly on my nightstand, announcing it was charging. Finally, the power was back on. It had mysteriously cut out last night and stayed off all day, leaving my house drearier than usual and my cell battery dangerously low.

I reached for my phone and opened Instagram. For a second, I felt the familiar instinct to check my own page, to analyze my views and comments for some sort of quantitative measure of approval. But the notion seemed silly after the events of the past few weeks. Now I found myself using the app almost exclusively for its stalking capabilities.

I tapped on Celeste's latest story. In the photo, she modeled a new amethyst bracelet, two purple stones in the shape of a sun and a moon. eclipse ready , the caption declared. The eclipse wasn't until Friday, but Celeste could never resist the urge to show off a new purchase, especially if a glittery filter was involved. I recognized her bedspread in the background; she was at home, or had been an hour ago. Max didn't post as much as his sister, but his content remained consistent: sweetly naive quotes about kindness interspersed with photos of workout equipment with the caption practice makes perfect .

In addition to scrutinizing their social media, I had literally followed Max and Celeste on multiple occasions, hanging several cars behind Celeste's SUV as she headed to the shops on Main Street or trailing Max as he drove home from school. They went about their usual routines, unaware of my watchful gaze. The only thing out of the ordinary was that Max no longer smiled when Jayden walked into a room. Maybe he had a new crush, or maybe it had taken the introspection of tragedy for Max to finally realize Jayden wasn't interested. Either way, nothing Max or Celeste did seemed like the actions of a malevolent witch out to destroy our coven.

Still, I couldn't ignore the conflicting stories they'd given me about what they were doing the night Petra died. If Max had seen a movie with his sister like he said, then why did she claim she'd been shopping all night? I longed to just ask them, but Petra had been killed because someone thought she knew too much. There was safety in secrecy.

Of course, on my mental list of suspicious figures, the standout was Gwen. When I'd faced the killer in the forest, Gwen had been with my mom and Luke in the kitchen. No spell I'd ever heard of would allow her to be in two places at once. But she'd controlled Thomas, and her joyride in a stranger's car showed she didn't just use malevolent magic in self-defense; she reveled in it.

Yesterday, I'd seen genuine emotion in her eyes when she pleaded with me to trust her. As she stood in my doorway, a voice inside me had screamed that this was Gwen Foster , the girl who used to cry when she found a bird's egg toppled by the wind. Still, I couldn't bet my coven's safety on the Gwen I used to know. A lot had happened since those days. The strange part was, the harder things got, the more I wished I had Gwen on my side.

I closed Instagram and turned back to the Book of Shadows. By now, the mere sight of the book and the charred edges of its missing pages was enough to make me want to take a hammer to something. Petra's last words rang in my head like some enigmatic poem. It's happening again, like it did when Dorado was founded. There's this prophecy ? —

Whatever that prophecy entailed, someone had been willing to kill for it. And Delfina Garcia had gone to great lengths to conceal it from the coven's future generations. I was certain that prophecy had something to do with Elizabeth Foster and why she'd lost her magic, but I'd read the Book of Shadows from cover to musty cover and there was no mention of it.

Last night, I'd returned to the beginning of the book in desperation—the section in Delfina Garcia's prim penmanship. And there, in the orange glow of candlelight, I'd found a glimmer of hope: A Spell for Those Who Seek Clarity. At first, I'd brushed it off as some crunchy ritual for inner peace. But the more I thought about it, that didn't strike me as Delfina's style. Maybe she meant the type of clarity that could answer the questions keeping me up at night.

I'd asked Jayden to bring me the herbal ingredients without telling him what they were for. I didn't want to get his hopes up in case it was a dead end, I told myself. But perhaps my secrecy wasn't about protecting him. Maybe I just didn't want him to know I'd made a mistake.

I opened the Book of Shadows to the spell in question and withdrew the herbs from my desk drawer. The mingled scent of poppy and turmeric stung my nose.

Footsteps creaked in the ancient hallway and my parents appeared in the doorway, my dad in sweats and slippers, my mom in her silk robe. It was scary how accustomed I'd become to this new, unnatural version of my parents. Their features were technically the same—my mother's high cheekbones and thin, straight nose; my dad's salt-and-pepper hair, his brows dark and heavy like mine. But something was missing behind their eyes, that light that used to sparkle announcing they were alive, they were magical. It had been snuffed out the day they lost their power. I felt its absence every time I looked at them, and it made my heart ache.

"The electricity's back on, you know." My mom nodded at the candles on my desk.

"Can't a girl get back to her pre-Edison roots?" I replied.

My joke bounced off her like water off scotch-guarded satin. My dad took in the now-familiar scene: me hunched over the Book of Shadows in the dim light of my bedroom. He asked the question he'd asked every night for a week.

"Find anything, sweetie?"

My parents knew they should help, but without powers, they were short on options. Or perhaps it was their will that was lacking, gone with the light that was snuffed out inside them.

I smiled weakly. "Something worth a try."

"Don't stay up too late," he said.

There was no scolding in his tone, just worry over things he couldn't name. Things he couldn't change. I swallowed, turning to my mom. There was something I'd been meaning to ask her since the night Petra died.

"Mom?"

"Yes?" she replied, an edge of impatience in her tone.

"The night I faced Petra's killer in the woods, I was so scared. The sunfire turned on me."

"And how did you free yourself?"

"I didn't," I said, shame forcing me to lower my gaze. "The witch, whoever it was, knocked me to the ground. The blow kind of snapped me out of it."

As I said the words, I wondered again if this had been intentional. Why kill Petra then spare me?

"Then you were very lucky," she said.

I knew I would face the mystery witch again. Next time, I needed to be ready.

"How do I keep the sunfire under control?"

Her expression grew distant. "You can use an anchor."

"An anchor?"

"Something to ground you. A thought, a memory, anything that makes you feel connected to the universe…and the people in it."

It was hard to imagine my mother connecting to people, even in her own mind.

"Has—" I began, mustering courage. "Has the sunfire ever turned on you?"

"No." Her features hardened like mortar. "Make sure you blow those candles out before bed."

With that, she disappeared down the long hallway in the direction of her bedroom, leaving me with a familiar shrinking feeling, the knowledge that in the complicated equation that was our relationship, I was decidedly on the "less than" side. Of course the sunfire had never turned on her. When had my mom ever lost control of anything?

I expected my dad to follow her to the bedroom, but he lingered in the doorway.

"It happened to her once," he said in a conspiratorial whisper. "You were about ten. She and I had a fight over something stupid, and she went out to practice sunfire in the forest alone. When she came back, her face was pale, and there were scorch marks on the sleeve of her jacket where the spell had climbed up her arm."

I leaned forward like his words were drops of some life-giving elixir. So I wasn't the only screw-up?

"How did she get out of it?"

He snorted through his nose. "You think she told me?"

"She breezed past you without saying a word, didn't she?"

"Yup. Your mom doesn't like to let people know she isn't perfect."

I thought of the way I had avoided telling Jayden why I needed the herbs, just in case the clarity spell was a dud. The urge to hide any failure, real or potential, had to be a genetic trait in the Garcia family.

"She did tell me one thing, long ago," my dad added. "She thinks about you when she does the sunfire spell. You're her anchor."

He sighed as if the conversation had drained the last bit of his energy. With a nod, he shuffled off to bed.

I sat at my desk a moment, the Book of Shadows before me. I used to watch my mom in awe as she commanded the sunfire at coven gatherings, a roaring bonfire springing to life beneath her outstretched hands. All those times she'd wielded that immense power, there had been an image of me in her mind, grounding her and keeping her safe. The idea filled me with a warmth I didn't usually associate with my mom.

With renewed determination, I turned to the ingredients of my spell. The herbs sat on the table beside a kettle of river water. I placed them into the kettle and floated it over my outstretched hand. Beneath the kettle, I let sunfire ignite in my palm, the flames lapping at the bottom of the kettle.

As I did this, an image came to me: the first time I'd seen my mom use magic, me in loose braids and my mom's hair in curlers, both of us gazing out the living room window at the lush trees as her finger twirled over her favorite mug, the coffee and cream stirring within it, my little mind churning with the realization that she and I were powerful beings. The memory was so vivid, I could practically smell the caramel creamer. I smiled. If I was her anchor against unruly magic, she would be mine. I held onto the image until the kettle hissed with steam.

I poured the tea into a gold-rimmed teacup and held it close to my lips. Herbs floated on its surface, their pungent scent making my eyes water.

"World of spirits and shadows," I said. "Find me worthy. Let me see the unseen."

I took a generous sip. The second the warm liquid touched my lips, sleep descended, a heavy, velvet curtain over my eyes. My head drooped, and I didn't even feel my cheek hit the wooden desk before me.

In fact, my desk was gone. My bedroom was decorated with unfamiliar furniture, older even than the antiques my house normally contained. Shadows sloped on every ornate surface, candlelight danced in the hall. This was the house as it had been when the coven was newly formed, when Delfina Garcia lived here. Somewhere in the cavernous silence, I heard a faint sound, like the rustling of leaves.

With strange certainty, I followed the sound. In the hallway, mounted candelabras dripped wax onto the floor. The steps were silent beneath my feet as I descended the stairs. The rustling sounded again—not leaves but paper. Pages shuffled by a ghostly hand.

I stopped in the dining room. A fire roared in the fireplace, the room's only source of light. At the head of the long wooden table hung the portrait of Delfina Garcia, its paint still wet, her eyes like pools of honey.

The sound was coming from a corner of the room. I turned toward it. The grandfather clock stood sentry there as it still did in my time, the same intricate patterns etched into its wooden surface. The constellations that always reminded me of Luke spread across it like spiderwebs, surrounding a smiling sun. It gleamed with polish and smelled of fresh-cut wood. Inside its depths, I heard the whisper of paper again, pages brushing against the clock's walls. The sound unsettled me as if I were listening to the movement of some trapped creature.

I was suddenly struck with the knowledge that this wasn't just a dream. I was in the spirit world itself, or one iteration of it. I was not alone here. It felt as if at any moment, Delfina could appear, surprised at the unexpected visitor in her home. Petra was somewhere in this world too. If I stepped out into the forest, would I find her grinning at me beneath a mop of blue hair?

Footsteps echoed in the hall. My heart leapt into my throat as I jerked my head in the direction of the sound. The grand staircase was cloaked in shadows, but a figure stood at the bottom of the stairs, candle in hand, her white nightgown trailing the floor. I saw the proud, high cheekbones, the hair loose past her shoulders, just like the painting on the wall. But Delfina's eyes seemed to hold a lifetime of regret, of grief. The rustling sounded again from inside the clock.

The world around me was fading, the darkness giving way to sunlight from somewhere else, the light painting the inside of my eyelids crimson. I blinked. I was slumped over my desk. A pale morning ray peeked through my bedroom curtains. I'd slept all night.

I sat up slowly, as if my body wasn't sure what realm it now found itself in. The silence of that other world still echoed in my mind, followed by the faint whisper of turning pages.

The clock.

I rose, knocking over my chair, and hurried downstairs. It was Sunday and the house was empty, my parents off surveying some new real estate venture. I turned to the grandfather clock. Something was hidden inside, I understood—something I had to discover. My heart quickened as I thought of the letter Petra had seen in her mind's eye. The burning letter between lovers. Could it have been concealed in plain sight all along? Something important certainly was.

The sound had been coming from the clock's base. I examined its surface, tapping it like a safecracker in a movie. It sounded solid, but there had to be something I was missing. I tried to tug the clock away from the wall, but its legs caught the floor with a sharp screech.

I took a breath and concentrated on the air around its towering form, willing it to obey me. It was the heaviest object I'd ever tried to move with magic. Nothing happened. The clock shuddered as if in protest.

Then, with a crash, the whole thing toppled hideously to the floor. Glass broke, gears rolled across the hardwood. Oops. I hadn't meant to break it, but a tiny wave of satisfaction washed over me as I realized how much I'd hated that clock. Never again would its solemn sound echo through this house, counting out my loneliest hours, each chime a reminder of the legacy I was meant to uphold.

On the bottom of the clock was a hinged panel, so neatly placed into the grain that it looked like it might spring open at any moment to reveal whatever secret lay within. Delfina must have had a compartment built into the bottom. There was no keyhole, no dial with old brass numbers. Just a small wooden sun, its figure slightly raised above the panel's surface as if it were meant to be pressed. I pushed on it. It didn't give. I pressed again, harder this time. Nothing.

I tried vainly to hook my fingernails around its edge to pull at it, but it still didn't budge. Thirty minutes later, I'd tried every tool I could find in the garage, plus every use of elemental magic I could think of. Nothing worked. The wood didn't even chip. There had to be a spell protecting it, keeping out unwelcome visitors.

I thought about the sorrow in Delfina's eyes as she'd stood before me in the spirit world. She had taken great care to remove her secrets from the Book of Shadows, which meant she hadn't even trusted the members of her own coven. She wouldn't allow just anyone to access this hiding place. And yet—there it was. Why leave the panel visible at all, unless she wanted someone to get in? Perhaps it was meant for someone she deemed trustworthy. Who would Delfina Garcia trust? I gazed into the eyes of the smiling wooden sun, the symbol of our family's power.

Of course. Whatever was inside was only meant for a Garcia to find.

I extended a hand and summoned the sunfire. With flames lapping at my fingertips, I pressed again. The sun gave way beneath my finger, and I felt something click. Hinges creaked and the panel swung open, revealing a small, velvet-lined compartment. Inside lay a single leather-bound book emblazoned with the words the diary of delfina garcia .

My heart thumped in my chest. I took the book, inhaling the scent of must and leather. Turning the pages, I could see the entries were few and brief. There on the floor, amidst the ruins of the clock, I began to read.

July 14, 1860

I feel as if all my dreams are coming true at once. This fall, Levan Nichols and I will be wed. In the years I spent searching for others of witches' blood, I never imagined I would find a man like him, a gentle man who thinks more than he speaks, who cares more for the stars in the sky than he does for earthly power and glory. My love for him knows no bounds.

Today, the workers finished hammering the final nails into my house among the trees. The gold mines grow more profitable by the day, and I was able to spare no expense. Soon, Levan and I will share this home and all the joy within. The rest of the coven is also building extravagantly along Cascabel Road. Here in the seclusion of the redwoods, we are finally free to practice magic undisturbed. After years of wandering, our coven shall have a place to call our own at last. Our golden town. Our Dorado. Oh, what blessings the universe has bestowed upon us all!

August 4, 1860

A stranger came to Dorado today, a witch named Elizabeth Foster. Her eyes are black like obsidian, her skin as white as cream. She casts the moonfire spell, a perfect nocturnal counterpart to my sunfire. She told us she traveled a great distance to find others like herself, and truly, she must have wandered far, for she was bedraggled and nearly starving, without a penny to her name. I took pity on her immediately. No witch should be alone in this world. And what is Dorado if not a sanctuary for witches? Tomorrow, I will initiate her into the coven.

September 12, 1860

Everything changed after Elizabeth Foster joined us. How I underestimated her. Some weeks after her arrival, Levan grew distant from me. Now his dark blue eyes seem to look past me, searching for another. It is her he seeks, as if she holds some piece of his soul he'd been missing all his life. Never have I known heartbreak like this. I've always possessed a leader's confidence, a certainty for what must be done. Now, for the first time in my life, I know not what to do. For the moment, I will cry.

October 17, 1860

It's worse than I could have imagined. Elizabeth has malevolent magic. She can control the Mundanes and command them to work her will. And now she has revealed to Levan that he, too, possesses malevolent magic. He has the ability to cast the Shadow Spell to torture and even kill another witch. Oh, my poor Levan! He was as surprised as I when she told him. He didn't believe her until she showed him how to cast it on her. When he did, she laughed like a madwoman through the pain.

Last night, I overheard her as she spoke to Levan in his quarters. She did not come to this coven in search of other witches as she'd claimed. She came only in search of him. Elizabeth and Levan hail from the same English village, though Levan's family left when he was but an infant. A clairvoyant witch in the village foretold a pair of soulmates, one from the Nichols family, one from the Fosters. These two souls are destined to unite and, in doing so, gain limitless malevolent power, leaving nothing but death and devastation in their wake.

Levan's family were good-hearted people. They fled when they heard this prediction and vowed never to tell him of the prophecy or the malevolent magic in their blood. But Elizabeth sought him out, determined to fulfill their wicked destiny. As soon as she was old enough to leave home, she began her quest. At long last, she has found him here, in our little haven.

According to the prophecy, the moon will blot out the sun, meteors will rain, and on that day, a Foster and a Nichols will become one in malevolent magic. I knew immediately she spoke of the solar eclipse, which is to take place in two weeks' time.

On this day, they must perform a sort of dark nuptials, the details of which she did not explain. She only said that they must stand together in a circle of enchanted flames. Once the circle is closed, only malevolent magic can be cast within. She called the ritual the Meteoric Union, for when it is done, their capacity for destruction will be as unbridled as a meteor that rushes toward earth. The universe itself will yield to their power. Mundanes and witches alike will bow before them—or die.

I wish I could say Levan turned away from her when he heard her tale, that he told her to leave and never come back. Alas, he let her continue. She assured him that once the ritual is done, though they inhabit two bodies, their souls will be one, irrevocably bound by malevolent magic. My poor, foolish Levan—is he so in love with her that he is willing to forfeit his very soul? Is his thirst for power so great that he would lose his kindness, his humanity for the cold hatred of malevolent magic?

Now I know what I must do. I must find a way to bring Levan back from the brink—if not for me, then to protect our coven from the devastation that will follow if those two fulfill the prophecy. I hope for my sake that some part of him still cares for me. I leave now, and if I never write in this book again, it is because I have failed, and Elizabeth Foster has destroyed us all.

I breathed in sharply, suddenly realizing I'd been holding my breath. My thoughts raced with unanswered questions, too many to process. With trembling fingers, I turned the page to the final entry.