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Tears of relief sprang to the girls’ eyes when they saw us. I ran over to them and knelt down. I pulled the tape off their mouths, then got to work on the ropes.
“Thank the Goddess!” Mandy cried. “We’ve been down here for?—”
She cut off as she looked down at the rope. Her mouth bobbed open, and she blinked rapidly. Tate glanced at her, and confusion settled over her face, too.
“They’re confused,” Grant said. “The second they look away, they forget we’re here.”
“Fuck,” I growled. I took Mandy’s chin and guided her face back toward mine. “I need you to turn toward the wall. I’ll explain everything.”
Tears beaded in Mandy’s eyes, but both girls turned away from me.
I started speaking quickly before they could look back. “Close your eyes. It’s me, Lucas. We got Mandy’s message, and we’re all here, but we’re under a spell to conceal us. If you look at us, you’ll forget us the moment you look away. Focus on my voice so you don’t forget.”
Tate whimpered and nodded.
“I’ve been trying to contact you for weeks, but I can hardly access my magic,” Mandy sobbed. “I overheard the priestesses talking about the festival, and I knew tonight was our best shot. I used everything I had to send you a message.”
Nadine and Talia knelt beside me. Talia rubbed her sister’s back, while Nadine took Mandy’s hand.
“We’re here,” Nadine assured them. “All of us.”
“Tal, is that you?” Tate asked, keeping her eyes shut tightly. Her hand shook as she reached out for her sister.
“It’s me.” Talia took Tate’s hand.
“Thank the goddess you’re alive!” Tate cried. “I didn’t know if you were still out there, but the priestesses didn’t believe me. They tortured me to get me to give up your location, but I didn’t know where you’d gone. I never would have told them even if I knew. I swear it.”
“We’re here now, and the priestesses won’t touch you again,” Talia vowed. “How long have you been here?”
“It’s hard to make sense of time down here,” Tate admitted. “I feel like I’ve been here for a month, at least.”
My stomach twisted into a ball of knots. I wished we’d gotten here sooner. We may have been able to spare these girls from the priestesses’ torture.
“Things have gotten really bad in the coven,” Mandy said. “The priestesses have bought up a bunch of businesses and are making people work for them. If you don’t agree to work—or if you weren’t selected to go to school—they strip you of your powers.”
Which they could do, at least to Alchemists and Seers, because they had the Alchemy and Seer Wands. Last I knew, the Oaken Wands hadn’t worked for the priestesses, though. They must be torturing others to use the Wands for them, whenever they saw fit.
Sobs broke from Tate’s chest. “No one can afford anything anymore. They’ve raised rent and food prices. Independent businesses are shutting down. There’s hardly any food in the grocery store. Mom has to buy potions from Alchemists that trick you into feeling full but don’t nourish you, just to get to the next meal. Dad’s sick from the factory work. They’ve got him making iron weapons to use against the fae. It’s been nothing but hell since I got out of rehab.”
“We’re going to get you out, but we’ll have to get outside the ward before I can cast a portal. If I cast a portal within the ward, they might be able to trace it, and we can’t risk them locating our safe house.” I finished untying the last knot. The ropes fell away, and both girls breathed a sigh of relief. “Let’s get you back to the safe house.”
I helped Mandy to her feet and supported her weight as we left the room. Her whole body quivered. Nadine and Talia draped Tate’s arms over their shoulders and followed behind us. We helped the girls up the stairs and were almost to the door when my eyes landed upon a book sitting on a table in the hall. A symbol on the front caught my eye, and I stopped in my tracks.
“What is it?” Miles asked.
I couldn’t take my eyes off the book. The symbol was in the shape of a teardrop with swirls inside of it. It was so familiar, yet it didn’t belong in a witch’s house. My pulse quickened.
“Help Mandy,” I told Miles. “Something about this isn’t right.”
He supported her weight, and I took a step forward. I grabbed the book off the table and flipped the leather binding open to reveal handwriting on the inside. “It’s a journal,” I realized.
Nadine observed the journal, and her eyes went wide. “Lucas, this symbol belongs to an Elementai. A Toaqua elemental, a caster of Water.”
“I know,” I said. “Lilian wouldn’t have kept this journal if it didn’t contain something important.”
I quickly flipped through the pages, and my heart stalled when I saw the words sprawled at the bottom of the page. Wands with Miriamic religious symbols carved into them…
This entry could only be referring to the Oaken Wands. I quickly scanned the entry, and I knew that’s exactly what I was looking at. I wasn’t about to spend a second longer in Lilian’s house than I had to, though. I had to get my friends out, and then we could investigate what this all meant.
