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Calli pulled out another pie, which distracted me so much that I nearly missed her next words.
“I think you’re coming at this the wrong way.”
“What do you mean?” Bella asked her.
Calli cut a piece of pie and slid it onto Bella’s plate. “You found your first clue, the parchment, at the Sunset Tower.”
“Yes.”
“Where exactly?”
“In a box buried to the right of the old sculpture of Valora, the former Queen Goddess. Harker sensed magic there, and we dug up the box.”
“The Sunset Tower used to house the town’s orphanage. It’s where I found you, Bella,” Calli said. “And you were standing to the right of that sculpture when I met you. Right there where you found the page.” She glanced at the parchment on the table. “How many pages do you figure you need to put together to make that whole?”
“Four. This one plus three more,” Bella said instantly. She’d always been good at math.
“Four clues. And four of you.” Calli’s gaze panned across Gin, Tessa, and finally came to Zane.
“Four? How about five? What am I, the family dog?” I grumbled.
“What you are is at the center of this all, Leda,” Bella said.
“Oh. Ok. Good. I always said I wanted to be the center of the universe when I grew up,” I said brightly.
“Ava told me I was to be your protector,” Bella said. “What if Zane, Tessa, and Gin were meant to be your other three protectors?”
“You’re assuming Thea’s grimoire has to do with me,” I told her.
“Well, this is all related, right?” Bella slid her plate of pie to me.
I gladly took it off her hands. “Right.”
“My mother brought me here. To this house,” Zane said quietly. “This is where we met, Calli.”
“Wait, so one of the clues is here, at this house?” I asked.
“Zane was standing outside when I first met him.” Calli was already on her feet.
We all got up from the table and followed her outside.
Calli looked around for a few moments, then pointed to the small flowerbed next to the garbage can. “There. Zane was right there, in the flower bed.”
“In the flower bed?” I said curiously.
“He was very young,” Calli replied. “He thought it was an excellent idea to dig up my tulips.”
Harker closed his eyes. “I can feel magic here; it’s similar to the other page. It’s very faint. I have to really concentrate to notice it.”
Nero waved his hand, using his magic to scoop up the earth. A wooden box rose from the new hole in the ground and floated into the air. Nero directed our treasure into the house. We all followed the floating box inside. Bella pulled a piece of parchment out of the box. It looked exactly like the first.
“Incredible,” Zane gasped. “I wonder how long the page has been hidden in there.”
Bella began pulling potion vials out of the drawers. “I did a test on the first page. I’m not sure I believe the results.” She squeezed a drop of potion onto Zane’s page. “And yet here it is again.”
Harker looked at the blue-green color of the dating-spell potion before it faded from the page. “The clues were hidden long ago, before any of you were even born. Someone knew Zane would be at that exact spot when you met him.”
Calli frowned. “That’s certainly unsettling.”
I agreed. I didn’t like to think that everything was preordained, that we had no free will or choice in anything that happened to us. But worrying about it wouldn’t change anything.
“There are still two pages of parchment missing before we’ll be able to reveal this document’s secrets,” Bella said.
“The final two clues.” I looked at my little sisters. “Calli, those two pages must be where you were standing when you met Gin and Tessa.”
Her eyes lit up. “The Sea of Sin.”
“So, then, what are we waiting for?” Gin asked, her voice positively chipper. “Who’s up for a little field trip?”
