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A tortured whimper punctures the air as Rowan falls to his knees.
“How long ago?” I ask as Jett comforts Rowan with a firm hand on his shoulder.
“I don’t know.” She shakes her head. “They’ve got Sera as well, haven’t they?”
“Yeah,” I choke in defeat.
“It’s okay.” Her eyes flutter open.
“How is it okay? They’re going to kill them.”
Celeste takes a few deep breaths before speaking again. “Sloane has her mother’s ring. She can call forth the ancestral power of the Seven Sisters and vanquish Catori. They just need the dagger.”
“Catori has the dagger.” Jett looks up at me with worry in his violet eyes. I rub at the ache in my chest. When Sloane or Sera kill Catori, we’ll all be vanquished.
“The girls need to recite their own blood oath and call forward the power of their ancestors using the same dagger, and then they can kill him with a vanquishing potion. Thankfully, we had just finished making a batch before Sloane was taken. Hopefully she grabbed a vial.” Celeste grunts as she shifts on the spot. “We just have to hope he doesn’t kill them first. We weren’t able to find the other bloodline that can accept the powers of the talisman.”
“What other bloodline?” I ask.
“Cassandra Nestor’s.”
My pulse slows, one hand catching the lounge beside me to keep me up. “She was the other witch whose line joined with Theodora’s. All three of them are bound together. Either one of Thea’s or Cassandra’s descendants can vanquish Catori.”
“When was this curse made?”
“From Sera’s visions and the research we’ve done, we’ve concluded it’s somewhere around 1903.”
Holy fuck. “Wait. Are you saying Cassandra Nestor was a witch?”
“Why is that shocking to you?” Celeste leans back against the side of the couch. The cat makes its way over to perch on her lap.
“My mother’s name was Cassandra Nestor,” I say. “I would have been a few years old at that time. When I was a boy, we lived in Laconia; it’s close to Hemlock.”
“She didn’t by any chance wear a ring with a septagram on it? A seven-pointed star?”
“Not a ring.” I shake my head, then pull on the chain around my neck, the one I’ve worn for almost as long as I’ve been a demon. The one I took from my mother before her body was laid to rest. “But she did wear this.”
Celeste stares as the pendant that swings along the chain, revealing the exact symbol she just described. “Well, shit. That changes things.”
24
Something’s burning. The smell of ash clogs the air, and my throat feels raw as I try to swallow.
“You awake yet, witch?” The voice is resigned, gravelly, and feminine.
I squint against the hot, dry air.
“Please tell me your sister is on her way with help.” The voice speaks again, her question enough to make me roll over from where I was lying on my back.
Coming to my knees, I rub my eyes, then try again to look around. Iron bars surround me. Dirty cave walls. Shit. I saw this in a vision, and nothing good followed.
The cells are arranged in a semicircle, all facing a raised podium in the center. On the other side of the dark cavern sits Delaney with her back against the wall.
“What are you doing here?”
“No idea.” She shakes her head. “Got nabbed a few hours ago. I’ll admit, things were feeling pretty dire until I watched them drop you in there.”
I groan. “I wouldn’t feel too optimistic just yet.”
