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The timer on the oven dinged, breaking the tense silence.
Hazel went to get the croissants. “Has Maeve been in touch?”
“Yeah, actually. She called the other night, said they’d arrived safe and sound in Nepal. They were heading up into the higher mountains, and reception might be spotty. But she was gonna call again in a few days.”
Hazel cast a glance at Merle. “What do you think? What kind of creature are they hunting?”
Merle frowned. “I don’t have the slightest idea. I mean, with all the different fabled creatures there are in the mythologies around the world, it could be anything.” She made a face. “I just hope it’s not a yeti.”
Hazel laughed softly.
“Any luck with the murder case?”
Shaking her head, Hazel refilled the bread basket with the croissants. “Not really.” A deep sigh, tension creeping back into her chest. “I have too little to go on to figure out the spell, and there’s no other evidence to point toward who did it. You’ve seen the sigil. It’s not a good clue on its own. I know the blood sacrifice was to raise power, and I know the sigil can be used to lock magic into place or channel power, but that still doesn’t tell me the intent of the ritual or spell the witch attempted. And I just can’t shake the feeling that this wasn’t it, that there’s more, that whatever the witch’s goal, it’s not finished yet.”
Merle’s expression darkened. “And given the fact that the witch resorted to human sacrifice to enhance her magic, the end goal won’t be benign.”
Hazel shook her head, foreboding skittering along her spine.
* * *
It was that itching, chilling sense of dread that lured Hazel into ill-advised action.
The sun had long set when she went upstairs to get a change of clothes—the jeans and sweater she wore were caked with dirt from the garden and smelled like the potions she’d cooked for the past hour—and now she noticed the door to Rose’s room ajar, light spilling through the opening. Frowning, she walked closer. She’d just seen Rose leaving the house a few minutes earlier, once again flying out into the night as if the mere thought of staying in choked the life out of her.
“Rose?” Hazel knocked on the door just in case she’d returned.
No answer.
Cautiously pushing the door open, Hazel peered inside. The condition of the room could best be described as “There appears to have been a struggle,” but Hazel knew it to be Rose’s normal state of chaos. From the few glimpses she’d caught in the past when trying to talk with Rose, Hazel had learned that Rose didn’t mind the mess; in fact, she seemed to thrive in it. One more aspect in which her daughter differed a lot from her, though it didn’t bother Hazel. She couldn’t care less if Rose were her polar opposite, didn’t need a carbon copy of herself.
What she did need, though, was to understand who her daughter was in the first place, to learn what she was like. She’d happily bridge any differences, would celebrate the ways in which Rose was uniquely herself—if only Rose would let her know.
Before Rose had left earlier, Hazel had once more made an attempt to talk, signaled she was open to spending time with her. And again, Rose had shrugged her invitation off with a shaky smile and some mumbled excuse as she’d made her way out the door.
And apparently, Rose had been in such a hurry that she’d forgotten to turn off the lamp on her nightstand.
She’ll probably stay out all night again. No sense in leaving the light on, then. Deeply ingrained maternal habits were hard to shake, so Hazel went to turn the lamp off.
She really meant to only focus on the lamp. Keep her eyes trained on it, not look at anything else. She was halfway through the room. Eyes on the lamp. Respect her space, respect her space, respect—
Her attention snagged on something poking out of a pile of clothes right in front of the nightstand. The edge of a book, the silver-embossed title glinting in the light of the lamp.
Her stomach dropped. She knew that cover. Knew the title even before she pulled it out from under the worn clothes with shaky hands.
Ancient Runes and Sigils, Their Meanings and Uses.
The book she’d been looking for. The one she knew featured the most complete account of the old signs, among them the one used in the murder ritual.
Here. It had been here, in this room.
Because Rose had taken it.
Her heart beat a rapid tattoo against her rib cage, her hand shaking so hard she almost dropped the book.
It couldn’t be.
It couldn’t be her.
