area just south of that, Milburn said, was a city cemetery, where many of the Confederate soldiers’ relatives were interred. It was easy to see where the soldiers’ neat, identical graves ended and the comparatively jumbled city burial ground began. The overhead view of the city cemetery had a lot of large white squares, like low fences going around a small section of the graveyard. I wondered if it was how families indicated that their graves went together.
“We can go in through the city section,” I said, pointing toward the road far below the Confederate area, where a housing development bumped up against the cemetery. “Sort of sneak up the back.”
“That would work, but you should be aware: all of this slopes downward,” Milburn said, sweeping the flat of his hand from the gazebo area down the city section. “It’s one big hill. That’s why there are these rectangular sections, to prevent erosion.”
“How many of the Unsettled are there?” I asked him.
He narrowed his eyes for a moment, thinking. “I would estimate between seven hundred and a thousand.”
“Goddess,” muttered Lily. I had told them about Sophia’s estimates on the damage potential of the spirit bottles.
“Okay, so where are the Unsettled?” I asked.
“Right here.” With one finger, Milburn traced the area that included only the dotted lines, not the gazebos or flags. It looked roughly like an uppercase letter A, only without the tiny cutout in the triangle.
“They’ll need a circle,” Lily said, stepping forward. “Covens almost always work inside circles; that’s kind of the whole point. But look, they can use the pathways and—are those gutters?”
Milburn nodded. “Brick gutters.”
“Okay, it’s uneven as hell, but they could still form a circle.”
“With what?” I asked her. “Chalk? Paint?”
“Too time-consuming.” She tapped her lower lip for a minute, thinking, then looked up at me. “You think that girl Whitney is one of Odessa’s coven members?”
I cut my eyes to Milburn, who nodded. “She’s Odessa’s closest friend by far,” he replied.
Lily asked him, “Is she a cord witch like her mother?”
“I believe so. I’ve never seen her do magic, but she wears those rope bracelets just like Tallulah does,” he said.
“Then that’s how they’ll do the ritual,” Lily declared. “Lay out a circle with some kind of rope or cord stretched along the gutters and pathways, probably hold it down with some stones.” She was still frowning, though.
“Something’s missing,” Simon mused. He looked at Lily. “The mandragora?”
“You guys burned the patch you found, but they might have had some saved from the previous rituals,” Lily said slowly. “It doesn’t seem like five or six witches would have enough power to do all of this.”
Her eyes unfocused for a minute, and then she looked at me speculatively. “You said you were unconscious after she poisoned you?”
“Yeah, for a couple of long periods,” I said. “Why?”
Lily came around the table toward me. “Take off your shirt.”
I didn’t even know how to respond to that, but she was already reaching for the hem as Simon said, “Lily!”
She glared at her brother and Milburn. “Turn around, dummies.”
Simon spun on his heel without another word, and Milburn raised his eyebrows in curiosity but followed suit. I let Lily lift up the front of my shirt, exposing my sports bra. “Not there,” she muttered, working her way behind me.
“Um, Lily, maybe if you told me what you were looking for—”
“Here!” Lily lifted the back of my shirt higher, and I shivered as her cold fingers touched the skin at the small of my back, just under my bra and above my bruise. I felt a sharp, stinging pain.
“Ow! What the hell was that?”
“She’s been cut,” Lily announced. In my ear, she murmured, “Is it okay if I let them—”
I waved a hand. “Yes, yes.” It was just the small of my back, and I had the sports bra. “What’s going on?”
“Si, come look.”
Simon and Milburn both went around and stared at whatever she’d found. “Goddammit,” Simon snapped. I craned my head, trying to look.
“There are three shallow cuts here,” Lily explained. “None of them deep enough for stitches, luckily, but they would have bled a bunch. She bled you.”
I started to reach my hand around to feel them, but thought better of it. “Should you bandage them?” Simon asked his sister.
“They’ve already scabbed over, which is why they didn’t stink to high heaven to all the vampires,” Lily replied, smoothing my shirt back down. She turned me around gently by my shoulders. “Good goddess, you must feel like garbage. Poison