“Do you know what Uncle Finn wants to show me in the library?” I ask as we make it to the correct floor.
“No.” He shakes his head. “I got a frantic text from Macy telling me that you were missing, so the guys and I started looking, along with Finn and her. They texted us that they’d found you in the tower, but that’s all I know.”
“I don’t understand,” I tell him, a shiver running down my spine as we finally make it to the hallway the library is on. “I went to the library to research gargoyles around noon, but I don’t remember doing any research. I don’t remember anything, actually, after I sat down to work.”
“It’s five o’clock, Grace.”
“But I was in the library. Did Amka know when I left?”
“You would think, but I don’t know. Like I said, she called your uncle and Macy, not me.” There’s something in his voice that I can’t quite identify, but he doesn’t sound impressed.
Apparently, Jaxon feels like he deserves to be notified about things related to me. Which is annoying, because he doesn’t actually own me. And yet, I think about how I would feel if something happened to him… Yeah, pretty sure I would want to be notified, too.
He holds the library door open for me, and then we walk inside, only to find a conspicuously empty open glass case. Whatever item was displayed there is gone, the bed of purple velvet empty in that one spot.
“Is this what you wanted to show me?” I ask my uncle. “I don’t know what happened. It was fine when I was here earlier.”
And if anyone had actually tried to break into it when I was here, I would have seen them. So would Amka. The exhibit is diagonally across from the table she set up for me and directly in front of the circulation desk.
“What do you remember from when you were here earlier, Grace?” Amka is the one asking me questions now, my uncle hanging back and following her lead.
“Not a lot, honestly. I remember our conversation and sitting down to work, but that’s it. Did something else happen?”
“You don’t remember working?”
“No. I remember getting ready to work, but I don’t remember opening a book or taking any notes. Did I do that?”
“You took all the notes.” She picks up a notebook from her desk and hands it to me.
I flip through it, and she’s right. It’s more than half full already, with information about gargoyles that I have no recollection of but am now itching to sit down and read.
“I did all this in five hours?” I ask, surprised by how thorough the note-taking is, when usually I hit only the highlights and rely on my really good memory (present situation obviously not included) to fill in the blanks.
“Actually, you did all that in an hour and a half. At one thirty, I closed the library for a few minutes and ran out to my cottage to get some medicine for a sudden headache. You said you were doing well, so I left you working, but when I came back, you were gone. And the Athame of Morrigan had been stolen.”
Horror moves through me as all the threads of the story start to come together in one glaring realization. “You think I did this?” I ask. “You think I stole the…” I wave my hand in the air.
“Athame,” Macy fills in. “It’s a double-sided ceremonial blade for witches. This particular one has been in our family for centuries.”
I want to be outraged that they think I could do this. But the truth is, they have every right to suspect me. Especially since I have absolutely no idea what I was doing during the time Amka left the library.
“We don’t think you stole it,” Uncle Finn tells me in a voice I recognize as deliberately soothing. “But we do think something is going on inside you that makes you do these things, and that’s what we want to try to figure out so we can help you.”
“Do we really know?” I ask, my voice coming out higher and louder than I want it to. “I mean, are you sure I’m the one who did this?” It’s not even that I doubt them, it’s just that I don’t want to believe them. Because then I have to start wondering. What kind of powers does this gargoyle inside me have? And why is it using me to do