Jaxon wraps a supportive arm around my waist, then rests his chin on my shoulder as he whispers in my ear, “It’s okay. We’ve got this.”
I’m glad he thinks so, because right now, it doesn’t feel like I’ve got anything.
“That’s why we wanted you to come here, so we could all rewatch the footage together. See if we can figure out what’s really going on.” My uncle walks behind the circulation desk.
“Nobody blames you, Grace,” Macy says with a reassuring smile. “We know something else is going on.”
My knees get weak at theirs words—there’s footage?—and at the grim look on my uncle’s face. Because if they’ve seen the footage already, then they know for sure that I’m the one who stole the athame.
The knowledge hits me like a body blow.
I know it’s naive, but I think I’ve been holding out hope all day. Hope that there was another explanation for the blood on my clothes this morning. Definite hope that someone else attacked Cole, and now hope that someone else stole the athame.
Because knowing that it’s me, knowing that I did all that and have no recollection of it whatsoever, is beyond terrifying. Not just that I can’t remember but that I really don’t have any control over what I do when I’m like that.
I could actually kill someone, and I would never know.
Panic starts to bubble up in my chest, my breath coming out in shallow puffs. I count to ten…then twenty. My heart is beating so fast, I start to feel light-headed. I don’t take my gaze from my uncle as he fiddles with the computer on the circulation desk and then turns the monitor around to face me.
“It’s okay,” Jaxon says again, even though it’s not. Even though it’s about as far from okay as it can possibly get. “I promise you, Grace, we’ll figure this out.”
“I hope so,” I answer as we all crowd around Uncle Finn to watch the video footage. “Because how long can this go on before I end up in prison…or worse?”
My stomach sinks as I watch a recording of me on the screen—doing things I don’t remember doing.
According to the time at the bottom of the footage, I got up from the table where I was reading and taking notes at exactly one thirty. I went over to Amka and said something to her. She nodded with a strange look on her face, and less than a minute later, she got up. But instead of leaving, like she’d said earlier, she walked over to the glass case housing the athame and several other precious magical items, all of which, it turns out, were under a protection spell, my uncle explains.
And at 1:37, the librarian went ahead and opened the case like it was nothing. Then she walked out of the library and didn’t come back.
“What just happened?” I ask, looking from Jaxon to Amka to my uncle and then back again. “Did I use some kind of special gargoyle power?”
Amka shakes her head as the video continues to roll, and I watch as I reach into the case and scoop out the athame, snagging my jacket on the way out. “I have no memory of doing that, of unlocking the case.”
“Hudson,” Jaxon says, voice low and vehement and maybe even a little…scared? Which messes me up in all kinds of ways, because Jaxon is almost never scared.
“What?” my uncle Finn demands. “What about Hudson?”
“When we were kids, he used to do that. He has to speak directly to the person, but he can persuade anyone to do anything for him with merely his voice.”
“Do what?” I ask as razor-sharp talons of fear rake through me. “What did Hudson do, Jaxon?”
Jaxon finally manages to pull his haunted gaze from the video. “Use his power of persuasion to get people to do whatever he wanted.”
26
Possession Is
Nine-Tenths
of the Law
Jaxon’s words hang in the air between us for several seconds, the power and horror of them an actual physical presence that has my body tensing and a chill running over my skin.
“What does that mean?” I finally whisper, the words falling like grenades into the silence between us. “Is Hudson here? Did I bring him back with me? Is he persuading me to do things?”
“He’s definitely here,” Uncle Finn agrees. “The only question is what we do next.”
“Well, where is he, then?” I demand. “Why haven’t we seen him?”
I look from my uncle’s sad face to Jaxon’s enraged one, from Amka’s quiet