make her doubt herself, her sisters, her friends.
Yet the whole time, it was Daphne who’d let everyone down, who’d betrayed her sisters and stolen from Kappa all those years ago.
No more. Vivi would right the wrongs of her mother.
The little blue dot was almost right on top of the red pin Dahlia had dropped for her.
“Hello?” Vivi called, feeling slightly foolish as her voice echoed through the woods. “Dahlia? Are you here?”
Now that she’d stopped moving, she realized how strangely quiet it was. There were no birds singing, no wind rustling the leaves.
Vivi spun in a slow circle, peering through the trees. Her cell’s weak flashlight illuminated only so much. “Dahlia?” she called again, trying to keep the growing fear out of her voice. Her phone was going to run out of battery soon.
On her second rotation, she glimpsed a large clearing in the distance. The ground was littered with red and brown leaves. Autumn had only just begun, but the leaves here looked dead already, like it was late winter. Vivi put her dying phone away and whispered, “I call to the Queen of Wands. Show me your might by giving us light.” A moment later, a small, quivering flame appeared above her palm. Keeping her arm outstretched, she made her way toward the clearing and shivered as the temperature seemed to drop. She’d been sweating her whole trek through the forest, but now the moisture clung uncomfortably to her clammy skin.
As she got closer, she saw that the clearing had been set up for a ritual, like Dahlia had said. Only Vivi didn’t recognize most of the items here. There were candles, but instead of the shorter tapers the Ravens used for spellwork, tall cylindrical tapers ringed the blanket of dry leaves.
There was a cauldron like the one Etta kept in the kitchen, except the carvings around it didn’t look like pentagrams—or any symbol she recognized. They were sharp and jagged, like letters from a foreign alphabet.
She shivered again, suddenly overcome by the same strange chill she’d felt looking at the doll in the archives. “Dahlia?” Her voice was barely a whisper now. “Where are you?” She took another step, and leaves crunched underfoot. Leaves, and something harder, snapping like a branch. Vivi glanced down and felt her breath freeze in her chest. Bones. She was walking across piles and piles of white bones. Small bones, like from a rat or a rabbit, and larger ones too. Femurs from something too big to be a small animal. Far too big . . .
Snap.
Another bone shattered right behind her, and Vivi’s entire body went rigid except for her heart, which was beating like a wild animal trying to bash its way out of her chest.
“Vivian,” Dahlia said from behind her. “So glad you could make it.”
Vivi whipped around just in time to catch a glimpse of the older girl’s twisted smile.
Then a spell hit her square in the chest, and the world went dark.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Scarlett
Scarlett couldn’t take her eyes off the shadow-girl before her. She swayed, the dark tendrils of smoky shadow forming and re-forming, the ruby pendant glowing red at her throat.
In the past, Scarlett had felt her magic crest like the water, but except for that one moment when she almost lost control while scrying for Gwen’s intentions, she had never felt anything so powerful before. And looking at what she and her sisters had done, looking at this creation of magic and will, she felt a sense of awe.
She took a deep breath and let herself hope that the next step would work as well as the first.
“I’m coming with you,” Mei said before Scarlett could say a word. When Scarlett opened her mouth to protest, Mei moved to her side. “Tiffany’s my sister too.”
Scarlett and Mei were the only juniors left in Kappa at the moment. Scarlett could understand why she wanted to come. Even if she didn’t like the idea of anyone else risking her skin.
The other Ravens remained in a ring, eyes wide as they stared at the shadow-girl, who was still pointing at the doors. Pointing toward Tiffany.
“I’ll come too,” Etta offered. But Scarlett shook her head.
“We should all go. Ravens stick together; isn’t that what you just told us?” Reagan crossed her arms, scowling.
“You need to stay here to keep performing the spell,” Scarlett said. “I don’t know how long the spell will last and I need to be able to follow her until I find Tiffany.”
“Personally, I’m of the opinion