“Which is?”

  “The potential for anything is a thing itself.” Ruth tenses. “Marlene started opening up about the curse studies they were involved in. She said Ariadne wanted to restart them, which terrified her so badly, she didn’t want to be near her anymore. I asked more questions and learned something horrible. Seers can tear the world in two, but most of us can’t curse anyone. It takes a certain kind of arrogance, detachment, and blatant disregard for others to cast curse after curse for years on end. Marlene said, and the others later corroborated, that Ariadne was the only one fascinated instead of repulsed by the experiments they were part of. I realized then that I didn’t save Ariadne—I gave her the chance to field-test what she learned in that lab.”

  Veda feels nauseous, breathless, but the weight of Hiram’s hand keeps her steady.

  “I tried to help her. Therapy, distractions, everything. And for a while, it appeared to be working.” Ruth gets up and goes to the window beside them, looking outside, arms folded around her small frame. All signs of the funny, no-nonsense Ruth who bought vegetables and told Veda to start living are absent. “I still can’t believe she is this person. I now know she’s good at pretending, saying the right things to the right people, and weaponizing her trauma.”

  “Ruth,” Hiram says slowly. “What aren’t you saying?”

  She turns to them. “What do you know about the source of the Great Vanishing?”

  Clarity makes Veda go rigid. “No.”

  “Yes.” Ruth wraps her arms around herself. “Ariadne foresaw her own death. This isn’t uncommon; sometimes our visions leave clues about what is to come, but we’re not allowed to meddle, even if it means—”

  “You die,” Hiram finishes, toneless.

  “But Ariadne didn’t accept this. She changed minor details about her visions, and stopped them from taking place. Not once or twice. We estimate she did it at least ten times before she triggered the Vanishing event.”

  Disbelief transforms into anger. Veda can no longer sit still. “Is this what you’re hiding?”

  “Hiding? We were forbidden from talking about it. Veda, please—”

  “Don’t fucking—” She exhales harshly. “No.” Veda looks out the window, fixating on a single spot to force herself to listen.

  “When you meddle with the future, it creates ripples,” Ruth explains. “Harmless if it’s done once, maybe twice, but if it continues, the ripples spread. What was once barely a shift in the water becomes a tidal wave. That’s why we’re so harsh on Seers who meddle with time. It endangers the world. Every Seer knows this. Each state’s Oracle Council banded together quickly to figure out who was doing this, and when we discovered it was her, we swooped in and she was arrested.”

  Veda closes her eyes, hoping to stop her head from pounding.

  Hiram is the first to speak. “Clinton—”

  “He wasn’t on the Council at the time, so he wasn’t bound by the same magic.”

  “Why keep this from him? How?” Veda asks, turning around. “You’re endangering yourself. You’re endangering everyone. She hurt thousands of people. My—” Her voice breaks. “My parents Vanished because of her, and you didn’t have the decency—”

  “I couldn’t tell you, and Clinton knew far less than I did. He was on the outside looking in,” Ruth says sadly. “Mages wanted the truth behind the Vanishings buried because they did not want the public to know the amount of damage one Seer can cause, nor did they want another Seer recreating a Vanishing event. We wanted to prevent an all-out war against Seers. Everyone who knew any shred of information was forced to take an oath. Lucinda was the deponent. She cast the magical agreement, and the penalties for breaking it were harsh—deadly for the Seers involved.”

  Hirman leaned forward. “Then how are you sharing this now?”

  “The agreement broke upon her death. I didn’t know she made that a caveat, but I had a vision of me speaking to you as I am now, which made me realize that I could.”

  “Was it guilt?” Veda hates the shake in her voice. “Did you care about me out of guilt? Because you knew . . .”

  “No.” Ruth is earnest, on the verge of tears. “I didn’t need a reason to care about you, Veda. I just did. I do. You remind me of myself when I was younger. None of this changes anything.”

  “It changes everything,” Veda snaps. “She doesn’t deserve to be kept a secret. Everybody should know her name. And you’ve just been hiding her. Protecting her!”

  “No! We punished her. Ariadne was sentenced to a life of being Unseen and forced to eat from the Tree of Knowledge. She begged and pleaded with us, groveled and promised she wouldn’t meddle again, right up until Lucinda silenced her. Moab cut the fruit, and I forced her to bite down.”

  Veda feels too heavy to keep standing, numbly rejoining Hiram on the couch. His hand returns to her knee.

  “She broke out of prison and vanished a few months later. We found signs of her activities: She stole a substantial amount of money from me, put Scrambling Hexes on multiple books, and took copies of the Oracle Council’s personnel files. We looked for Ariadne for years. Put alerts out to law enforcement, the government. Everyone pretended like it never happened, so we kept searching without them, determined to find her. We looked in every place we could think of until the trail ran cold. Life went on . . . until Oliver. He was the same Council member who had found her during the Great Vanishing.”

  Veda puts her head in her hands. “Dr. Lawson . . .”

  “He died without knowing—”

  Veda looks up sharply, scrubbing a hand over her face, but there’s no wiping away the memories. “He knew who killed him and why. I tried . . .”

  “I know.”

  “What happened next?” Hiram asks.

  “We kept begging the FCD to help us track her down, but they refused. Each victim was a Council member involved with capturing her after the Great Vanishing and carrying out her punishment. This is about revenge. It took four murders to attract a little media attention, enough to force them to put someone on the case. It went quiet after that, until Investigators Sallant and Padillo got involved.”

  “You never helped them,” Hiram accuses. “You should have told them the truth.”

  “Why would we?” Ruth replies coldly. “We couldn’t trust them to protect us then, and we can’t now.”

  “And you all thought scattering was the best idea?”

  “At the time, yes, but some of us banded together. There is safety in numbers, or so we believed after the next two were killed while in isolation. This is when we realized she was using the Registration to hunt us down. It tracks our every move. Even now, we are sitting ducks.”

  Veda’s head pounds harder, but Hiram is relentless in his quest for knowledge. “And the spider lilies?”

  “We found out about the spider lilies after Investigator Sallant started coming around, requesting meetings, telling us information. In January, spider lilies started appearing in the forest behind my house. Real ones. Not the ones she creates with Omnipotent magic.”

  Like the flowers Veda saw in the forest.

  “Now I know they were a warning.”

  “What about Grace Fowler?” Hiram questions. “How is she involved in Ariadne’s case?”

  “She wasn’t involved with Ariadne’s punishment, but a member of the Oracle Council in New York was friends with Grace, and said she had an Unseen friend she met while working at her outreach program maybe nine years ago. Never said her name, but their description matches Ariadne. That’s all I know.”

  Hiram sits back. “This doesn’t make sense. Why kill Grace? Why plant real spider lilies? Why leave the spider lilies created by Omnipotent magic for Veda in the parking lot? Lucinda is murdered a few weeks later. Not long after, she attacks Moab, but he gets away. These gaps don’t make sense if she’s so methodical. How many original Council members are left?”

  “Moab and I are the last.”

  “And she’s after Veda,” Hiram remarks, looking at her. “She has to have the trickster pendant. Nine years ago is about when Grace lost hers. I bet she took it. Grace trusted everyone, to an extent. Using the pendant is likely why, to Moab, she looked like his daughter. Everett figured her—”

  “He told me he Saw her true face, and she cursed him to go insane if he tried to tell the truth.” Veda’s emotions are still twisted, but she tells Ruth about Everett’s anagram, the attack, and what happened with her amulet. Ruth reaches to comfort her, but Veda avoids her touch. “You knew she was the one who cursed me this entire time.”

  Silence is confirmation. “I would have died the moment I so much as gave you a clue. I’m so sorry. For everything.”

  Veda understands so much was out of Ruth’s hands, but still can’t force down the bitter distrust and anger stuck in her throat.

  “What about Sight Unseen?” Hiram asks. “We know my uncle wanted to use it to steal Sight. Is that even possible?”

  “It is. We suspect Ariadne has been using it on everyone she attacks, stealing their Sight as they die, and covering the remnants of the ritual with a wasting curse.” Ruth looks around urgently before leaning closer. “But there’s one thing no one seems to have figured out yet: She’s been doing it wrong.”

  Twenty

  After Ruth’s quiet exit, Veda stares out the window, hurrying to wipe her eyes when Hiram joins her.

  “I’ll tell Khadijah to take you home.”

  Her composure cracks with a whispered “Thank you.”

  It’s the last thing they say to each other. Hiram points Khadijah in the direction of the room Veda is in, then collects Antaris from story time early. His disappointment at her premature departure fades fast when Veda offers him a tired smile and signs tomorrow. They spend the rest of the evening eating pizza and watching cartoons. Antaris doesn’t make it through two episodes before falling asleep. After tucking him in, Hiram retires to his bedroom for a fitful night of sleep.

  It’s barely ten in the morning, but Hiram has been awake for hours. Rather than cook, he decides to treat Antaris by taking him to the Leaning Cactus for breakfast. The moment Antaris signs bacon, please to Hiram while ordering, Cathy, the waitress, fawns over him, showing him the signs for different menu items that they practice while she’s putting their orders in. Antaris’s meal is no charge because he reminds Cathy of her deaf granddaughter. Hiram leaves money on the table for her and lets Antaris write thank you on the back of the receipt in his uneven penmanship.

  They don’t have plans, but this changes when a familiar truck pulls onto the road, towing an even more familiar motorcycle. Veda is on the side of the road, phone to her ear. She does a double take when she sees him, hanging up with a roll of her eyes and approaching the passenger side as he slows to a stop beside her. Smiling at Antaris is routine, but the look she gives Hiram is less cold than usual. Progress.

  “You missed Peter. He’s dropping my bike off at the shop. It wouldn’t crank. My Imprint reader isn’t working.”

  “Why didn’t you let him take you home?” Hiram asks. There’s nothing around but trees lining the road.

  “I am at home.” When he and Antaris exchange dubious looks, she shakes her head. “My driveway is concealed from the road by illusionary magic to protect my cottage from prying eyes. It’s about a mile into the forest.”

  Antaris squints at the forest line. He clearly wants to see where she lives, and Veda knows it. She surprises Hiram by getting into the passenger seat and closing the door. Eyes shut, she cups her hands and frowns in concentration until a blue orb materializes before her. Alarmed, Hiram puts the car in park, ready in case the consequences of magic hit her hard. “You don’t have an amulet.”

  “It’s already been paid for, years ago,” Veda explains as the orb floats to Antaris. “It’ll read and store your Imprint when you touch it and allow you to see beyond the illusion.”

  Antaris’s trust in Veda shows in his lack of hesitation. He giggles at the sensation. Hiram’s glad he’s parked because the sound jolts him.

  “Tickles?”

  His son nods, a tinge of color in his cheeks.

  Hiram’s amusement fades when the orb floats to him. “Are you sure?” he asks Veda, understanding the depth of what she’s offering.

  “No, but I know you won’t hurt me.”

  “I won’t.” He meets her eyes as he touches it. Warmth spreads through his fingertips, and the trees begin to fade, revealing a driveway behind her.

  “Reserare is the incantation to open the path when I’m not around. Go on.”

  Hiram turns the car onto the narrow path.

  Isolated is the first word that comes to mind. The forest is dense on both sides of the dirt road, growing thicker in parts, thinner in others. A few animals dash by the car, but none get too close. At last, the trees part to reveal her cottage.

  “There’s not much to see,” she says as they climb out of the sedan.

  Antaris slips his hand into Veda’s, eager to see everything she shows him, from the talisman at the door to the solarium. He sees her lantern floating above her bed and sign language books spread all over the coffee table. While Antaris looks out the window at the forest behind her house with Hiram, Veda stands beside him.

  “If I were lost and found this place, I wouldn’t know it was yours,” he says quietly.

  “That’s my intent,” Veda replies honestly.

  Antaris notices the herbs in the kitchen, pointing. They’re leggy in parts, thin in others. Partially dead.

  “Ah, yes. They were slightly neglected when I hurt my hand. You can have them, if you’d like. Your dad was going to start a little garden for you at home. Oregano, mint, dill, thyme, cilantro, rosemary. These are perfect.”

  Hiram appreciates the gift, but sours at Veda detaching herself from yet another thing. “You can share them with us,” he suggests in a rush. “We’ll provide the space and you can help us keep them alive.” He waves his thumb. “Black thumb and all.”

  Veda studies him too long for it to be appropriate. “I think I’ve got an extra cedar raised bed that I built for the greenhouse and never used.”

  Antaris goes with her to find it, and not long after, it’s in Hiram’s trunk and they’re all off to the greenhouse for spare dirt. It takes an hour for Veda to mix everything, explaining each part to an intrigued Antaris. Finally, they head back to his house and start working on the bed, the quacking ducks on the lake serving as background noise. Hiram leaves them to make pastitsio as a thank-you.

  The windows are open. The sun is shining. He can see them outside as he cooks. Antaris is on his stool with gloves Veda snatched from the greenhouse, wielding a hand shovel. From the looks of it, they’ll have room for more herbs in the bed. Having sage would be nice. Green onion and basil, too.

  Having Veda here to plant it would be better.

  As if hearing her name in his thoughts, she turns, catching his eye. A single brow raises. Hiram has to get out of his head, or he might do something to compromise this tenuous trust they’ve built. That would be terribly stupid.

  Hiram swears to the empty kitchen as the water starts to boil.

  Antaris falls asleep after dinner before he can wander. Hiram puts him to bed and returns to find Veda holding a glass of wine.

  “Peter said he’d come by to take me home. My bike will be ready in two days.”

  He can’t admit that he doesn’t want her to leave, so he nods. “Thanks again for starting the herb garden.”

  “They’ll do better here than in my kitchen. I only had them because they reminded me of home. My mom kept an herb garden. I’ve always loved the smell of fresh herbs. It’s comforting.”

  The faint meowing of the cat makes Hiram sigh. “He acts like nobody ever feeds him.”

  “Do you not like animals?”

  “Cats are fine, even though they make my face itch. I have a list of other animals I don’t respect.”

  “Don’t respect?” Veda bites back her smile. “Go on. Top three animals on that list and why.”

  “Orcas are bullies, mosquitoes are pests, and hippos are deceptive,” Hiram rattles off without hesitation. Leaning closer, he adds, “And no, I won’t explain.”

  She stares at him blankly, then laughs.

  Hiram smiles at the sound. Veda’s treatment has been less hate and more tolerance, leaving Hiram wondering how much he can continue to shift her wind.

  Angling sideways to face her, he watches her laughter fade, her inscrutable countenance returning. Veda checks her watch, then reaches for the drink she already finished and grimaces. Hiram thinks she’s going to wait by the door for Peter or check on the planted herbs, but she leans against the edge of the island and asks, “What do you do when he goes to bed?”

  Hiram is slow to answer. “I mostly read. Either books or research. Why?”

  “I’m making conversation, or else we’re going to sit in silence until Peter gets here. So, do you have hobbies?”

  “I don’t have many hobbies, never had time for them, or quiet days or nights. Sometimes I finish tasks I’ve neglected, prepare for the next day, or clean. Or Peter comes over for beers.”

  “Do you ever stop moving?”

  “No,” Hiram says. “If I do, everything I balance will collapse.”

  Veda closes her eyes. “I feel like that sometimes. If I stop, the bind will fade, and this Sanguis Curse will consume me.”

  “Does it hurt?”

  “When I neglect myself by not eating right to keep my energy up. It’s worse when I skip swimming in Nénuphar.”

  “So . . . often.”

  Veda rolls her eyes. “You sound like Khadijah.”

  “Shocking that this is the one thing we agree on.”

  “Yeah, well, she gives a shit, while you—I’m not sure what you’re doing, actually.”

  “I’m keeping my word.” Because he wants to. And perhaps to prove he can.

  “You don’t have to.” Veda’s soft frown fades when she picks up the meowing kitten.

  “I want to,” Hiram replies.

  “We don’t always get what we want.”