Page 139 of Summer of Sacrifice

Something moved in the tree above Seleste, the full branches swaying. The leaves would soon begin to die and fall, and she would hand the Grimoire to Aggie again. One of the branches creaked unnaturally as if something heavy was perched on it. Squinting against the sunlight, Seleste strained her neck to see up in the tree.

Stifling a gasp, she clapped a hand over her mouth. There was Aggie, perched in the tree like a raven, a glimmer of magic cloaking her.

What in Hades?

She needed to get as far from her Sister as she could before something terrible happened. They’d never tested it—being together outside of the Solstice or Equinox—but she wasn’t inclined to try it now, with hundreds of people gathered at a royal funeral.

Pulling her hood low, Seleste snaked through the crowd and into the graveyard. She would visit the royal crypt, cloaked in her magic before the procession toward it for King Leopold would begin.

She’d almost reached it, skirting a fresh grave when she caught a flash of copper hair and a pair of bat wings. Seleste doubled her cloaking magic, hidden from even her Sister’s eyes, and slunk closer, watching as Aggie darted past guards unaware of her.

Sister Autumn slowed as she reached the crypt, running a hand over it tenderly. Toward the back of the stone mausoleum, Aggie stopped completely. Pressing her hand to the stone, she lowered her head against it solemnly. “I’m sorry,” her lips mouthed.

Sorry? What could Aggie have to be sorry for?

Then, Seleste watched as her Sister Autumn made her way through the cemetery toward the main road leaving Merveille. Mabon flitted around above her head as she stopped at the edge of the road where it met the graveyard. Aggie stooped at a small, unmarked grave, and sat.

Seleste watched her Sister until the sky darkened, promising rain. Her magic felt strange, volatile. She blinked and Aggie was gone, the sun beginning to peek out as the clouds dispersed as quickly as they’d come.

Baffled, Seleste traced Aggie’s footsteps to the crypt, eyeing where she had stopped. Then, Seleste slipped into the crypt, eerily quiet but not for much longer.

There was a slab cut out, awaiting the fresh corpse it would hold for eternity. Next to it, precisely where Aggie had whispered her apology from the outside, the plaque read King Caliban.

Aggie had never expressed any allegiance to the monarchy. In fact, she loathed it. What was she doing at King Leopold’s funeral? Why was she so apologetic for the death of Cal that happened forty years ago?

As sudden as a tidal wave, it all made sense.

Aggie’s depression. Her hidden trauma these last decades. Her isolation and anger.

Cal’s assassin never found. The only lead a lone, red hair.

Aggie’s killing calm.

“Hespa,” Seleste breathed, sinking to her knees on the crypt’s cold stone floor. “Hespa, help my Sister.”

She should hate Aggie for this, for taking Cal. But she knew…she knew Aggie was broken. Aggie was controlled by the Grimoire as much as the rest of them. There was no way her Sister would have done anything like that of her own accord.

Did it have something to do with Seleste’s Order to give Cal the potion all those years ago? Did it have something to do with the string of deaths that led to Cal being king at all?

Someone was coming. She had to get out.

And she had to ensure that her Sister never found out it was Seleste’s Summer boy she’d killed.

Chapter

Twenty-Five

SELESTE

How long had she been staring at his bed? How long had it been since anyone had been in the châlet? The curtains were different, and the bed was situated along a different wall, but everything else was the same.

A gentle knock came from the door, shaking Seleste from her stupor. When she opened it, Aggie, Sorscha, and Winnie stood there holding their mother’s journals, while Grimm held a glowing lantern.

With no preamble, Aggie handed Seleste her journal. “It’s time, Sister.”

Seleste moved out of the way and they filed in, gathering around Cal’s table—a sight she never could have predicted in all her years.

“What do we do?” Sorscha threw a hand onto her silk-swathed hip. “We have been carrying these around for moons and nothing’s summoned anyone.”

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