Page 20 of Summer of Sacrifice

“Goddess teeth…” Aggie breathed as her gaze swept across the torchlit expanse. “Asa, you helped our mother catalogue all of this?”

The general nodded stiffly where he stood by a wall of rock with carved-out shelves, little nicknacks lining them. “My sister and I both did. We were very young. Lorelai was, ah—” He trailed off, glancing at Winnie, almost embarrassed. “She was with child. It must have been Wendolyn. I don’t remember much, neither does Lena. We were only here because our mother was very ill at that time. She had, we learned later, reunited with someone from her past in Merveille. A doctor whose family line practised heavily in the dark arts. When he discovered our mother was meddling in his affairs, he poisoned her.”

Seleste’s attention left the relics, landing squarely on Asa as her pulse responded to too much information that felt oddly familiar, though she wasn’t certain how.

“The abbey healers,” Asa went on, “aided her in recovery, and Lorelai stepped in to take charge of us. She would bring us here with her while she worked and Ambrose was away ona Hunt.” He paused, his head lilting to one side. “We, ah, hunted down relics back then, along with bringing in mages and witches who needed help.” One of his bulky shoulders lifted indifferently, and he reached out to lift a small vase off a shelf, inspecting it. “Our job was to sort the relics.” The barest hint of an almost smile curved his lips. “Lorelai liked things to be very much in order. She was meticulous like that. I don’t remember specifics, only that I was usually tasked with the non-breakable items.”

“Bull in a china cabinet and all that?” Sorscha crowed.

His eyes narrowed at her as he turned toward Agatha, gesturing at the rows upon rows of shelves lined with items. “We haven’t any idea what most of these are or why it was necessary to lock them away. Lena believes they are simply things deemed important at the time or items that should be kept safe. A vault, of sorts.”

“And what do you think?” Aggie asked, both a curiosity and a challenge.

Asa seemed to rise to her prodding, watching Aggie intently before replying. “I think your mother suffered great losses and believed in the power of sentiment. I’ve often wondered if many of these things were objects that once belonged to people she and Ambrose knew. By relationship or by happenstance.” He paused, the despondence his words had caused settling amongst them like silt at the bottom of the sea. “Every person she ever laid eyes upon mattered to Lorelai.”

Seleste blinked at the sudden rush of tears assaulting her. Sorscha sighed and began cursing the likelihood of Asa’s assessment.

Curiously, Grimm had stopped listening moments prior and was wandering down an aisle of what looked to be ordinary household objects. Seleste watched as he picked up an innocuous serving spoon, a smirk slipping onto his face just before his lips parted. Seleste expected him to make a snarky remark about a pointless spoon since he’d missed Asa’s speech, but his countenance quickly shifted, disturbingly so. Where he’d been pensive before, he suddenly looked shocked and anxious. He dropped the spoon back onto the shelf as if it had burned him, shaking his head roughly. Seleste turned away just as he looked over his shoulder to see if anyone had witnessed the event.

“Seleste.” Winnie came up next to her, holding a dusty, emerald-encrusted hair clip, her lip curled. “Do you have any idea why all this junk is important? Do you think Asa is correct about why Mother spent all her time doing this?”

“I truly have no idea, Sister. But we do know there is likely an answer to the star map down here, and, most likely, Mother’s journal we can only assume belongs to Sorscha.”

Amidst their conversation, the group had split up into pairs, curious and roaming, and Winnie twirled her braid, eyes darting between all of their comrades. “All right, then. Let’s see what we can find.”

“Winnie.” Seleste caught her arm and spun her Sister Winter around, met with an arched-brow stare. “I like the look of Druid life on you.”

Winnie peered down at her tan riding pants and white tunic, remarkably and therefore likely magically clean, and then she smiled up at Seleste. “Thank you.”

Seleste turned down an aisle of items that also seemed to be of little consequence, eyes roving over them until she settled on a clay bowl to pick up. How could any of this possibly mean anything? she thought while she studied the unimpressive thing. Did their mother see the catacombs as some sort of mausoleum?

“Goddess above!” a soft voice whispered.

Seleste quickly moved a stack of dusty tomes and four candlesticks to see Arielle through the shelf on the other side. She was holding a set of earrings, her face pale. “Arielle?” she prompted. “What is it?”

“I thought it might be you on the other side of the shelf,” Arielle said quietly. “Gaius says you have a cunning.” Arielle paused, tilting her head as if she were listening for approaching footsteps. Seemingly satisfied, she stood on her tiptoes and whispered through the little opening Seleste had made on the shelf. “Has your cunning revealed anything about these objects?”

“No, I’m afraid it doesn’t work like that for me. I mostly piece together bits of information—” She gasped. “But you’re a Death Seer!” she whisper-shouted. “Hold, please!”

Seleste hastily put the items back on the shelf until Arielle’s bright, open face disappeared behind them. Taking her skirts up in one hand, she ran down the aisle, nearly bowling over Sorscha in the process. She rounded the corner and skidded to a stop next to Arielle.

“You sense something, don’t you?”

Arielle nodded slowly, an emerald ring sitting in her open palm. “An imprint.”

“An imprint?” Seleste took a compulsory step forward. “As in a shade of the living person who owned this ring?”

“Yes.” She squeezed her hand into a fist around the ring. “I mostly sense the dead, and not all of the time. It’s similar to how I aid in speeding the healing process along—little threads of life. This is different, though. It’s more like sensing the vague essence of a person. A bit like the way I can tell if a person is coming from far away.”

“The essence of a person. That sounds quite similar to the journals our mother created for each of us,” Seleste mused, half to herself. “Little bits of our essence, written or drawn before we were even born.”

“Yes!” Arielle gave a little hop. “Quite like those.” She blushed. “Gaius told me about them.”

Seleste chuckled. “I assumed as much. And what is the essence you feel in this ring?”

Arielle’s face scrunched in thought, lips twisting in a pucker to one side. “It’s difficult to describe. I feel a distinctly female presence, but…young. I can’t quite tell if she was young when she owned the ring or when she died.”

“Based on your abilities and their tie to death, I would say the object is acting as a talisman for the soul, holding a piece of who they were when they perished, unfortunately.”

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