Page 44 of The Last De Loughrey Dynasty

“Read the last page of the diary,” I told her. When I first read those red-scribbled words, I had trouble sleeping for an entire week. When you live a life like ours, where you have trouble defining the words ‘reality’ and ‘illusion’, it’s not difficult to believe a piece of paper.

Dorothee flipped through the book and was struck by the words written in red ink.

History will repeat itself.

Find the book of shadows to save them.

– MHA

“Mairead Henriette Alderidge,” I deciphered the initials for her. “She’s Mai’s grandmother, who also possessed the sight.And since she saw it and not Callahan, who was Nathaniel’s grandfather, it’s a warning.”

She reread the words again before looking puzzled. “How can this possibly be a warning if we don’t know what happened in the past? Maybe it was—”

“Just a joke?” I finished for her. “Like the ghosts who tried to unalive you?”

Dorothee froze at that.

“So, your grandmother saw the future. What do you see?” she asked Mai, who shook her head, almost embarrassed. “The sight doesn’t work like that. I see fragments of the future, like pictures flashing in front of my eyes, but they don’t make sense to me. They’re like pieces of a puzzle I need to connect over time. Besides, I only see the nightmares waiting for us, while Nathaniel sees the dreams coming true. It’s as much a blessing as it is a curse for both of us.”

Mai reached for Nathaniel’s hand, which rested on the table. He let her take it, their fingers intertwining.

When I first realised the two of them were falling in love, I didn’t believe my eyes. I’d never imagined that the girl who cradled sunshine in the palm of her hand could fall for the boy who embraced the heart of the night. It was strange, and I’d threatened Nathaniel, warning him that if he was using her as a distraction, I’d make his life a living hell. Luckily, it never came to that.

In all the years I’d known Nathaniel, I could count on one hand the number of times I’d seen him genuinely smile or laugh. But now, it was as though Mai had shared a piece of her soul with him, brightening his every day.

“So, you basically know nothing?” Dorothee asked, causing Jesse to clasp a hand over his heart as though she’d wounded him.

“Don’t insult us like that, all right? We do have a few clues on where to start.”

“‘Where to start’ usually means you’ve got nothing so far,” she replied casually, poking the bear—in our case, a Care Bear.

Instead of responding, Jesse stood up and pulled his self-proclaimed detective folder from a drawer, placing it on the table in front of her.

“Just so you know, little miss‘I’m smarter than all of you,’the page you just read appeared the day you set foot in this school—which, for the record, was a month ago. Since then, we’ve discovered another prophecy from senior Mairead.” He opened the folder, showing her a tarot card with a message on the back that we’d found in Mai’s room two weeks earlier.

When we found the next note, we realised this wasn’t just a loose warning. In our lives, nothing was ever a coincidence.

Dorothee brushed her index finger over the tape we’d used to stick the warning page back into the diary. The page had fallen off the balcony that day, which led us to look up and see the spirits’ play with the red-haired girl.

No additional clues had been written on the page, but the next note brought new information. As always, the words were as cryptic as the Alderidge and McConnell visions, but it was something at least.

Mai had been searching for something her grandmother had given her to explain the note she left us. Her grandmother had handed down various tarot decks, but one in particular had always been too intense for Mai. The cards had been hand-painted by one of her ancestors, and her grandmother had sworn that Alderidge blood was worked into them.

On the back of theMooncard was another message, written and signed with MHA again:

Jewels melted ivory

Gift of peace born in rivalry

Cradled in the palms of the star's blood.

– MHA

“I know these circles,” Dorothee mumbled, tracing her fingers along the endless daisy wheels drawn on the card’s back.

“You call them daisy wheels or hexafoils. They were used to confuse and entrap evil spirits, often by witches,” Mai explained. “But I haven’t found a reason why my grandmother drew them on the back of this card. I just know it’s a warning. TheMoonsymbolises hidden enemies and darkness.”

Dorothee frowned, clearly deep in thoughts. “I’ve seen this symbol before, but I can’t remember where,” she muttered in frustration.

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