Mairead swears that James is fancying me from the way his eyes always searched mine as soon as I entered the room.

On a side note, Callahan found a book titled Book of Shadows in the library at the hideaway. Henry swears it hadn’t been there before and that he went through all the books a million times by now, but we know how observant our dear Henry is. It surely just flew over his head.

The book looks fascinating. Bound in brown leather, gold art decorates the cover with stars and the moon cycles. There are symbols engraved on the edges and spine. I’m dying to know what’s written inside, but sadly, only the first page is visible.

Usually, I wouldn’t care about an empty book, but our surnames are written on the title page.

‘De Loughrey, Kingstone, Alderidge, McConnell, Minoru, Berkshire and Kane. Blessed by Hecate under the watch of Stars.’

That sounds so exciting. I want to know what this means. We’ve come so far in finding each other, Umbra and the story of Aquila Hall. Now, we’re about to find the last pieces to finish the puzzle, I can feel it.

Until next time,

Dottie xx

“Henry must have beenthe boy in the photos, and someone hated him so much they burned his face out,” Maisie said, resting her head tiredly on Nathaniel’s shoulder.

“He was a Kane, and from what Dottie thought about him, I’m betting fifty quid that he had something to do with that night of the—allegedly—accident.” Archer kicked him against the shin, causing Jesse to yelp. “Stop betting on everything.”

February 19th, 1970

Dear Diary,

We figured out how to open the Book of Shadows.

It requires all of us, or rather our blood, likely DNA. It was Henry who spent his nights reading about how to unlock century-old witchy secrets (how he called it).

We tried to help him in his research, but he pushed us away as usual. I guess we won’t ever grow on him in the family kind of way. It’s sad because that’s what we are, and him not wanting to be a part of our family feels wrong. But that’s not a topic for me to discuss.

The book is completely written in Latin, so it will take a while to translate most of it, but we’ve found that the first few pages were divided into five parts.

Ignis, Aer, Aqua, Terra, and Spiritus.

The five elements are represented in a pentagram, like the one that is engraved on the door of the Hideout.

Mayumi and Anthony will spend the night translating, and we’ll switch each night to translate as fast as possible.

I can’t put into words how exciting all of this is. To be able to learn about our heritage, that’s not money and fame.

Ps: I felt the touch of his lips on mine today.

Until next time,

Dottie xx

My eyes were about to fall shut as Maisie finished reading the thirty-first entry. And from the sound of it, she was about to pass out as well. We had half past two at night and spent the past hours passing the diary from one to the next to read the entries aloud.

So far, this last entry was the first to tell us anything connected to theBook of Shadowsat all. Dottie wasn’t writing regularly, only when something important for her happened that day, and a lot of things seemed important to her. Especially if anything with a certain someone called James happened. And after everything I just read and heard, there was no doubt that their souls had been forged to be the missing piece for one another. While Nathaniel had muttered that this was getting ridiculous after the thirteenth entry, where my great aunt had only talked about how James wounded his hands picking roses for her in the school garden because she had mentioned a week before that she adored the white flowers that started to bloom outside the dining hall window, I found their love story adorable.

It might have taken them ages to see past the fact that the feelings they had for each other weren’t how friends felt, but deep love, but their connection sounded so unique and captivating that I felt almost frustrated to hear that she cut their first kiss short like that.

“Your turn, Doe,” Maisie yawned and passed the diary over to me. Jesse groaned as he lifted his head off the table and rubbed his eyes beneath his glasses. “I know it’s just getting more important and all, but if you read one more page then I might as well throw my chair at your head, Doe,” he grumbled tiredly, pointing his index finger at me.

“One more, it’s getting somewhere.”

In reply, Jesse’s forehead kissed the table with a thud.

“Maybe this one’s short.”