Page 9

Five

“I didn’t think anyone knew about this place.”

Sybil set down a pot of tea for herself, and a cup of coffee for Lydia, already prepared with milk and two sugars.

“Oh, darling. You’ll find that each of us has our own little hideaways.

Why, I have a lovely cottage in Surrey with a garden full of roses, and a gardener who looks like Errol Flynn.

” Sybil smiled a sly, private smile. “This place wasn’t much of a secret. ”

Lydia took a sip of her coffee. A hollow, unsteady feeling still clung to her like wet clothes, and she found herself unable to stomach small talk, even with Sybil.

“I assume you’ve come to tell me I’ve been dismissed from the academy.” She set down her cup to keep it from shaking in her hand.

“Don’t be ridiculous. If that mouth of yours was enough to get you tossed out, you wouldn’t have made it past your first year.

Besides…” Sybil grew more somber. “Your delivery may have been a bit dramatic, but…I do believe your message was spot on.” Lydia watched as Sybil’s eyes filled with tears. “We all let her down, didn’t we?”

Lydia had to take a breath to keep her own composure. “We did the best we could.” It was a lie, of course. A kindness. Sybil shook her head.

“ You did the best you could. You were the only one of us worth her training last night. You were courageous and clearheaded. A credit to the academy.”

Lydia felt the shame rise in her throat, hot and wet and hateful. “I failed her.” A sob burst through her chest, and she hung her head, unable to look Sybil in the eye. Sybil offered a lace-edged handkerchief, which Lydia took without looking up.

“No, my darling. You made her proud. You made me proud. Why do you think I nominated you for grand mistress?”

“Honestly, Sybil, I can’t imagine. How could you possibly think I would be the right choice?” Lydia looked up, dabbing away her tears.

“I don’t know why you’re so surprised. You must have known you would be the obvious candidate to succeed Isadora when she passed.”

Lydia had assumed so, although they had never discussed it directly. She’d even thought she wanted it. Now the prospect only filled her with dread. “I thought there would be more time. I can’t be grand mistress, not now. Not yet.”

Sybil smiled kindly. “Who else would you have lead us, hmm? Vivian? Helena?”

At this Lydia let out a snort.

“?‘Cowardly hens,’ that’s what you called us, and right you were. None of us are fit to lead. None but you.”

“You could do it.”

Sybil shook her head. “I’m as bad as the rest. And I will live with that shame for the rest of my life. The best I can do now is try to make things right.”

Lydia looked at Sybil. “How?”

“I convinced the council to postpone the selection ceremony. As of this moment, the academy is still without a grand mistress. Vivian will serve as the interim head of the high council until a successor is chosen.”

Lydia let out a disgusted huff. “That hateful—”

Sybil made a quick tsking sound, silencing Lydia before she could say any more. She reached out and squeezed Lydia’s hand. “The selection ceremony for the new grand mistress will take place on Samhain. That gives you two weeks to form alliances on the council—”

“Sybil—”

“Isadora believed in you. She knew her time was running out, and she knew you would be the one to lead when she was gone.”

Lydia thought about that day three years ago. Isadora’s face had looked so tired and so regal as they’d pulled away from 10 Downing Street. She remembered what Isadora had said, about what would be required. Had Isadora known, even then, that she would never see the end of the war?

“I’m not ready,” Lydia whispered.

“No one is ever ready. But last night you proved yourself as ready as any witch in that room. More, in fact. I’ll support you. We all will.”

“No. I’m not ready . Isadora’s been dead less than a day, and Kitty—” The sound of Kitty’s name seized in Lydia’s throat in a sudden, painful spasm. Sybil’s hand tightened around hers. Oh, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty. “Has anyone told her parents?”

“I did. First thing this morning.” Sybil looked as if she were still haunted by the memory of the conversation.

Lydia wondered whether Kitty’s mother had screamed when she heard her daughter was dead, if her father had wept.

She felt as if she could hear the sound of it inside her skull.

Awful, throat-closing grief washed over her like waves, pushing her under so she couldn’t breathe.

“Does it ever stop?” Lydia gasped.

“No.” Sibyl looked down at her hands. “It comes and goes. Eventually it will begin to feel less unbearable. Maybe it will come over you only once a day, and then once a week. One day you’ll even think you’re free of it, but then you’ll see some…

” She sighed, gesturing toward nothing in particular.

“Some face that looks like hers, or you’ll smell her perfume, and then…

” Sybil’s eyes shimmered slightly. “I couldn’t bear the smell of rosemary for a year after my grandmother died.

One moment I’d be fine, and then…” She took a shaking breath and smiled weakly.

“I feel like I’m going mad.” Lydia felt the loss like a hot poker in her throat.

“You’re grieving,” Sybil said gently. “Give yourself time.” She paused for a moment, thinking. “I’ve decided I’m coming out of retirement. I’m taking over your classes.”

“What?”

“Only for a little while. You are an excellent teacher, Lydia. As good as me. Better. But you need time to heal. And to think about what comes next for you.”

“No, I can do it.” Lydia pressed her eyes with the palms of her hands. “I can carry on teaching, really. I just—”

“It’s already decided. I taught those girls for forty years. I think I can manage a little while longer.”

Lydia wanted to argue, but there was no point. Sybil had made up her mind.

“Thank you, Sybil.”

“You can thank me by using this time to rest. And, Lydia—”

But Lydia already knew. Grand mistress. Terror surged up inside her at the thought of it. “Please don’t ask me to do this, Sybil. Please .”

“I’m sorry. But I have to.”

The terror ebbed away, leaving only a terrible sadness. “I know.” She looked down at Sybil’s lace handkerchief, crumpled into a knot in her fist. “Could you please not ask me today?”

There was a moment’s hesitation. Sybil rose from her seat and came around to kneel next to her. She held her tightly, like a child.

“All right,” she said. “Not today.”

···

Later, after Sybil left, and the light streaming through the windows had turned a deep, sunken purple, Lydia went and stood in front of the red door at the end of the hall.

This was the place where Isadora had once conducted her own private spellwork, the only room where even Lydia had never set foot.

Any protective charms Isadora had placed on this room had been broken the moment she died, but Lydia still felt like she was violating something sacred as she stepped over the threshold.

The walls and floor were painted a flat black, and a simple cherrywood altar sat in the middle of a white chalk circle on the floor.

Lydia went to the glass-fronted cabinet standing against the opposite wall, which held all manner of provisions for spellwork—pungent oils; sweet-smelling beeswax candles; rough chunks of smoky quartz, amethyst, moldavite, and jasper; black scrying mirrors; hammered pewter bowls.

Lydia noticed the silver bell she had given Isadora as a gift on her last birthday, and was seized by a fresh wave of grief.

A pile of fine ash lay on the center shelf, where Isadora had once kept her personal grimoire.

It had been encyclopedic, a great tome bound in soft black suede, each page densely packed with Isadora’s own eccentric, looping script.

The grimoire had been bound to her, as was tradition—a sort of magical failsafe to ensure total privacy, even in death.

No witch could read or even touch another witch’s grimoire, and the book would be turned to ash upon the witch’s death.

Seeing the pile of fine gray dust where Isadora’s life’s work had once sat drove the horrible truth home for Lydia all over again.

Isadora was gone. She was never coming back.

Lydia stepped from the chamber, closing the red door gently behind her, and stood before the sitting room window.

The moon had begun her rise over the city.

Already she was waning slightly, making her slow journey into darkness, and back again toward the light.

Toward the next full moon, and with it, the moment the Nazis would be able to perform the tracking spell and find the Grimorium Bellum .

Lydia watched as lights winked out in homes across the city, preparing for the nightly blackout, and thought about the dead.

Not only Kitty and Isadora but a hundred thousand others whose names she would never know.

Countless Londoners, buried under the rubble.

Entire families, mothers and fathers and children, dying in squalor, shoveled into mass graves.

Soldiers and civilians, snuffed out, like so many lanterns.

She couldn’t bring them back. Not a single one of them, no matter how hard she tried.

But there was one thing she could do. One thing that truly mattered. Because out there, somewhere, the Grimorium Bellum lay hidden.

Waiting for the next full moon.

Waiting to be found.