CHAPTER 8
DANIELLE
I squinted at the faded text while fighting the urge to press my nose against the ancient pages. The desk lamp was doing its best, but whoever wrote this clearly thought legible handwriting was optional. "I’ve got another reference to the Lost Legends using blood magic," I announced as I traced the spidery script with my finger. "Still nothing about where their powers came from originally, though. Just more 'and then they murdered everyone's stories. It’s super helpful."
Thanks to Cami and Xinar's archive diving expedition, we had a fresh stack of dusty books to wade through. After wrapping up the client meeting – where, thankfully, the happy couple had loved our efforts thus far – we'd all settled in for some light reading about historical mass murderers. Honestly, it was sad that this was typical Tuesday night stuff for us now.
The library looked like a tornado had hit an old bookstore. Dea had created her typical ‘organized chaos’ nest on the floor. She was surrounded by enough open books to make a librarian cry. Lia was doing her best impression of a bored teenager in the leather armchair. She had one leg thrown over the arm while she flipped through what was likely someone's murder diary.
Phi sat at the desk like she was posing for ‘Proper Witch Weekly’. Her back was straight enough to make my spine ache in sympathy. Her notepad was filled with her precise handwriting. It was likely color-coded and cross-referenced because she was extra like that. Kota and Dre had claimed the window seat and were passing papers back and forth and occasionally muttering about bloodlines and body counts.
"Okay, but seriously," Kota said as she shoved her glasses up with the back of her hand, "who named these assholes? The Lost Legends? Everyone and their grandmother seem to have a story about them killing someone's great-great-whatever. Shouldn't they be the Unfortunately Very Found and Well-Documented Legends?"
Phi didn't even look up from whatever ancient family tree she was decoding. "Maybe they lost their Yelp reviews along with their souls? Everything we've found suggests they started out as the magical equivalent of supernatural police before going full murder-hobo."
I snorted and turned another delicate page. "They went from 'protect and serve' to 'maim and massacre’? That's a hell of a career change."
"Speaking of corruption," Dre interjected, "I've been tracking the patterns. Every reference to the Lost Legends mentions them seeking artifacts of power. They were particularly focused on crystals and relics that can amplify natural magic."
"Like the Larmes du Bayou," Lia pointed out as she sat up straighter. "Which is exactly what they were after this time."
I was about to agree when something in the text caught my eye. My fingers trembled slightly as I traced the elegant script of what appeared to be a personal account. "Guys," I whispered, "I think you need to see this."
The others gathered around as I began to read aloud. "The Larmes du Bayou must be protected at all costs. Our family bears this burden, as we have since the first conflict with those who would abuse its power. The Smith line has always stood guard, while the Yearsley blood carries the key."
"Wait, what?" Lia leaned closer. She nearly knocked over my water glass in her excitement. "Our Smith line? As in Dad's family?"
"And Mom's family, too," Dea pointed out. "Both sides of our family are mentioned."
My hands shook slightly as I turned to the next page. "The Lost Legends seek to corrupt the crystal's pure energy. They intend to twist its protective powers into something dark and consuming. We cannot allow this. The combined strength of these bloodlines creates a barrier they cannot breach. But only if we maintain the balance between the Smith determination and the Yearsley intuition.'"
"Holy shit," Kota breathed as she sank into the nearest chair. "Our ancestors were involved in stopping the Lost Legends. It sounds like they protected the crystal from them."
"But that's impossible," Phi protested, though her voice wavered. "We grew up completely normal. Besides Mom and Dea's ghost thing, none of us had any powers. Not a damn thing until Phoebe accidentally awakened our magical DNA. There weren’t even stories told to us."
"We know that's not entirely true," Dre said thoughtfully. "Think about it. Dea saw ghosts, like Mom. Phi, you've always had that weird ability to tell when something is meant to be. Kota can calm any animal she meets. And Lia has always had a sense about things."
"And you've always known when any of us were in trouble," I added, looking at Dre. "Even before all this started."
"Do you think Mom and Dad knew something? I bet they heard stories and didn’t want to share because it was too out there.” Lia’s expression had become angry, and she was clenching her fists. “They should have shared our family history!"
"Maybe they didn't know," Dre suggested. "Look at the dates on these records. Most of them are from the late eighteen hundreds. A lot could have been lost or forgotten over the generations."
I returned to the journal and scanned further down the page. "The artifacts must remain separated until they are needed again," I read. “Until those of both bloodlines are ready to bear the full weight of their inheritance.” I sighed and looked up at my sisters. “There's more here about hiding things and protecting them from the Lost Legends."
Suddenly, Dea gasped. We all turned to look at her. A chill ran down my spine at the expression on her face. She was staring at something none of us could see. When her eyes went slightly unfocused like that, she was usually seeing a ghost.
"Dea?" Phi moved toward her, concerned. "What is it? What do you see?"
"Not what," Dea whispered. "Who. There's someone here. One of our ancestors. She's trying to show me something."
As if in response to her words, I felt a strange vibration in the air. It was like the hum of distant power. By the looks on my sisters' faces, they felt it, too. "It feels like she's responding," Kota began, "to all of us being here together."
"She wants us to follow," Dea said as she got to her feet. Her movements were careful like she was trying not to startle whatever spirit she was seeing.
We moved as one through the hallway, following Dea's lead. Moonlight streamed through the tall windows and cast long shadows across the antique runner. The vibration grew stronger as we climbed the stairs and into one of the rooms on the second floor. It felt like static electricity dancing across my skin.
"There," Phi pointed to a section of the wall panel that seemed different. In the moonlight, I could barely make out the seams of what appeared to be a door. It had previously been invisible in the ornate woodwork.
"Should we?" Lia asked as she started reaching out.
"Wait," Dre caught her wrist. She was the cautious one. "We don't know what kind of protections?—"
Before she could finish, a surge of power rushed through me. Looking at my sisters' faces, I knew they were experiencing it. The hidden door responded to our combined presence and swung open with a soft click that echoed through the space like a whisper from the past.
Behind it lay a room that time had forgotten. Dust motes danced in the beam of moonlight that now stretched into the secret chamber. They illuminated display cases and shelves lined with objects that vibrated with magical energy. The air was charged like we'd stepped into a bubble of contained power.
"Holy shit," Kota breathed as she stepped into the room. Her fingers hovered above one of the display cases like she was afraid it might bite. Given our luck lately, not an unreasonable concern.
"Artifacts," I confirmed. I was drawn to a case in the center like a moth to a really old, potentially dangerous flame. Inside sat what looked like a simple silver pendant. As we crowded around it, the thing lit up like a magical Christmas tree. The glow matched the energy signature of the Larmes du Bayou perfectly.
"Look at these markings," Dre said. She had her nose practically pressed against the glass. "They're identical to the crystal's patterns. These aren't just pretty squiggles.
Lia shook her head and said, “They're channeling matrices."
"And amplifiers," Phi announced as she bounced between cases like a kid in a potentially lethal candy store. "Each one's designed to boost different things. There’s protective energy around this one. But, this one..." She stopped at another display, and her eyebrows climbed into her hairline. "Pretty sure this bad boy's for healing."
"But how did this room even get here?" Lia asked as she trailed her finger along a shelf edge. "The plantation wasn't family property until we bought it last year."
Phi's eyes got that distant look they did when her brain was making connections at light speed. "What if they didn't need to own it back then? Think about it. The Lost Legends are messing with temporal magic. What if our ancestors used their recent activity to... I don't know, bring this room forward to where and when they needed it to be?"
"That's..." Dea trailed off and tilted her head like she was listening to something we couldn't hear. "Actually, that tracks with what they're telling me. They’re talking about this place like it's our birthright. One even said it was about time the magic returned to our bloodline."
Adele walked into the room and prowled around Dea’s ankles. “Your ancestors stood in this very room. Their power flowed through the artifacts surrounding you. You six were meant to fight these battles. Meeting Phoebe was no accident.”
I was just opening my mouth to respond to Adele when a flicker caught my eye. The figure in the doorway seemed to strobe between existence and non-existence. She looked like a glitch in reality's programming. One second, she was solid, and the next, she was transparent. And then gone completely before snapping back.
"How the hell did she get past the wards?" Lia shouted, just as our uninvited guest hurled a bolt of temporal energy at the display case. The magic crackled with familiar crystalline undertones.
I threw up a shield. My protection spell spread like quicksilver between the artifacts and the attack. Dre and Kota moved in perfect sync. They launched twin counterstrikes that would have taken down a small army. Would have, if our attacker hadn't partially phased out of our timeline to avoid them.
" She didn't get past them ," Adele's voice rang out as Phi yanked Dea behind her. " She used temporal magic to slip between the ward's installation dates. She's literally attacking from a time when they didn't exist. "
Well, shit. That was a new one. The fight turned into a twisted game of four-dimensional tag. Our attacker kept blipping between moments in time. It blew my mind that she could hit us from a hundred years ago and then dart back two hundred years. We could barely track her, let alone land a solid hit.
But she hadn't counted on facing all six of us. The solid relationships we shared honed our sister-magic and taught us how to anticipate each other's moves. When the intruder phased back in to make another grab for the artifacts, she found herself caught in a crossfire of spells from six different directions.
She managed to snatch something from one of the smaller displays before our combined attack forced her to retreat. She didn't get away before I caught a clear glimpse of her face. It was the same woman who had stolen the Larmes du Bayou.
"Everyone check-in," Dre commanded as she moved from sister to sister with her healer's magic. Her hands glowed with warm golden light as she worked, erasing burns from temporal backlash and soothing our magical strain. "Did anyone break anything?"
"I'm just bruised," Phi reported, helping Dea up from where they'd taken cover. "But what did she take?"
"We need to call Phoebe," Lia said, pulling out her phone with shaking hands. "And Kaitlyn. They need to know what we found. And what was just stolen."
We gathered around Lia. The screen's glow illuminated the chaos around us. There was broken glass, scattered artifacts, and the lingering traces of power that felt both ancient and freshly awakened. Dre wasted no time in bringing Phoebe and Kaitlyn up to speed after they each answered the call.
"You're telling me," Phoebe's voice crackled through the speaker, "that not only did your ancestors use the Larmes du Bayou against the Lost Legends, but your entire family line has been connected to its protection this whole time?"
"Both sides," I confirmed. Lia had put the phone on speaker so everyone could hear. "The Smiths and the Yearsleys. The journal says they worked together. It mentioned something about the balance between determination and intuition."
"And there's more," Kota added, carefully picking through the broken display case. "These artifacts are powerful magical objects. Some were specifically designed to work with the crystal. We saw them being used in a vision."
"A vision?" Kaitlyn's voice joined the conversation. It was sharp with interest. "What exactly did you see?"
We took turns describing the scene. Each of us added details the others missed. The period clothing, the familiar faces, and the way the artifacts glowed with the same patterns we recognized from the crystal. "The Smith line stood guard while the Yearsley blood carried the key," Dea quoted from the journal. Her face was pale, but her voice was steady. "The spirit that led us here was one of the original guardians."
There was a long pause on the other end of the line. When Phoebe spoke again, her voice was grave. "I owe you all an apology. When I accidentally awakened your powers, I thought it was just dormant magical DNA and I left you all to figure it out with Kaitlyn. I should have looked into it more. I should have known there was more to it. Your family was chosen. Destined to protect the crystal."
"You don’t have to apologize. None of us had any idea," Dre said. She was still tending to a cut on Lia's arm.
"And now someone's trying to steal our destiny," Kota snarled. "The question is, why did this come to us now?"
"Because you're stronger together than any generation before you," Kaitlyn's voice was tight with urgency. "Six sisters, each with a different aspect of power, all awakened at once? It's unprecedented. Your ancestors must have been waiting for this moment."
"The artifacts," Phi suddenly said. She held up an ancient ledger she'd found in one of the drawers. "They're not just amplifiers. They're keys, aren't they? To control the crystal completely?"
"That would be my guess," Phoebe confirmed. "And if the Lost Legends get their hands on even one of them..."
"Too late," Lia interrupted, comparing the ledger to the remaining artifacts. "According to this inventory, there should be seven artifacts in that case. I count six."
The silence that followed was deafening. Finally, Phoebe spoke again. Her voice was harder than before. "Don't touch anything else in that room. Kaitlyn and I are on our way. Whatever was stolen, we need to find it before it can be used." I was just glad she managed to make it to the city. I wondered if Kaveh teleported her.
After hanging up, we spread out through the room, carefully documenting everything we could find. Dre and Kota worked on sketching the layout of the displays while Phi and Lia photographed each remaining artifact. Dea stood in the center of the room with her eyes closed. She was clearly trying to sense any lingering spiritual echoes that might give us clues.
I found myself drawn back to the journal. Its pages now seemed to hold more questions than answers. Our ancestors had faced this fight before. They had won it before. But they'd had generations to prepare, to learn, to understand their powers. We'd had weeks.
"Hey," Lia said softly, coming to stand beside me. "We'll figure this out. We always do."
"Together," Kota added, looking up from what she was doing.
"The Smith determination," Phi quoted with a slight smile.
"And the Yearsley intuition," Dea finished, opening her eyes.
Dre joined us, completing our circle. "Plus whatever chaos the six of us bring to the mix."
The feel of Kaveh’s magic announced Kaitlyn's arrival. As we headed downstairs to meet her, I caught glimpses of my sisters' reflections in the hallway mirrors. Power still flickered in all our eyes. It was a reminder of what we’d just experienced. And of our ancestors' strength and determination. They’d worked hard to get this room to us. I couldn’t wait to explore it when this was over.
The scent of ozone and displaced air mixed with the sweet magnolia drifting through the windows. Outside, the cicadas kept up their steady rhythm, oblivious to the magical physics being bent in our house. Kaitlyn’s eager expression spoke volumes. "Show me," she said without preamble. Her voice was tight with barely contained urgency.
As we led them toward the secret room, I couldn't help but wonder what other surprises our ancestors would spring on us. And more importantly, whether we'd uncover them all before our enemies did. Because one thing was crystal clear. This was just the opening act.
The Lost Legends weren't going to back down without one hell of a fight. But neither were we. This legacy—this destiny—it wasn't just about some magical rock anymore. It was about family. About the power that had always coursed through our veins, dormant but waiting, like a spell waiting to be spoken. And now that it was awake? Well, our ancestors better grab their metaphysical popcorn, because we were about to put on one hell of a show.