Finally, I force myself to say something. “How are you holding up? I heard about what happened.”
“I hate it, Hannah. All of it.” Her voice catches, and she stares at the ceiling like she’s trying not to cry. And Zoë never cries. “Everyone’s miserable. The Council doesn’t want us to tell anyone what happened, something about not causing mass panic. But keeping us isolated isn’t helping, either. All the families are bickering. Your gran actually yelled at our high priestess at the coven meeting last night.”
“You’re kidding.” The thought of my sweet Grandma Rose raising her voice doesn’t compute. I can’t even imagine her getting angry or upset. Unlike my other grandmother, Lady Ariana, who seems to run on a steady diet of familial disappointment and disapproval. Another wave of guilt washes through me. I should call Grandma Rose. I should have called her this weekend.
“I would never kid about Miss Rose yelling.” Zo wipes at her cheeks and clears her throat. “All right, let’s hear it, Hannah. I know you didn’t call me, today of all days, just to ask how I’m doing. What are you really after?”
Heat creeps into my cheeks, and I hate that she’s right. I hate that I have an agenda, when a good friend would simply call to tell her that she’s not alone. “I know the Council is looking into what happened to the coven,” I say, lowering my voice even though no one else is home. “But the last time I let them handle things on their own, it didn’t go well for us.”
“So, you want to play detective.” She blows out a breath. “What do you want to know?”
“Everything.”
We spend nearly an hour going over the details of Zoë’s schedule last week. There wasn’t a single moment when every member of the coven was in the same place until last night’s meeting, after they’d already lost their magic. Her routine didn’t change at all, except for returning to school. There were no new students in her classes. Absolutely nothing out of the ordinary.
Yet her entire coven was powerless by Saturday afternoon.
“And you can’t feel anything?” I ask. When Benton first drugged me, I could feel the presence of the elements, but I couldn’t access them.
Zoë shakes her head. “Everything is just . . . empty.” She doesn’t have to say what that emptiness is doing to her. The pain of it is written all over her face, a grief no amount of makeup can mask.
“I’ll find a way to fix this, Zo. I promise.”
A wry smile turns the corner of her lips. “Not if I fix it first. You’re not the only one with skin in this game, Han.”
We promise to text each other with any leads, and no sooner have I ended the call does Archer ring the doorbell. When I answer the door, he’s dressed so casually I almost don’t recognize him. He’s actually wearing jeans, and there isn’t a tie in sight.
I must stare at him more than I mean to, because he cocks an eyebrow at me, the expression completely bizarre on his usually stoic face. “I do have a life outside work, Hannah. Don’t look so shocked.”
“Shocked? Who’s shocked?” I wave him inside and shut the door. “Do you need anything to drink? I’m sure Mom has coffee in there somewhere, and there’s water in the fridge.”
Archer walks the short hallway to the dining room and shakes his head. “This won’t take long.” He lifts a thin folder into my line of sight. “Shall we?”
“Right. Of course.” I hurry after him and take my usual place at the table. “Has Elder Keating finished the protection spell for the town?”
“Almost. It’ll be in place by tomorrow night. Anyone who tries to come into Salem to hurt your coven won’t be able to step past the town line.” There’s this sense of . . . awe in Archer’s voice as he speaks about his Elder, something that I’ve never heard from him before. “I’m amazed that it’s even possible. Something of that scope, I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”
“Really?” I know so little about how Caster Magic works; the boundaries of what’s possible are completely foreign to me.
“She’s the Elder for a reason.” Archer’s phone buzzes in his pocket. He checks the screen but doesn’t unlock it, setting it down on the table. “As we discussed on Saturday, the first of your two recruits is Alice Ansley. Alice rose to fame quickly over the last couple of months as an illusionist. She has a dedicated online fanbase for her impromptu street performances, which has led to a sponsored nationwide tour.”
“She’s the Blood Witch, right?” I’m surprised the Council lets her use magic in public like this.
“That’s right.” Archer ignores his phone when it buzzes again. Instead, he pulls an event flier from the folder and passes it to me. Alice is dressed all in black with an old-school magician’s hat tipped forward to cover her face. The only color on the poster comes from the pink hair that cascades past her shoulders. “She doesn’t use any real magic in her act, which meant we had no leverage when she refused to help with our plan.”
“When did you ask her?”
“A couple weeks before the raid. We like to have several plans in motion so we’re not scrambling when something falls through.”
Makes sense. Though I don’t want to know how far down the list of plans I am. “And our new plan is what, exactly?”
“One step at a time. For now, your sole focus should be on recruiting Alice.” He points to the bottom of the flier and reaches for a second photo, this one of a large building. “She’s performing at a hotel in Brooklyn this Saturday. The roof has an entertainment area, which is where we’ll observe her show. Cal will hack into the hotel’s computer system to get us Alice’s room number so you can convince her to return with us to Salem.”
A cold chill travels up my arms, and I press down the panic rising up my throat. The last time I ran into a Blood Witch in New York City, things didn’t go well for either of us. I’m not entirely sure how I’m supposed to convince Alice to give up a national tour to help the Council. Especially since she’s already refused once.
“If I’m going to recruit her, I need to know what I’m asking her to do.” I glance up cautiously at Archer. “How is she supposed to help us get inside Hall Pharmaceuticals?”
Archer pulls another photo from his folder. This one is a selfie of a young white woman, probably in her early twenties. Her tan skin sports freckles across her nose and cheeks, and her long brown hair is loose around her shoulders. She has a kind smile and a pink scarf looped around her neck.
“This is Eisha Marchelle. She’s a biochem senior and, more importantly for our purposes, an intern at Hall Pharmaceuticals.”