Night had fallen by the time they arrived at Black Maddie’s. That’s where Izzy wanted to do whatever it was she had planned. To see if she really had the sight. Could it work? Rory wondered.
The strangeness of the past few days plagued his thoughts. Was the shape in his dream Mara? The possibility filled him with dread. It was a woman’s voice, after all, that had called out the ominous words: I thirst. I hunger. Why had he dreamt it? He pushed the possibility that he, like Izzy, might have magic to the back of his mind.
As they walked in silence, Rory saw that Izzy kept her hand cupped, as if she were carrying an egg. A dog barked on the other side of the street and Rory jumped. His nerves were rattled.
They’d seen a dead body.
They’d even touched it.
If anyone had seen them go inside Swoop’s house, they’d be in big trouble.
Rory opened the door to the inn and they stepped inside. People turned their heads and then went back to their drinks and conversation. They don’t know their shadows are gone, Rory thought. A dim, smoky inn was the last place you’d expect to notice one.
Inside Izzy’s little chamber, at her instruction, Rory lit the candles placed on the table. Soft yellow light pooled around them as they sat opposite each other. The noise and music from the front of the inn drifted back into the room. Rory still couldn’t get the image of Mara out of his mind.
With a relieved breath, Izzy turned her hand over the table, letting the specks of paint fall onto the surface. She then reached into the drawer, pulled out a blank page of parchment, and laid it alongside the little mound of colored flakes.
“Izzy?” Rory asked. “Are you going to tell me what you’re doing?”
She swept a lock of hair behind her ear. “I’ve seen my mum do some things,” she began. “People come to the house now and then looking for answers: names of people they want to take revenge on, stuff like that. I’ve watched her, and she always tells people to bring something that belongs to them, so she can kind of . . . I don’t know. Read it?”
Rory nodded. “Makes sense,” he offered. “I guess?”
“Here goes,” she said, and spit in her hand.
Rory raised an eyebrow. “What—?”
“Shh.”
With her free hand, Izzy swept the paint flecks onto her wet palm and then rubbed both palms together.
“Lovely,” Rory said.
Izzy ignored him. She drew her hands apart, smudged with color. “See?” she said, holding them up.
Rory nodded, intrigued.
Izzy placed one of her palms down on the paper.
She closed her eyes and whispered:
“Daughters of air,
daughters of smoke,
goddess of time and goddess of hope,
sky and fern and wood and water,
show me the sight I need, Mother-Daughter.”
Rory had never heard her sound so serious.
She opened her eyes and lifted her hand.
Rory looked at Izzy’s multicolored handprint on the parchment. They stared at it for what seemed like a very long time.
“What’s supposed to happen?” he asked.
Izzy laid her other hand back over her own handprint. “Mara,” she said. “Show us who she is.”
As she spoke the name, Rory’s heart bounced around in his chest. Like before, he sensed that saying it aloud was breaking some kind of rule. Or asking for trouble. He couldn’t explain it, but it felt . . . wrong.
Izzy lifted her hand again.
And the paper burst into flame.
“Look out!” Rory cried, and pushed back from the table. But as suddenly as the flame appeared, it whooshed out, leaving only a wispy trail of smoke. Izzy and Rory watched in terrified fascination. The smoke hovered unnaturally over the table and around the pile of burned paper. Then it began to swoop and curl, as if guided by an invisible hand.
“It’s writing,” Izzy said calmly. “The goddess heard my call.”
Rory shook his head. “It can’t be,” he whispered.
The smoke curled and turned as fluidly as a quill on paper. Lines of script hovered an inch above the table. “Can you read it?” he asked.
“Not yet,” said Izzy without looking away.
Rory felt as if he were in a dream. His head was heavy on his neck. A last wispy trail of smoke rose and then vanished. Rory heard his heartbeat in his ears.
Izzy and Rory looked at each other. They both tentatively leaned toward the table until they were almost touching heads.
“Mara of the Shadows,” Izzy read the smoky words. “Beware, daughter. She is the Destroyer. Queen of Sorrow.”
Rory licked his lips. His tongue was dry in his throat again. He read on, his voice unsteady. “She comes with the night. Mara of the Shadows . . .”
He drew back.
He didn’t want to say the next words aloud.
So Izzy read them for him: “She thirsts. She hungers.”
The smoke spun into black ribbons and then vanished.