Emma meant to change when she got back to her room. She genuinely did. But despite her hours of sleep on the beach, she was exhausted enough that the moment she sat down on the bed, she collapsed.
Hours later, after a fast shower, she threw on clean jeans and a tank top and raced out into the hallway, feeling like a mundane teenager late for class. She flew down the hall to the library to find everyone else already there; in fact, they looked as if they’d been there for a while. Ty was sitting at one end of the longest library table in a pool of afternoon sunshine, a pile of papers in front of him. Mark was by his side; Livvy was balanced on top of the table, barefoot, dancing back and forth with her saber. Diana and Dru were amusing Tavvy with a book.
“Diana said you went to the convergence,” said Livvy, waving her saber as Emma came in. Cristina, who had been standing by a shelf of books, gave her an uncharacteristically cool look.
“Fighting Mantids without me,” Mark said, and smiled. “Hardly fair.”
“There weren’t any Mantids,” said Emma. She hopped up onto the table across from Ty, who was still scribbling, and launched into the story of what she had found in the cave. Halfway through her recitation, Julian came in, his hair as damp as Emma’s. He was wearing a jade-colored T-shirt that turned his eyes dark green. Their eyes met, and Emma forgot what she was saying.
“Emma?” Cristina prompted after a long pause. “You were saying? You found a dress?”
“This doesn’t sound very likely,” said Livvy. “Who keeps a dress in a cave?”
“It might have been a ceremonial outfit,” Emma said. “It was an elaborate robe—and very elaborate jewels.”
“So maybe the necromancer is a woman,” said Cristina. “Maybe it really is Belinda.”
“She didn’t strike me as that powerful,” said Mark.
“You can sense power?” asked Emma. “Is that a faerie thing?”
Mark shook his head, but the half smile he gave felt to Emma like a sliver of Faerie. “Just a feeling.”
“But speaking of faerie things, Mark did give us the key to translate more of the markings,” said Livvy.
“Really?” said Emma. “What do they say?”
Ty looked up from the papers. “He gave us the second line, and after that it was easier. Livvy and I worked out most of the third. From looking at the patterns of the markings, it seems to be about five or six lines, repeated.”
“Is it a spell?” Emma said. “Malcolm said it was probably a summoning spell.”
Ty rubbed at his face, leaving a smear of ink across one cheekbone. “It doesn’t look like a summoning spell. Maybe Malcolm made a mistake. We’ve done a lot better than him on the translation,” he added proudly as Livvy put her saber away and crouched down on the table beside him. She reached out to rub the ink from his cheek with her sleeve.
“Malcolm doesn’t have Mark,” said Julian, and Mark gave Julian a quick, surprised smile of gratitude.
“Or Cristina,” said Mark. “I would never have figured out the connection if Cristina had not realized it was an issue of translation.”
Cristina blushed. “So how does the third line go, Tiberius?”
Ty batted Livvy’s hand away and recited:
First the flame and then the flood,
In the end, it’s Blackthorn blood.
Seek thou to forget what’s past—
“That’s it,” he finished. “That’s what we have so far.”
“Blackthorn blood?” echoed Diana. She had climbed up onto a library ladder to hand a book down to Tavvy.
Emma frowned. “I don’t really love the sound of that.”
“There’s no indication of traditional blood magic,” said Julian. “None of the bodies had those kinds of cuts or wounds.”
“I wonder about the mention of the past,” said Mark. “These kind of rhymes, in Faerie, often encode a spell—like the ballad of ‘Thomas the Rhymer.’ It is both a story and instructions on how to break someone free of Faerie.”
For a moment Diana’s face was arrested midexpression, as if she had either suddenly realized or suddenly remembered something.
“Diana?” Julian said. “Are you okay?”
“Fine.” She climbed down from the ladder and dusted off her clothes. “I need to make a call.”
“Who are you calling?” Julian asked, but Diana only shook her head, her hair brushing her shoulders.
“I’ll be back,” she said, and slipped out the library door.
“But what does it mean?” Emma said to the room at large. “In the end, Blackthorn blood what?”
“And if it’s a faerie rhyme, then shouldn’t they know if there’s more of it?” Dru spoke up from the corner where she was busy distracting Tavvy. “The Fair Folk, I mean. They’re meant to be on our side for this.”
“I have sent a message,” Mark said guardedly. “But I will tell you, I only ever heard those two lines of it.”
“The most significant thing it means is that somehow this situation—the murders, the bodies, the Followers—is tied to this family.” Julian looked around. “Somehow, it’s connected to us. To the Blackthorns.”