“Not yet,” Antonia insisted. She knew who to call, the bravest among them, the bravest of the brave.
Ariel had already contacted Scott and Joel to meet them at Mass General, which thankfully wasn’t very far. An ambulance had pulled up on Beacon Street. Antonia had dreamed she was walking into a lake, and now she was surrounded by a puddle. Her water had broken and the phone was ringing. “Pick up,” Antonia muttered.
“It’s time,” Ariel said, refusing to be put off.
At last the phone was answered, which was a huge relief. There was a baby to be born, after all. “You’ll never believe this,” Antonia told her aunt Franny, even though she was the most practical person among them. “I know how to end the curse.”
* * *
Now that the red rain had passed, stopped, as it had begun, by The Book of the Raven, the inn had fallen so quiet the mice felt free to wander the pantries and the hallways. Kylie was upstairs in a small bed in the smallest room. They had tried every cure in the Grimoire to break Kylie’s fever and bring her back, and none of it had worked. Margaret was sitting with her now, with a steam vaporizer filled with rosemary and lemon water to help her breathe.
“Go have a rest,” Margaret suggested to Sally, who had not left the room. It was long past midnight. “It will do no good to make yourself ill.”
Sally nodded. “For an hour or so.”
Ian was stretched out in the hallway, asleep on the wool carpet. She had saved him twice, there really was no fighting it, he belonged to her now. Sally leaned down and told him he needed a proper bed, rather than the floor. Ian thought he was dreaming, but as it turned out, he was not. He remembered that he must not speak, so for once in his life Ian said nothing, knowing, as he followed her down to her room, only a fool would question what was meant to be.
* * *
Down in the bar, Jesse had recovered. Craving a bath and a good night’s sleep, she was locking up for the night, leaving Vincent the keys to the liquor cabinet.
“Have whatever you like,” she’d told him. Vincent took a good bottle of scotch whiskey up to Franny’s room, where she was studying The Book of the Raven.
They were both in rotten moods, all the same they toasted and drank down the whiskey in gulps. “I hate to bring it up,” Vincent murmured as he poured them a second drink, “but our girl Sally has lost her magic.”
Vincent had briefly lost his magic, years ago, but that hadn’t been a permanent situation. Franny had known the moment she glimpsed Sally with her hair shorn down to her scalp and her eyes turned pale blue. What had happened to Faith Owens when she used the book had now happened to Sally. Sally had her wish come true. She was finally like everyone else, without the Owens-inherited protections. “If she’s not careful, she’ll fall in love,” Franny said.
“You know she will. You sent her to his house.”
“Still in light of all this chaos around us it’s highly unusual, wouldn’t you say?”
“It happens all the time,” Vincent assured her.
“Not to people like us.”
“More than anyone, to people like us. Just look at us, Franny, we lived for love.”
“Well, no one said we were very smart.”
Vincent laughed. “No one did.”
“Would you have changed things?” Franny asked.
“Never. I had what I wanted. Once upon a time.”
“You still have time, Vincent.” He would always be young to Franny, her little brother, always trouble, always loved.
“Live a little?” It was an old joke between them.
“Darling boy.” Franny put her hand to his heart. He most certainly wasn’t done yet. “Live a lot.”