Page 35 of Spirit Storm

Freya leans to the side and pulls a folder from her backpack. She sets it on the table, flips open the front cover, and starts setting out glossy photos of the ritual site I saw in my dream. “The broken lockstones are part of a warding array that was put in place centuries ago by nine spirit witches."

"The Nine," Henrik says.

"They weren't merely powerful witches," Freya adds. "They were the strongest spirit practitioners of their time. I’ve spent most of my life studying them and what they accomplished.”

“Because you’re a descendant,” I guessed.

“I am, and I was raised hearing the stories. It was one of the reasons the Order recruited me. I possessed a body of knowledge that they couldn’t get anywhere else. I’ve spent decades of my career working out what is family mythology and what can be considered historical record.”

“Perfect, then let’s pretend that I know nothing about being a Descendant of the Nine, and you can fill in the blanks.”

Freya folds her hands together in front of herself and smiles. “Approximately nine-hundred years ago, nine spirit witches bound an ancient being into an ethereal prison. They created a powerful array of lockstones which they hid within the caverns and caves of the time, and bound the creature. As long as the stones hold, the containment stands.”

“What kind of creature?” Wylder asks.

“That, I genuinely don’t know.” Freya’s expression doesn’t change, but something behind it tightens. “There are many details that didn’t survive the test of time. The stories describe it in terms of scale, power, and what it did, but not what it was.”

Helpful, but also not.

“Do you know how many lockstones there are?” Orion asks.

“Not definitively, no. I believe there could be nine and that each witch within the ritual imbued part of the array.”

“But you’re not sure,” Asher says.

“No.”

Asher pegs me with a look, and I can read his thoughts as clearly as if we shared telepathy. “So decades of her life and she really knows nothing.”

Thankfully, Freya can’t read Asher’s expressions.

“There is also mention of a key,” she continues. “I’ve never been able to figure out if that involved a physical key, or a key event, or potion, or spell, or if it could be entirely metaphorical. But all records I’ve found agree that the lockstones weren’t enough. Only when they found the ‘key’ were they able to successfully establish the containment array.”

Oh, goody. More we don’t know.

Wylder laces his fingers with mine under the table. "You said Poppy is a Descendant of the Nine. How can you be so sure? You walked in and took one look at her.”

“It’s the eyes.” Henrik taps a finger against his own cheek. “The Nine each bound a fragment of their own spirit into the array, and that left its mark."

I stared at the two of them and let that sink in. “Okay, so we're descendants of what came before. What does that mean now that Tharuzel is breaking the lockstones?"

Freya meets my gaze and smiles. “It means we’re the only people who can restore the lockstones and keep whatever is locked away contained.”

“Oh, good. No pressure then. And here I was worried it was going to be something bad.”

CHAPTER NINE

The Irish morning is gray and damp, a fine mist hanging low over the hills as we make our way from the Order minivan and cross a field toward the site of the first broken lockstone.

Freya walks ahead of us at a pace that suggests she's more of a field historian than a keeper of tomes back at Order headquarters.

With her coat pulled closed and her canvas backpack slung over one shoulder, she doesn't look anything like a librarian.

She looks more like Indiana Jones heading into an ancient underground cave system.

We tromp across the uneven ground from where she parked the van, and I scan the frost-covered landscape, searching for our destination.

If it wasn’t for the man standing guard, I wouldn’t have seen it. The entrance is barely visible until we're almost on top of it—a heavy stone arch built into the hillside, half-swallowed by moss and long grass.