Page 174 of Blue Moon Mistress

Mrs. Miller scrubs at a stain on the floor that looks like it’s as old as the house.

She’s alone and she doesn’t seem to know I’m here.

“Mrs. Miller?” I say her name quietly, no idea how she’ll react to seeing me this time.

But when she looks up, it’s with a contented smile. “Hello dear.”

Something is most definitely wrong.

She dusts off her hands and sits back on her heels. “Are you here for the boys?”

“I’d like to know where they are, yes.”

“Not here. They’ve gone off to play with my girls and the other one…” Her brows pinch. “There was another one, wasn’t there?”

“Where did they go?”

“Why, the woods, dear. Over to Deer Tree Lodge.”

At least the vampire didn’t lie about that.

Mrs. Miller seems to forget I’m there and goes back to scrubbing at the floor. It’s better that she stays here instead of trying to run off after her granddaughters. Better that she doesn’t know what Aphrodite likely has planned for them.

I scan the room, briefly touching on each of the beds. The space is clearly laid out in sections. There might be no physicaldivision, but the women who have been living here have their own “space.”

And Aphrodite’s isn’t difficult to differentiate.

Stepping around Mrs. Miller, I go to it.

There are a stack of spells, many scribbled in a spiral notebook with ten different colors of pen.

Spells to ensnare, spells to control another’s locomotion. There’s even a spell written down to make someone falloutof love. But when I read it, I know it won’t actually work.

Beneath the notebook are pages torn from an older book. Spells someone else wrote, that Aphrodite has bent and molded to her needs.

Spells the coven would expel her for using, if she hadn’t already been kicked out.

The one on top is the one I expect to see. It’s written in French, so I can only assume she stole this from Renée grimoire. The woman refuses to write anything down in English.

Why Renée would have created a spell to control other witches…

I read it once before I pick up the sheaf to look at everything that is beneath it and the whole stack turns to ash.

That is a sloppy tactic, one I hadn’t even expectedherto use. A single white sheet flutters from the remains.

The warning I wrote up for Anthony to include with love potion ingredients…

That might be how she’s controlling the guys.

If so…

I step around Mrs. Miller, no longer worrying about making sound. It feels like it takes twice as long to get back up and across the lawns.

I use the key to their house. If the talismans are still over the door, their protection magic would knock me back into the yard for trying.

But the key turns effortlessly and I step into a house that is cold and unnaturally empty.

It’s a feeling I can’t linger on. One I have to force myself to ignore.

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