Page 125 of The Seven Miracles of Beatrix Holland
Yes. Thisshouldwork.
Beatrice took out a blue ballpoint pen. She held the tip against the cloth, next to the embroidered sigil her sister had made.
She watched the flames wobble for a count of three, and then she closed her eyes. Evie said the simplest spells were the strongest. The fewer words spoken, the fewer she could screw up.
“One, two, three, show Minna to me.”
Then she opened her eyes and drew her own sigil on the handkerchief. AnM, tall and sharp and sweet, just like her niece. She drew a circle around it for the sun, then she drew wavy lines to symbolize the sun rising in an unmissable ball of brightness. To make it really clear what she needed—this had to reveal Minna’s whereabouts—she drew below the sun a line of water, connecting that line to a jagged rock. The sun, rising above this island, to show where Minna was.
Carefully, she connected the last line to the embroidered sigil, so that both she and her sister’s energy were connected.
It would take energy to activate. Serious energy. No more fucking around.
Without hesitation, she picked up the knife and cut the tip of her first finger deep enough that blood rose in a sudden bloom.
“One, two, three,show Minna to me.”
She squeezed a drop of blood onto the white of the hanky, and the reaction was almost instantaneous: the blue inked lines of her design began to glow a bright red, as if she’d drawn the whole thing in blood, as if the sun itself were glowing behind it instead of just the candlelight.
The lines of her sister’s embroidery glowed red, too.
Beatrice’s heart hammered painfully in her chest—she’d known it would work, but that didn’t quell the fear.
She kept her eyes on the handkerchief. Any minute, Minna’s location would be revealed, and Beatrice would be the one to find her. She would save her.
The boat jolted violently, as if an enormous wave had hit it. She jumped, but kept her gaze on the glowing fabric. She waited.
Then the door crashed open.
Through it came water and all Beatrice could think was that the houseboat was suddenly sinking, but not in the slow way of a leak. It was as if it werealreadyunderwater. Had the house been hit by a cruise liner? What could possibly—
Waves smashed through the windows then, and before she could even stand up from the table, the entire cabin of the galley was not just taking on water, but wasfull. The seawater was dark and green, and her lungs strained, holding the deep breath she’d taken just as the freezing flood hit her body.
Another surge of water hurled her against the wall. She managed to catch one quick breath before another wave slapped her sideways.
Her brain flew into overdrive. The computer didn’t matter—the spreadsheet was in the cloud. None of her paper notes were consequential enough to die for, and the library books were just books. But the hanky that had been ripped from her fingers—she needed that. And the grimoire. She had to get the grimoire.
She could just see it, six feet below her, giving off its own reddish glow. Her lungs burning, she kicked her way down into the frigid water, but the closer she got to the book, the smaller it became, as if the galley of her boat were getting bigger and wider as she got smaller and weaker.
From the corner of her eye came a brighter glow. When sheturned her head, she saw the handkerchief floating just a few inches from her face. She made a grab for it, her motion sluggish in the water.
Her hands went right through it. It wavered as if it were water, too.
An illusion.
Somehow, she’d conjured an illusion. Whatever like-to-like she’d meant to call, she’d done it wrong and gotten this instead.
Help.
But there was no one to call, no one to protect her. And the water in this illusion was very real, very cold, and very drowningly wet. She surfaced an inch from the ceiling and sucked in a breath that was half seawater.
As she choked on the brine, the only sigil of protection that she could drag to her mind was the one her sister had embroidered—but how could she draw it now? How could she charge it? How was she supposed to know what to do in this kind of emergency?
You were born knowing how to do it.
She’d rejected the idea when Evie had said it.
But what if she wasn’t wrong?
