Witches covered the grass beside the remains of Brighton Manor, spreading out into the garden and the area behind the house.

“Where are they?” one witch shouted. “They should be here.”

A tall witch dressed in jeans and a black turtleneck stepped through the portal. In her hand, she carried a ritual dagger, and around her neck, she wore a pendant that looked almost identical to Harper’s mother’s necklace. Identical except that the stone embedded into the silver was an amethyst, not a sapphire.

A Prima.

They had sent a Prima here to capture us, and if I had to guess, I would say most of the witches spread across the grounds of Brighton Manor now were part of her coven.

“Spread out,” she shouted. “They have to be here somewhere. Someone activated these items. Find them.”

The witches scattered, walking through the rubble, checking the shed, and running into the house. Several witches ran into the woods and others searched the tangled mess of the old garden.

The Prima gathered a ball of amethyst energy into her hands and closed her eyes. When the light had grown quite large, she tapped it in the center, and the energy spread out in concentric circles across the area.

She waited, watching everything, a confident expression on her face. But when the light had dissipated, she frowned and set her lips into a thin, tight line.

She recreated the spell, making the light twice as big this time. She threw the light into the air and tapped it again, sending more concentric circles across the area. This time, the light passed straight through me. I felt a distant chill, but I was disconnected from it, as if it were happening to someone else.

The witch frowned again and turned in a circle, staring back at the burned house.

“Check the basement,” she said. “Most Prima houses have basements. See if there’s one here where they’re hiding. Where’s the ritual room in this town? Find it and report back to me. Is this an active coven town? If it is, I want the Prima brought to me immediately. She might be working with the demons.”

A small group of witches bowed to the Prima and began searching through the rubble for any stairs leading down to a basement. They wouldn’t find anything in this home. Peachville’s home had never had a basement. Only a third floor, like all Prima homes. And that was now gone.

Another group bowed and ran into the woods in search of the coven’s ritual room. If they did manage to find it, they would find nothing more there than another pile of rubble with a broken sapphire stone.

Rend and I watched from our perch on top of the house as the witches searched everywhere. Various locating spells went off, but Rend had done his job well. None of their magic could find us.

The Prima grew more and more frustrated as witches returned to her with bad news. She shouted at the top of her lungs for someone to bring her better news.

But instead of moving, everyone standing in front of her turned their eyes to the portal and quickly fell to one knee.

“What are you doing?” the Prima shouted. “I said to keep looking. Get up.”

“They are simply kneeling out of respect, Alina,” a voice said from the portal’s entrance. I couldn’t quite see the woman from my spot on the roof, but I could feel the fear that rippled through the area.

“Priestess, forgive me,” the Prima—Alina—said. She turned and knelt with her head bowed. “I didn’t know you would be here today.”

“I didn’t want to miss the torture of the demons and witches responsible for the deaths of two of my sisters,” the woman said.

She stepped out of the light of the portal, and a chill went through me.

The woman was dressed in black leather from head to toe. Her long black hair was pulled back into a long ponytail that fell down to her waist Around her neck, a collar made of pure amethysts sparkled in the sunlight. An amethyst panther pendant hung from the collar.

The amethyst priestess.

In all our research, we’d never been able to find out much about the priestess standing in front of me. Now, we knew her spirit animal, and we knew what she looked like. But that collar gave me chills. It was almost exactly like the one Joost had found at the abandoned house. All except for the panther pendant.

“Where are the traitors?” she asked, glancing around. “Bring them to me.”

Alina kept her head bowed, and as she spoke, her voice trembled. “We haven’t been able to locate them, Priestess,” she said. “When we came through the portal, they were already gone.”

The priestess seemed to take in her surroundings for the first time, and a fiery look flashed in her eyes.

“Where are we?” she asked. “This isn’t an emerald portal.”

She bent over and took the fake master stone in her hands. She crushed it in her fist, and tiny emerald particles fell to the ground as dust at her feet.

“Someone triggered these items,” she said. “They can’t be far, and I want them found.”

“We’ve looked everywhere, Priestess,” a witch near the back said, lifting her head. “They aren’t here.”

The priestess lifted a finger toward the woman, and she went very still for a moment before falling to the ground. I hadn’t seen any magic pass from the priestess to the woman, but she was motionless on the ground. Had the priestess killed her with a single look?

A gasp went through the group of witches, and the amethyst priestess raised a hand to smooth her already-perfect hair.

“Does anyone else care to speak against me?” she asked, her eyes surveying the group. “I didn’t think so. Now, get up and find them.”

For a moment, no one moved, but then, all at once, the witches stood and started going back over the rubble, the garden, and the buildings.

“What happened here?” the priestess asked as Alina stood. “Why are we at this place?”

“I don’t know,” Alina said. “The portal opened as soon as the items were triggered, and we came through immediately, ready to take the demons and witches prisoner and bring them back to your dungeons. But when we came through, there was no sign of them.”

The priestess looked around, studying the burned house. She bent down and took a handful of ash from the pile. She brought it to her nose and breathed in, her eyes closed.

When she dropped the ash, she stood and drew her hand into a tight fist.

“We’re in Peachville,” she said. “This house was burned by emerald fire, one of my sister Hazel’s favorite destruction spells. They brought us here to prove a point.”

“What point?” Alina asked. “I don’t understand.”

The priestess’s eyes scanned the entire area. “That they think they’re more powerful than we are,” she said. “That they knew about the trap my sister set for them. They knew we were coming before they triggered the spell that opened the portal.”

“But why would they do that?” she asked. “Why would they trigger the items and just leave? Why wouldn’t they stay and fight?”

“Because, you fool, they think we’re going to give them some kind of clue,” she said. She raised her voice, and I knew it was fully for my benefit. The priestess wasn’t dumb. She knew we were listening, even if she couldn’t see us. “I know you’re watching, so listen very closely. You may have managed to save yourself this time, but your precious Harper is on her own. At first, I was content just leaving her in the past. The portal that my sister created has closed. Your Harper has no way home.”

I listened, unsure whether I should believe a word this priestess was saying. How could she be sure the portal was closed? She could be lying. Harper could still have a way home.

I refused to believe it was too late.

“Since you’ve found it necessary to try to make me look like a fool, however, I am going to show you what it means to mess with me,” she said. “I am going to be the one to finally teach you what it feels like to lose someone you love with all your heart. You have taken two of my sisters. Now, I’m going to take Harper from you.”

I couldn’t move or feel my body in the normal way, but in some distant, disconnected way, I felt my muscles tense. I wished we hadn’t taken these potions. I wished we could fly down there and fight.

The priestess turned on her heel and walked over to one of the witches standing near the garden.

“It’s time,” she said. “Summon the fairy.”

The woman—a younger woman with nearly white-blonde hair and bright blue eyes—shook her head. “I can’t do that,” she said. “She’ll be furious with me if I summon her like this.”

The priestess slapped the woman across the face, leaving a bright red mark that the woman ran her hand across as tears spilled across her cheeks.

“Don’t make me ask you again,” the priestess said. “I can make you hurt a lot more than this, and you know it.”

The woman fell to her knees, trembling.

She pulled something from her pocket and held it tightly in her palm. “I’m begging you, Priestess Black. Please at least tell her you commanded me to do this,” she said.

The priestess pointed a finger at the woman, and for a moment, I held my breath, waiting for the woman to fall to the ground like the other woman had done. But the girl simply closed her eyes and lifted the gemstone she held in her hand up into the air.

“Sabine. Sister. I call to you,” she said. She turned her palm downward and pressed the gemstone into the ground. “I summon you to this place.”

The stone erupted in a bright, white light, and both the priestess and the woman stepped away from the light.

The woman who had held the gemstone ran into the ruined garden, hiding her face behind a dead dogwood tree. As she ran, I could swear I caught sight of a pair of iridescent wings twitching across her back, but when she stepped behind the tree and out of the sunlight, the wings seemed to disappear.

Movement caught my eye at the edge of the bright light, and I turned my focus to the small woman stepping out of the new portal.