Vessel of Power
Criss-crossing my chest, I clasp his hands with mine, my fingers curling tightly as though clinging to a ledge. “I prayed,” I choke out. “I have prayed for the gift. He didn’t answer.”
Spencer leans in. “Not in prayer.”
I search his face, desperate for something to hold onto. A shred of certainty, a flicker of hope. All I see is the grim resolve etched into his brow. Maybe, somewhere buried beneath, there’s a chance.
“That priestess, the one who never finished her journal,” Spencer says. “She wrote that she’d found this handwritten book from 1962 that claimed you could petition the God and receive His blessing—if you approached Him with a pure heart. Maeve, not to sound judgmental, but her heart? Not exactly pure.”
I swallow. “And you think mine is more acceptable?”
“Your heart,” he says, almost reverently, “is the purest I’ve ever known. You don’t hunger for power the way others do. Your reasons? They’re selfless. They’re about Veronica.” His voice drops lower, a note of anguish creeping in. “But I don’t know if there’s anyone who can or will help you.”
What if—?
I blink up at him. “Who’s the Last Priest right now?”
“Jakin Crutchfield.” He rolls his eyes.
“You don’t sound enamored.” Actually, he sounds disgusted.
The corner of Spencer’s mouth twitches—it’s not quite a smile. “That would be putting it lightly. He was Aoife’s lover when they were teens.” Disdain drips from every syllable. “She initiated him without her mother’s consent, probably to keep him tied to her. He stuck around for a while as the Last Priest, but. . .let’s just say, when he betrayed her, she unleashed hell on him. After that, she filled the priesthood with as many candidates as she could. She made sure he’d never work his way back up the hierarchy.”
“So where do I find this Jakin Crutchfield character?”
“You don’t want to,” Spencer cuts me off sharply. “Trust me. Everything about Jakin is transactional. He’ll rat you out to Aoife or Siobhan in a heartbeat.”
“Okay. Okay, then. It doesn’t have to be a Last Priest in the present. How about one of the priests after him? One I could trust.”
Spencer sucks air through his teeth. “When Siobhan took the reins from her mother, she left her mark on the priesthood with a load of new rules. All to her advantage. Aoife did the same but worse. They set it up so no one could initiate a priest, and therefore a new Last Priest, except the Ranking High Priestess. That’s why our numbers are dwindling now. Priestesses were a dime a dozen by the pole shift, but none could displace Moira’s line. And very few priests were initiated under Aoife because she wanted her lover to be the final Last Priest, and he would have been if he hadn’t cheated on her.”
He squints at the distant sky and mutters something unintelligible but profane.
“Of course,” he continues, “Aoife broke her mother’s rules. Jakin Crutchfield was an awful choice for the priesthood and worse for the Last Priest. As she eventually figured out. He wanted power but without sacrifice, and that’s the entire role of the Last Priest. The point I was trying to make was, any Last Priest you visit since 1980, in any time you portal into, will have been chosen by either Siobhan or Aoife, so their loyalties will be with the woman who initiated them. Not you, not me, and not Veronica. Jakin Crutchfield is the least safe option, but none of them are totally safe.”
There has to be a way, I think. Someone who’d be an ally. Someone willing to help me petition.
I let his warning hang in the air for a beat as I weigh my next question carefully. “Then. . .who’s the Last Priest when Siobhan and Aoife are out of the picture? When Veronica’s in charge?”
Spencer’s gaze grows distant again, as though pulling scraps of memory from behind a fog. Finally, he studies my face and nods. “Raven Darbyshire. His parents ran a Daeganean library in Ireland before Siobhan had them murdered. I only met Raven once, just before the pole shift.”
“And?”
Spencer hesitates. “He didn’t like Aoife and made no attempt to hide it, but loyalties run deep in the order. I can’t say he was disloyal. Conflicted by his duty, yes, but I can’t say whether he’d stand with you or against you.”
I need certainty.
“Would he betray me if I portaled to him in the future?”
Spencer scratches at the faint stubble on his jaw. “I don’t know. I was an old man then. My memories from those years aren’t strong because my mind wasn’t what it used to be.”
“But you do remember him.”
“Even so, Maeve, it’s too close to the pole shift. If you stay a moment too long, I won’t be able to bring you back.”
“But you don’t remember anything going wrong?”
“I don’t remember anything going right. You worried the living daylights out of me for months and then suddenly dropped the subject.”
His words scrape against some raw, unspoken fear inside me. Still, for as much as he’d like, I know I can’t let this go. I just can’t. Veronica’s safety depends on me possessing the gift. I’m sure of it. I can’t raise her blind to the dangers ahead, not when I’ve fought so hard to protect her this far.
I wrap my arms around myself, my thoughts circling the same desperate idea over and over. What if the reason Spencer and Veronica don’t remember me ever leaving is because I succeeded? What if it’s because the gift saved her? How else can any mother keep her child safe?
Spencer hasn’t stopped watching me. Some part of him must know where my thoughts are headed. Shaking his head, he mutters something under his breath—a frustrated curse that feels more like a prayer.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have raised my voice at you,” he finally says. “If you have to gamble, Raven is your best bet. But before you do anything reckless, let me think on it some more. There’s a 1996 manuscript I need to retrieve by noon today, one that might—”
“You don’t need to evade the question,” I interrupt. “You’ve read the 1996 manuscript already, haven’t you? In the future, I mean. Or the past. Or whatever. You remember bringing it back.”
He meets my eyes, a faint smile curving his lips. “Of course. I have the gift of knowing, Maeve.”
“And does the manuscript help me?”
“No. It’s, um, just an astrological text.”
“Then why are we even having this conversation?” I throw my hands up. “You already know how this plays out. You already know whether going to Raven—or anyone—works out for me!”
His smile fades. “No. I don’t. To the best of my recollection, we never had this particular conversation.” He pauses, seeming to measure his next words. “The reason I’m so evasive, Maeve, is because I don’t remember us ever speaking of this after I picked up The Bellatrix Grimoire.”
⁂
Later, after Spencer is gone, I rest alone in the hollow stillness of the courtyard. The last candle has burned out, and the first sunrays peer through the wisteria canopy. I rise slowly, like the old woman Spencer has said I’ll live to be.
Inside, Veronica still sleeps, her tiny chest rising and falling with the rhythm of peace I’ve never fully known.
My thoughts wander as I watch her from her doorway. I remember the way she clung to me on the playground that day—the faint tremble in her tiny fingers, the sheer terror in her eyes as Lady Moira and the High Council closed in. Back then, I was lucky. We escaped. With Spencer’s help.
But luck only lasts so long.
I run my hands over the time-traveling necklace I never take off—in case I need a quick escape with Veronica again. I don’t understand how it works, just that it does. The pearls pulse against my touch, like a heartbeat.
No. Like my heartbeat. My energy.
There’s only one Last Priest I can trust.
I lift the necklace to my lips, then high and wide over my head as I murmur the old words of power. Energy begins to coil. Sparks of light form a sphere around me.
Even as the universe shifts and the world disappears beneath my feet, I do not look back.
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