Back in a Spell (The Witches of Thistle Grove, #3)(66)
Slipping behind the cluttered counter, Delilah set down her teetering stack and slid it carefully to one side, next to a banker’s lamp, presumably for later sorting. Then she simply held out an expectant hand to me, palm up.
I hesitated, suddenly beset by a bizarre impulse to keep the coin on my person, protected. As if I hadn’t spent hours last week with Gareth trying to smash/freeze/burn the thing into smithereens.
Apparently, when I wasn’t looking, my feelings about it had changed.
“Can’t do a whole lot of professional examining,” Delilah said, her tone dripping with sarcasm, “unless you let me see the artifact.”
I cleared my throat, feeling my cheeks flush. “Right. Of course.”
With an effort, I reached out and dropped the coin into her waiting hand, feeling an absurd little pang of loss. She’s not going to steal it from you, weirdo, I chided myself. She couldn’t even if she tried. Get a grip.
“A profile within an octagram,” Delilah murmured to herself, tilting her palm this way and that, her little nose furrowing with concentration as she peered closely at the coin. “And too warm by half for this alloy. Unusual. Where, exactly, did you find this?”
Gareth and I exchanged furtive glances. We’d concocted a passable story between us, since even I wasn’t ready to fully defy my mother and grandmother by letting Delilah know how I’d come to be in possession of the coin.
“By Lady’s Lake,” I said smoothly. “I go up there sometimes, to think. Meditate. It was right by the lakeside, sitting on top of one of the snowdrifts. I saw it catch the light, went over, picked it up.”
“And how do you know for certain that it’s a magical artifact?” she said, flicking a keen little dart of a glance up at me, serrated with suspicion. “And not something that fell out of, say, a coin collector’s pocket?”
Whatever else she was, Delilah Harlow wasn’t anybody’s fool. Now came the tricky part, even sooner than I’d anticipated.
“Well, besides the warmth and the fact that I found it by the lake, it won’t be parted from me; if I try to leave it behind, throw it away, it just reappears on my person. And I’ve been having strange dreams ever since I found it,” I added, licking my lips, trying to hew as close to the truth as I could without giving myself completely away, like Gareth and I had agreed. “Very realistic ones, about a statue of a goddess. That’s what I think she is, anyway. And she’s underwater, in my, uh, my dreams. Surrounded by something like shooting stars, which turn into coins. Coins exactly like this one.”
Delilah’s eyes lit fully at that, a bright, intrigued gleam all the more gorgeous for how unexpected it was. This was clearly the sort of fresh discovery she thrived on, and I didn’t imagine she had much opportunity to indulge it here, surrounded by these old, static books.
“That sounds beautiful,” she said, unable to dampen her enthusiasm. “A goddess of light, then, most likely. And a patron of bodies of water, too, if you get the sense that’s where she is in your dreams. But, that all holds only if this little buddy really is a deity’s favor.”
“What does that mean?” I asked softly, even as my chest heated with a warm bloom of certainty—because I knew, I felt, that this was right. That Delilah was onto something. “A deity’s favor?”
“The symbol of some kind of granted blessing,” she explained. “Like a token of divine favor, bestowed upon a supplicant judged particularly worthy.”
I abruptly remembered what I’d heard in my mind, when I’d been summoned down to the lake, as the star coins were falling all around us, right before the statue had kissed me.
COME, NINA—like a thunder quaking against my mind—COME FOR THE REQUESTED BLESSING.
Whatever the goddess had given me—the surging surplus of power, the new, fiery brashness that lit inside me like a brazier whenever I experienced strong emotion, maybe even the witch bond with Morty—she’d thought I wanted it. Had been asking her for it, even, as a supplicant.
But why?
“So you either found a deity’s favor intended for someone else,” Delilah continued, ticking the possibilities off on her fingers, “or it was yours to begin with. Meant for you. That seems the much likelier supposition, considering that it’s attached to your person and that it’s gifting you dreams. Have you noticed any other effects?”
“Such as?” I asked, stalling.
Delilah cut me an irritated look. “Such as any noteworthy changes in yourself or your life since you found the coin. If you were the supplicant, then presumably this favor was meant to give you something, something you were previously lacking. The way favors and/or blessings are generally known to work.”
“I haven’t noticed much of a change,” I said, lying through my teeth, my belly churning with discomfort. I really did despise lying, any sort of deception, and I’d been forced into far too much of it recently. “I will say, I’ve been . . . more emotional, maybe, since I found it. Does that count?”
“That could be part of it,” she said with a slow nod, tapping a finger to her chin. I could see that murky drift of suspicion in her eyes again; Delilah was sharp to begin with, and part of her work at Tomes was likely assessing collectors’ intentions and financial capabilities, bargaining with them during rare book sales and acquisitions.