“Then what were you doing?”
“It’s a rite of passage and it didn’t work. It’s called The Seeing. It allows us to get in touch with our lost family members. I wanted to see my mom again,” Jade admitted. “But it didn’t work and now I think I might have… What if what I did caused Relda’s death?”
I had to hope she hadn’t. “I need to understand how this ritual works.”
She went silent.
I sighed because I could bet why. “Does it involve belladonna?”
“The ritual uses belladonna to put the witch in a trancelike state where she can reach out into the ether to try to find her ancestors.” The words came rapid fire out of Jade’s mouth, as though she needed to say them quickly or she might not say them at all. “I was trying to find my mom. I just wanted to see her, to talk to her. I wanted to know if she’s still out there somewhere. I didn’t mean to hurt anyone. I don’t see how it could have hurt anyone since it didn’t work.”
“Explain the ritual to me.”
She looked so tired, and I would bet she hadn’t had a moment’s sleep. “I made the witch’s ointment.”
“You’re the one who stole the belladonna.” I needed to get that on the record.
“I didn’t steal it. I only used it. I was going to replace it before Relda found out, but then Alvis was killed,” she explained. “I know I should have told you the truth, but I thought it would make me look guilty.”
“It totally makes you look guilty,” Fen said from his spot on the couch.
Jade’s tears amped up again. “I didn’t kill Relda. I swear. I was coming home from the ritual—which again did not work. I didn’t see anything close to my mom. I saw…terrible things. It wasn’t anything like I thought it would be.”
“That’s what happens with psychedelics,” Fen added helpfully. “You never know if you’re going to get a fun trip to happy town or if a horror movie’s going to play out in your head.” He stopped, his head turning and eyes wide. “Not that I would know. That’s what Lee tells me, Mom.”
Sure he did. I ignored my son. “How long were you in the meditation room? Did you wander out?”
She shook her head. “No. I had a spell in place to keep me inside until I was coherent enough to leave.”
“Do you have any idea how dangerous that was?” I understood she’d taken some precautions, but it wasn’t enough. She should never have tried spell casting at that level without someone to help her.
“You should have asked me to watch you,” Evan told her with a frown. “Look, I don’t think you should have tried it in the first place, but if you have to, you need someone to watch over you. I wouldn’t have told anyone.”
I wanted to be the strict mom here, but Evan was right. “What you should have done was talked to the primal council and explained why you wanted to do the ritual. They’re reasonable. If you absolutely couldn’t force yourself to come clean to them, then yes, you should have found a dumbass loyal friend who wouldn’t let you be in it alone. Anything could have happened to you. You opened yourself up to magical forces. Some witches use rituals like that to access portals.”
“We have wards against those.” She sat back. “Of course we do. I’m so dumb. That’s why it didn’t work. Essentially I was trying to open a window into the ether, and it can’t work down here because we have too many wards. I would have to go to the surface. I’m so stupid. If I hadn’t been doing that ritual, I would have been there for Relda.”
“What do you remember about finding her? Do you remember what time it was?”
She clasped her hands in front of her. “It was late. I had to come down, and that took a while. Two hours at least. I think the party was still going on. I know I saw Casey walking through the hallway carrying something.”
That would have been around two thirty, when we left the party. Casey had been packing the painting up as we left. That meant if Tix hadn’t waylaid us, we would have been there before Jade and could have avoided that particular trauma. “Did Casey see you?”
She nodded. “He said hi and everything.”
“Good. My brother should have a time of death soon and if it’s earlier, then that should help to clear you. What happened when you got home?”
“I opened the door and she was lying there and the knife was in her chest. I don’t know what I was thinking. All I could think about was my mom. It was like I was ten again and it was that awful day when they came for her. I don’t even remember pulling the knife out of Relda’s heart. I just remember that I had to try to save her.”
“Had you seen her earlier in the day?”
“Of course. She made breakfast and we talked about the party for Alvis.”
“Relda didn’t go,” Evan pointed out. “At least I didn’t see her there.”
“She was too sad to go. She wanted to spend the evening in what she called ‘quiet contemplation,’” Jade explained. “It was precisely why I decided to try the ritual last night. I’d been planning it for a while, but I didn’t want her to know about it. I was going to replace the belladonna. She uses it so rarely.”
“How were you going to replace it?”