“Don’t you think I’ve done quite enough of that already?” Nora collapsed into the chaise lounge.

“Don’t you dare try to be cute with me, Little Sister,” Izzy said. “You are going to tell me every detail of your connection to the Graves family. And you’re going to do it right now.”

“Is everything all right?” a tinny voice came from the iron register by the ceiling.

“Gideon, if you want to say something, then get down here,” Izzy snapped. “Otherwise, be quiet.”

Silence.

“Sister?”

Nora’s shoulders slumped. “It was all such a long time ago. I don’t even know where to begin.”

“Let’s start with Liz Coleman’s father, and why she thinks you made him disappear.”

Nora rolled her eyes grumpily. “I didn’t make him disappear. That would have required far more effort than he was worth.”

“Nora,” Izzy warned.

A defeated look came over my aunt’s face. “Mary came to me. She needed help. Her first husband, Carl, was not a nice man.”

Izzy folded her arms over her chest. “Go on.”

“She was afraid for her life and her daughter’s. She’d spoken to the police, but they were of little help.”

“So, you thought you could help her.”

Nora nodded.

Izzy tapped her foot on the floor. “Do I even want to ask why you didn’t come to me?”

“You know perfectly well why I wouldn’t come to you with something like this,” Nora said, her voice regaining some of its vigor. “You’ve always been too afraid of your own magical shadow to do what is necessary. You would have given him a sugar cookie and hoped for the best.”

“That’s not fair.”

Nora met Izzy’s eye, then said, “You’re right. It’s not. The truth is, something needed to be done, and I wanted to spare you from having to perform a spell you clearly wouldn’t have been comfortable with when I could take care of the situation myself.”

Izzy took a step toward her sister. “And which spell exactly wouldn’t I have been comfortable with?”

Nora sank back into the chaise again. “There was only one option as far as I could see.”

“Which spell?”

“If I’d had the time, I would have perhaps gone in a different direction.”

“Evanora!”

Nora mumbled something into her chest while fiddling with the many buttons of her coat.

“Which. Spell. Did. You. Do?”

“The Night of Terror spell,” she finally shouted. “There? Are you happy?”

Izzy blinked a few times, then reached a shaky hand out for the armrest of the sofa behind her. Once she found it, she dropped down into it.

I looked back and forth from one aunt to the other. “What exactly is the Night of Terror spell?”

“It’s from the restricted library.” Izzy’s eyes were wide, but she was staring at nothing I could see. “It’s extremely dangerous. Even with a powerful coven, it’s extremely dangerous. Highly unpredictable. Nora, you could have died.”

My other aunt folded her hands on her lap. “Well, I didn’t, and the spell worked.”