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From the start, this dream was clearer than the others Or maybe it was Cassie that was clearer;Saltwater slapped her face; she sed some It was so cold she couldn’t feel her hands or feet

Going down She was going to drownbut not die With the last of her will she sent her spirit to the place prepared for it to the skull on the island Some of her power had been left in the skull already; now she herself would go to join it And soh of her body diffused through the sea and washed up on the island, she would live again

Good dreaht frantically as the water closed over her head

A shifting

Sunlight blinded her

"You and Kate arden," the kind voice said

Yes She’d arden was in back Cassie turned to the back door

"Jacinth! What have you forgotten?"

Cassie paused, confused She had no idea The tall wo down at the floor There, on the clean pine boards, lay the red leather Book of Shadows Cassie remembered now; it had dropped off her lap when she stood up

"I’m sorry, Mother" The word came so naturally to her lips And her eyes had adjusted - but she couldn’t figure out where the book was supposed to go Somewhere specialwhere? Then she saw the loose brick in the fireplace

"Much better," the tall woed it up with the brick "Always rerow careless Not even here in New Sale to the garden"

Kate was already going out the door In the sunshine outside, Cassie noticed that Kate’s hair was just the color of Diana’s: not really gold, but a paler color like pure light Kate’s eyes were golden too, like sunshine She was altogether a golden girl

"Sky and sea, keep har over the herb bushes to the blue expanse of the ocean beyond the cliff There was no wall in this time - it hadn’t been built yet Then she darted forward to pick so

"Just s out a bunch to Cassie "Isn’t it sweet?"

But Cassie was hovering by the open door Two other people had couessed They were talking in low, urgent voices

" news just ca

There was an exclamation of joy and surprise from Jacinth’s mother "Then he is dead!"

The man shook his head, but Cassie didn’t hear the next feords She was afraid to be caught listening and sent away "the skull" she heard, and " can never tellco "Isn’t it wonderful?" Cassie wanted to tell her to shut up

Then she heard words that raised the hair on her arms, even in the hot sunshine "hide the "But where?"

That was it Where, where? If this drea to put an aret her to srabbed her hand to hold her still and strained to listen

The adults were arguing softly: exclareement came to Cassie’s ears "Could we not?" "No, not there" "But where, then?" "Oh, hter "Of course! We should have thought of it earlier"

Where? Fending Kate off, Cassie twisted to try and look into the kitchen

"Jacinth, what’s wrong with you?" Kate cried "You’re not listening to a word I’ Jacinth, look at me!"

Desperately, Cassie stared into the dark kitchen It was too dark The drea on to it She had to see the end Grandht Help me see

"Jacinth!"

Darker and darker -

Long skirts rustling, li place," Jacinth’s ain"

Darkness took Cassie

She woke confused

At first, she couldn’t re for in the dreah Who was Jacinth? An ancestress? One of her great-great-great-great-great-grandmothers, she supposed And Kate?

Then she remembered her purpose

The Master Tools The members of the first coven had hidden theht coone into the dream to find out where, and she had succeeded

She’d wondered why Black John had coht he was released Not just for the Book of Shadows, she realized now; not just because he’d known herelse frorandmother He’d wanted the Master Tools

But her grandmother hadn’t knohere they were Cassie felt sure that if she had, the old worandreat-great-grandood place to hide things And now, because of the drea place in Jacinth’s time

But there had only been one loose brick, and nothing but the Book of Shadows had been stored behind it Cassie knew that, and she knew that the original coven had been looking for a long-term solution, a place to put the Master Tools "until they were needed" by soeneration Not just a loose brick, then Cassie thought about the gliotten between the women’s skirts in the last second of her dream The fireplace had been a different shape than it was in modern days

Cassie lay for a few ently shook Diana’s shoulder

"Diana, wake up I knohere the Master Tools are"

They woke Ada pebbles at hisThe three of theehaular hammers and screwdrivers, a crowbar, and Raj The Ger as if this kind of expedition in the wee hours was just what he liked

The waning randmother’s house Inside, it seemed even colder than outside, and there was a stillness about the place that dampened Cassie’s enthusias to the left side of the hearth, where bricks had been added since the time of her dream "That’s where it’s different That’s where they must have bricked them up"

"Too bad we don’t have a jackha up the crowbar He seemed undisturbed by the chill and the silence, and in the sickly artificial light of the kitchen his hair gleaarnets in Diana’s pouch Raj sat beside Cassie, his black and tan tail whisking across the kitchen floor Looking at the two of the ti to chip the ancienta screwdriver like a chisel But at last the bricks began to drop onto the cold ashes of the hearth, as one after another was pried out Each was a different color; soe, some almost purple-black

"There’s definitely so inside the hole they’d et it out There!" He started to reach again, then looked at Cassie "Why don’t you do the honors? It’s okay, there’s nothing alive inside"

Cassie, who didn’t want to encounter a three-hundred-year-old cockroach, nodded at hiratefully She reached inside and her hand closed on so smooth and cool It was so heavy she had to use both hands to lift it out

"A docu on the floor in front of the fireplace It looked like a treasure chest to Cassie, a little treasure chest made of leather and brass "People used them to store iot Black John’s papers and things out of one like it Go on, Cassie, open it"

Cassie looked at her, then at Ada on his pickax, his face decorated with soot Her fingers trembled as she opened the little box

What if she’d been wrong? What if it wasn’t the Master Tools in here at all, but only some old docu fresh and untouched as if they’d been buried yesterday, were a diadearter

"Oh," breathed Diana

Cassie knew the diadem that the Circle always used was silver The one in the box was silver too, but it looked softer, somehow; more heavy and rich, with a deeper luster Both it and the bracelet looked crafted; there was nothing machine-made about them Every stroke of the bracelet’s inscriptions, every intricate twist of the diadem’s circlet, showed an artist’s hand The leather of the garter was supple, and instead of one silver buckle, it had seven It was heavy in Cassie’s hand

Wordlessly, Diana reached out one finger to trace the crescent moon of the diadem

"The Master Tools," Adaht here under our noses"

"So much power," Diana whispered "I’ht they’d be kicking up a psychic disturbance - " She broke off and looked at Cassie "Didn’t you say so hard to sleep here?"

"Creaks and rattles all night long," Cassie said, and then she met Diana’s eyes "Oh You mean - you think "

"I don’t think it was the house settling," Diana said briefly "Tools this powerful can s happen"