Wylder takes us in with a comical look of confusion. “Just keep him occupied. We’ll be standing behind him, confronting, and hopefully disengaging the demon. To him, we’ll probably come off like pickpockets, and we don’t need the added complication of him making a scene.”
“Got it.” Asher winks at me. “Do you think ‘fake cleanup’ or ‘take my photo’ would work better?”
“Go with fake cleanup, but I don’t think you’ll need to fake the part about him needing help. The old guy looks like he’s about to drop over.”
Wylder follows our conversation looking even more puzzled, so I help him out. “What do you think surviving on the streets at sixteen looks like? Laurel didn’t dump me with a gold card. I had to hustle for food, and I’m damn good at it.”
“Peeps gotta eat,” Asher says.
Wylder’s green gaze is amazingly expressive when you take the time to look. And apparently, me having to grift to survive twists something big inside him. “Tonight, we’re not hustling. We’re getting a demon parasite off an old man.”
And I’m all-in on that.
I’m not sure if it’s the proximity to the demon minions or the awakening of my affinity, but ever since we got here, my skin has been crawling.
I grab Wylder’s elbow and pull him to face me. “So, what spell are we using? I don’t actually know how to detach a feeding demon from an old man.”
Wylder steps to the side to let a woman pushing a stroller and a loose five-year-old with his face painted like a jack-o’-lantern pass us by. “Given that you can see the connection and I can’t, I’ll cast a privacy spell and hopefully keep our actions unnoticed. You’re going to pinch the siphon thread six inches away from the man’s body, and twist withershin to unbraid it, while chanting,Unbind. Unwind. Undo.”
“What the hell is withershin?” Asher asks.
“It’s a witchy way to say counterclockwise,” I say.
He chuckles and raises his pinky finger. “How fancy.”
With that settled, I turn to Wylder. “Do you have any salt? My mom always said, ‘When in doubt, salt it out.’”
Wylder chuckles and pulls out a little cloth bag from his jacket pocket. “Mine said, ‘Salt is the duct tape of witchcraft.’”
I reach to take a handful, and Wylder grips my wrist with his free hand. Startled, I blink and meet the intensity of his gaze. “And despite what Asher said, it wasn’t a backhanded compliment. I know you can do this. I’ve seen what you’ve accomplished over the past weeks, and now that you have your memories back, you have your connection to your ancestry. Just believe in yourself and it’ll be cake.”
I stand there, my brain trying to make sense of Wylder Howe, the man who treated brooding like a competitive sport, genuinely complimenting me.
The late-autumn wind stirs, swirling leaves into tumbling eddies around my feet, and I break free from the moment. With a deep breath, I send up a quick prayer to ask the goddess, Mom, and my Hallowind ancestors to help make this go smoothly.
“All right. Good luck.” Asher raises his knuckles for a bump and then gains some distance from us, coming around to the front of the old man.
When he gives me a nod, despite everything in me fighting against getting closer to the siphoning demon, we move into position.
“Happy Harvest Festival, sir.” Asher moves in front of the man and stops him from his slow plod through the crowd. “I see by your bare wrists, you haven’t been to the Emberwood Bountiful Blessings Booth because you’re not wearing one of our good fortune bracelets.”
As Asher ties the bracelet around the old man’s wrist, Wylder and I do our thing. Wylder’s lips move in silent casting, and I do as he told me earlier and pinch the silvery ribbon of siphoning connecting the parasite demon to the old man.
“Unbind. Unwind. Undo,” I whisper, pouring all my intention into those three words. “Unbind. Unwind. Undo.”
The demon creature turns its attention toward me, and I erect my personal shielding. It’s crazy how easy the warding is for me now that I have my memories and my connections restored, when a week ago, I got nowhere.
The demon lets out a disgruntled screech, but the hollow popping in my ears tells me Wylder’s privacy spell is in place.
I continue to unweave the siphoning thread by twisting withershin and chanting my intention, and a strange pressure builds in the air. It feels like a thunderstorm is coming, and the potential builds in the air right before the sky tears apart and the downpour begins.
But in this case, the coming destruction isn’t weather.
Asher is still shooting the shit and word-dazzling the old guy as I move onto the banishment part of our workings.
The salt makes the beast flinch back with a hiss, and the shimmer of its presence dims.
I reach into the inside pocket of my coat, my fingers closing around cool glass. The vessel we prepared for this is a small, hand-blown, midnight blue bottle, stoppered with wax.
