“It’s a blessing,” Amma said carefully, biting her lip. “Almost an exorcism, actually.”
“Sure, butreverseit.” Xander was grinning like a cat. He grabbed a new piece of parchment and began to scribble, drawing out a diagram of sorts, then he stood suddenly to gather something from the other side of the room.
While he was gone, Damien stepped around to look at what he’d done, visibly impressed with the diagram. When Xander came back, he was frantic with more energy than he’d had in days, slipping back into the chair under where Damien still stood. He dropped a small handful of smooth rocks on the table and finished scrawling on the parchment. Then with a flick of his hand, he called up shadows from the table, the rocks moving with them, and his marks lifted off the parchment. Damien leaned forward over his shoulder, watching, mesmerized.
“The original of this spell is meant to cleanse, but theoretically it can be used to take the most innocent, purest object and absolutely debase it.”
As he explained, Damien’s violet eyes were flicking all over the smoke diagram that Xander had conjured, leaning even closer over the other blood mage’s shoulder, transfixed. “You’re speaking of reversing the spells.”
“Reversing all of them, yes, butthisis the one to try out, to see if any of this work can actually be done at all. We’re doing this one. Together.” Xander’s gaze slid over to Amma across the table. “And all we need is a target.”
Her throat clenched around the protest she wanted to spit out. She’d been convincing herself this work had been theoretical, she never intended to take part in making any of it a reality. Even what Damien had said, the plan he had told her to take the crown and destroy the capital, she’d pretended like it was just some dream or joke or far off thing that would never really involve her. And now Xander was looking at her like he would be casting his new corruption spell on her very soul.
“You think this is what Malcolm was doing?” Damien asked, voice filled with wonder as he gazed back down over Xander’s shoulder at the parchment. It was the closest the two had been to one another since they’d arrived.
“I have a feeling, yes.” Xander sat back in his chair, tipping his head up. “I only need an evening of preparation, and then we can leave.”
Damien squinted down at him, curious and intrigued.
“To take our vessel—the thing we’ll corrupt. I have the perfect target in mind, something I’ve wanted for a while to add to my collection, but I’ll need your help in getting it.”
Amma relaxed at hearing the target wasn’t her, but she wasn’t thrilled at how Xander turned slightly in his chair, bringing his face even closer to Damien’s. He lowered his voice, his grin turning down. “It’s only a few day’s journey from here. Seizing it will be effortless if we work in tandem, and then we bring it home, and perform the spell. Together. How’s that sound?”
Damien stared back at him a long moment, swallowed, and then pulled back, standing straight. “I don’t like it.”
Xander’s face shifted into a deep frown, but only for a moment. Then he crossed his arms and leaned back fully. “Well, that doesn’t really matter, does it? Because you’re in my home, and it would be quite rude not to mention much too risky to say no to me now.”
Damien paced to the far end of the table and flipped through his own paperwork. “I suppose this is the least destructive way we can test the practicality of reversing—”
“Fabulous!” Xander shot up from his seat, cutting him off and pleased again. “We’ll leave at first light tomorrow.”
CHAPTER 6
BAD COMPANY AND WORSE DISCOURSE
Damien had turned down every offer of Xander’s to speak privately thus far, but the blood mage was persistent, and things had changed. They would be leaving, and Damien knew he had to take a chance. He lingered in the doorway to the study, watching Amma as she took to the stairs. She had on another of those long, sleek dresses that hugged her and highlighted every careful step she took, but this one suited her even better, a dusty pink that reminded him of the brief time he’d spent in her home in Faebarrow and the oddly comforting feeling he’d had there despite knowing he did not belong.
The past week had been painful, watching her move through the tower as his desire for her grew with every long look and traded word. But Damien kept himself away, encouraging her to carry that damn book around everywhere as a failsafe. He wished bloody Corben would come bloody back with some bloody good news every time he caught her looking melancholy. He wanted to bolster her spirits, but also wanted a reason to go against his self-imposed exile from her presence to touch her under the excuse of arcana once again.
Not that his touch could be anything but chaste, not while the talisman was still inside her.
Damien’s ability to translate from Key to Chthonic was lightning fast, so he had plenty of time to take his own notes while Amma dictated to Xander and Xander complained or fucked off somewhere else in the study. He was glad for Xander’s distraction, calling for his help only a few times, but the blood mage had given it to him freely. Now, Damien had a scroll full of notes, bits from other spells found in the Lux Codex, translated and partially reversed, and he was very close to coming up with something that could get the talisman out of Amma. But the pieces didn’t quite fit together yet.
Xander was a little shit, but even shit was useful in expelling problems. How he had twisted the blessing Amma had translated that afternoon into a thing of vile beauty—it was brilliant, though Damien would never say. With enough time and the right pieces from the codex, Damien could craft something similar, a bastardized spell meant to rend rather than mend, but to cast it on Amma? Not when the risk of his own failure would be hurting or, gods forbid, killing her. And so if he were going to get the talisman safely out of her, he may well actually need Xander’s help.
There was only the small problem that he still hadn’t told Xander that Bloodthorne’s Talisman of Enthrallment existed at all.
Xander came to stand beside Damien in the doorway of the study as Amma climbed the steps. She cast a glance back at the two of them before fully disappearing, curiosity in her eyes, the Lux Codex tight in her grasp.
“I know you don’t trust me, but I promise this will be fun.”
Damien squinted back at him. Did he trust Xander? He’d been sleeping under his roof for a full week and not once did he experience anything untoward. Xander had, so far, kept his word, and while he’d been annoying and avaricious, he hadn’t tried to stab Damien in his sleep, with a dagger or anything else, and save for daily propositioning often followed by dirty looks behind her back, he hadn’t touched Amma either.
“We need to talk.”
Xander’s eyes widened. “Do we?” He pushed past him and began down the spiraling staircase.
Damien sighed, following. “We have known one another for a long time. In fact, I’m fairly certain you are in some of my earliest memories. You were being a little bastard, but you’re there nonetheless.”
