“Is it the book or a dark magic spell?”
“No. It is a blade.”
“To cut his head off?”
Rossi reached behind his back and withdrew a dagger. It was short and wide, really no longer than his palm, and didn’t look all that deadly. I thought it might be made of stone, dark and brittle, but when the light caught it, I realized it was made of clay.
“That’s…that’s it?” It looked small. Insignificant against an ancient evil.
“Yes.”
“And you’re sure it will work?”
He sighed and rolled his eyes heavenward. As if there was ever going to be any help coming from that quarter for him. “It will work. It is formed of the soil from the battlefield where he was originated.”
And byoriginatedhe meant turned.
Oh. That gave that little knife a whole new level of killability.
“Like a stake to the heart,” Ryder said.
“Better,” Rossi agreed.
And I took a second, maybe three, to contemplate that Rossi had not only gathered up enough soil from the battlefield where Lavius had been turned to make it into a knife, but that he had also been turned on that very same soil.
Was that knife in his hands intended for Lavius, or had it been an option, a choice, a way out Rossi had kept for himself in case this world and existence became more than he wanted to endure?
I looked away from the knife and into Rossi’s eyes. My answer was there, and that answer was,yes.
“Just the heart?” Ryder was asking, carrying on a conversation beyond the one Rossi and I were sharing.
“Any vulnerable point,” Rossi said. “Through the eye, heart, neck, brain, groin. The same kill points one would seek for a human. Any other blade would not be enough, but this one.” He stopped. And really, he didn’t need to say any more.
This was a different kind of risk than giving up the book. This was risking Rossi’s life. Because if the knife fell into Lavius’s hands, it could be used just as easily and devastatingly on Rossi.
“If you do this, Delaney,” he said, to me, and me alone, “we will both be risking our lives.”
And if we didn’t do this, if we waited and used the book under the full moon, it would be Rossi alone risking his life. The book would be in Lavius’s control, and I was certain there were spells in it, dark magic that could be used to turn that knife on Rossi.
Rossi knew all that. Hell, he’dplannedit.
“Is there a spell in the book we can use to kill Lavius faster than he can take the book from us?”
“No.”
And that had been my last idea.
“Okay. We hit him with what we’ve got,” I said. “Two plans. The first is using me as a weapon. Kill me, kill him, then find a way to bring me back. If that doesn’t work, use the book to bring him here, endure whatever hell he’ll unleash on Ordinary long enough to kill him. Then you all find a way to bring me back.”
Everyone was quiet for a second. That promise, that agreement between Rossi and me solidified and settled. We were going to take his brother down. He and I. One of our deaths or both of our deaths given to protect the people we loved. To protect the home we loved.
We weren’t going to do it alone. We were going to trust the people who loved us to dig us out of the hellhole we were about to bungee into.
Rossi understood that. I understood that.
He smiled, and it was the best thing I’d seen all day.
Then the quiet exploded into arguments. Everyone had an opinion, one they wanted me to understand, agree with, and accept.
