Good. Good. That was at least one silver lining on this horror hurricane.
I puffed out my breath and pushed my hand over my stomach to try and settle it.
“Okay,” I said. “So spill. What do you want to tell us?”
Bathin’s eyes narrowed as he gazed at his mother. “You’re a random factor I don’t trust. You could be on his side.”
“I’malwayson my side,” she said. “You know that.”
Bathin held his breath a moment, then started pacing.
“He’s modified a very powerful, very damaging spell. He’s covered his tracks thoughtfully and well. If there is a way to break the spell, I believe it will be damaging. To Delaney, or Ordinary, or the gods, or the Reed family.”
“We’ve taken on soul-possessing demons before,” Myra said. “You, for instance.”
The smile he gave her beamed. “And you prevailed.”
“Thanks to me,” Xtelle said. “I made the scissors that cut her soul free. I made the way to break that binding. Not you.” She poked one thin, pink-tipped finger at each of us. “Not any of you.”
“Can we modify a spell breaker?” I asked. “We are a town of gods and supernatural people, magic, and knowledge. If someone makes a new lock, we find a new key, right?”
Myra rubbed the bridge of her nose. “I’ll go to the library, talk to Harold and the other volumes. See if anyone knows anything that might help.”
Xtelle’s eyes lit up—literally—and she licked her lips. “Myra, my dearest dumpling. I shall come with you to the library to help speed your search. I am an expert in breaking demon bindings as you may have noticed.”
Myra’s eyebrows had lifted so high they were completely hidden beneath her bangs. “I would never let you into the library. Never.” She said it like that was the most obvious thing in the world. “Never.”
“That makes two of us,” I added. “Anything else?” I looked at Bathin.
He shook his head slowly. He had a smile for me, too. We’d been connected in a way that allowed him to know more about me than I sometimes preferred. But it also let me know things about him too. I knew he really was trying to change his ways, become something other than what he was expected to be.
He was, at the core of his being, learning to be kind. And thoughtful. And I would hope to say, more human.
He was, at the core of his being, hopelessly in love with my stubborn sister. She was hopelessly in love with him too.
That made me happy.
“What?” I asked.
“I forget how well you deal with things of this nature. Soul possession. Hell’s spells cooked up without your permission. Demons threatening everything you love.”
“Life’s full of roadblocks. You can let them stop you or you can find a way around them, or you can take option three. Option three is blowing right through them. I always go for three.”
“He wants something,” Bathin said.
Xtelle hummed and studied the back of her nails. “Ordinary?”
He planted his hands on his hips. “Not Ordinary. He could have signed the contract to do that. This is a much riskier action, tying himself to Delaney’s soul.”
“Maybe he didn’t think I’d let him into town if he signed the contract.”
“Would you have?” Xtelle asked.
“If he agreed to the rules, signed the contract, and followed the rules, of course I’d let him into Ordinary.”
“Oh,” she said, as if she’d finally figured something out. “You don’t know his reputation.” She turned to Bathin. “She doesn’t know who he is, does she?”
“You’ve studied demons?” he asked.
