I tugged her hand, just the smallest motion to tell her not to go out there, not to leave me, not to face the god on her own.Lu loosened her grip on my hand, every line set for attack.
Well, hell.
I squeezed her hand, then let up on the pressure.
If she was going to go fight the god, I’d fight the god right alongside her.
But the orange slowly faded from a blinding wildfire to a dim sunset.
Abbi mouthed one word over and over, a prayer against my shoulder:“Please, please, please.”
Then a sweet, clear hum poured out around us, growing louder and louder.
Lula’s eyes widened in panic, her pupils dilated.
The sound was not coming from the darkness.It was coming from the back of our truck.
“Shit,” I breathed.
The spell book of the gods was ringing.The cursed, coveted, dangerous, powerful book we’d hidden in a witch’s box had picked this moment to make itself known.
The witches in Texas said the box would hide the book from gods, devils, monsters, and beasts.
Yet it responded to Atë’s search like a tuning fork.
We couldn’t reach the book unless we got out of the truck, couldn’t throw a blanket over it to dampen the sound, not that a blanket would work.
Not that anything would work.
The hum grew louder, and orange fire burned bright again, scanning the sky.
One of us had to shut the book up before Atë found it.
I reached for the door handle, but Lula grabbed my wrist, her hold punishing, anchoring me to her side.
Her eyes were an inferno of reflected fire.No, she mouthed.
Before I could argue her into letting me go, Abbi ducked under our clasped hands and pulled the handle.
“No!”Lu and I shouted at the same time.
I caught Abbi around the waist, but she was small, squirmy, and determined.She threw her weight into the door, forcing it open a crack.
Just enough to let Hado, the little black cat, now a shadow made of claws and teeth, slip out into the fire and darkness.
Abbi shut the door and pulled her mortar and pestle into her lap.She closed her eyes and inhaled.
Then she shimmered, becoming both the eight-year-old girl and the ancient, celestial rabbit in the moon.She stirred her pestle in the mortar, drawing the soft silver power up from the bowl.It spun like cotton candy, soft, subtle light growing to surround the truck.
She tapped the pestle on the mortar’s rim and the humming stopped.
I twisted to look back at the witch’s box.It was covered in shadow—Hado—who glittered with strands of silver.Abbi’s power was smothering the box, silencing the book.
I didn’t know how long she could hold that silence against a god.I didn’t know how long it would take until Atë gave up looking for us.
I wrapped my arm around Abbi, holding her tight.
The orange fire exploded, a bomb detonating.If a color could scream, it was absolutely ear-shattering.
