“You must know that following Sabrina’s plan will likely cost you your life. I know your feelings for Damien are strong, as are mine, but you’ve known him only a short time. If he were here, he’d want you to keep yourself safe. He’d want you to be happy.”
All the way home from Chicago, I thought about this. He’s not exaggerating the risks. I’ll have to become a blood whore to make it into Night Haven, hope and pray that the distinct flavor of my blood doesn’t cause a customer to drain me or to accuse me of being a witch. Without calling attention to myself, I’ll have to wait until the queen appears in public and then find a way to get close enough to her to challenge her. All without being detected by anyone despite the queen having a price on my head. Then I’ll have to hope and pray that the magic of the box and the demands of vampire tradition protect me as I navigate the three trials of the Provocationem Ad Mortem.
Roll the dice.
Choose a challenge.
Try not to die.
It’s a fools game. I’m a fool for considering it, all for a man—no, a monster—I’ve known only a matter of months. But I clear my throat and bare my soul to Cassius because I am that fool, and he deserves to know why. “When I was a little girl, I was loved. Every child should be loved by their family, but the longer I’m alive, the more I see how uncommon it is to have what I had. My parents both loved me unconditionally, and I was happy. I know what love is and what it isn’t. I learned firsthand what it isn’t from Tony. When my parents were murdered, I learned what it felt like to lose love, to have all the sunshine and gentle breezes stripped from your days. Days of limp sails, gray skies. Dark days. Days that only my grandmother and Maeve kept me alive. Do you know what I’ve learned from all of it?”
He shakes his head in sober silence.
“Once you know love, you know it’s worth dying for. I love Damien. Damien loves me. I know we fell in love quickly and that we haven’t known each other very long, but it’s like when you see a sprout in the garden. A rose is a rose far before it blooms. I recognize the roots, Cassius, and this relationship is a rare and beautiful species. You’re right—Damien would want me to go on without him. He’d want me to stay safe. He wants better for me because he loves me. And unlike Damien, my biology does not restrict me from loving another. But my heart does. I will always know that I had the beginnings of something, a promise so rare that another woman was willing to kill for it. How could I live with myself? How could I move forward as anything but an empty shell, knowing I’d thrown away a chance at something extraordinary, all to settle for something safe?”
He glances toward his feet but then challenges me again. “You’d be a woman who survived a terrible loss. An empty shell, maybe at first, but in time, perhaps, something greater.”
I scoff. “When I was married to Tony, I survived a life of domestic abuse by hiding who I was and making myself small. All it earned me was a sore jaw and a broken rib. I don’t want safe, Cassius. Safe doesn’t even exist. I want fair. I want a chance. I want to know I did everything I could.”
He smiles, a dimple forming in one cheek. “Damien said you were a warrior at heart.”
“He did? When?”
“He came to see me when he first realized he was falling in love with you. He said you’d do anything for the people you loved. I guess he was right.”
“He was.” I lift my chin another inch.
“Then there’s no time to waste. Show me your fighting stance.”
I spare him the truth that I’m not entirely sure what a fighting stance is and raise my fists, parting my feet like I imagine a boxer might do.
He shoves my shoulder, and I trip over my own feet. He catches me before I eat the carpet.
He snorts. “We’ll work on it.”
The following weeks fall into a pattern. Maeve comes to Harcourt directly after work, and we practice magic until around eleven p.m. when Cassius forms from the shadows and takes over with physical training. Progress comes slowly. I can light a candle now, make the water in a glass boil, cause a wind to blow through the room, and sprout a seed without the help of my ancestors. But when we test my magic, my power fades with distance from my anchor, which is still the grandfather clock. I can’t manifest a thing once I’m past my driveway. I still need Harcourt Manor to do any of it.
Moving my anchor to something portable is imperative if I want the benefit of my magic in Night Haven, something I can only assume will greatly increase my chances of survival. But when I try to call for the spell I need like before, no book flies into my hands. To make matters worse, when my ancestors appear and I ask them about it, they seem confused by the question. Their mouths move in silent protestations I can’t understand.
We spend hours in the attic, combing through books, journals, and notebooks for a way to move my anchor. I’ve even picked out a gorgeous jade ring that was once my mother’s as a new target. We find nothing. When we try to invent our own spell, we fail miserably. Hell, we never designated the grandfather clock in the first place. The clock simply was my anchor from the beginning, from the day we performed the Hitch and Cast spell.
“I’ll keep looking,” Maeve says as we wrap up our lesson at the end of week three of practice. We’re sitting on the floor of the attic within a sea of open books and notebooks.
“I leave for Night Haven next week. I may have to go without it and try to win this thing without any witchy help.”
She shakes her head. “I’m not sending you down there without any magic. You practice with Cassius. If there’s something here, I’ll find it.” She reaches behind her and draws another book from her stack.
“You need your sleep.” Maeve’s been pushing herself too hard lately. Between the office and my training, she doesn’t have a minute to herself.
“So do you,” she says softly.
I don’t have to look in the mirror to know I’ve got a permanent case of dark circles under my eyes, and my skin is the palest it’s ever been. “I’m trying to get used to sleeping during the day. From everything I’ve read, it takes a few weeks to adjust. All I need to do is stick to it.”
“Are you eating?”
I frown. “I’m trying to adjust to that too.” I’m too busy training to eat much at night and too tired during the day to make up the calories. I’m lucky to get in one good meal a day.
“Try harder. Your clothes look like they might fall off you.” She frowns.
