“I imagine you are mighty witch to achieve such a thing. I meant no offense, small Sinclair.” She took a deep, exaggerated breath. “Let’s begin,” she said.
With a wave of her hand, the seals on the vases popped off, and colorful perfumes began quickly filling the room.
She began chanting in a language Maeve didn’t understand or recognize, taking the stones in each hand.
The witch inhaled the perfumes through her nose, extending her arms forward. She opened her eyes with a snap, and her pupils were gone, and her eyes were pure white.
“This magic is ancient,” said Ismail. Her voice had changed into something strained: deep and rough. “It will cost you three times.”
“What will it cost me?” Asked Mal.
Smoke surrounded Ismail as she placed the stones in the center of the table and inhaled the smoke again, her long tattooed fingers grazing over the stone.
“Three marks,” she said. She continued to inhale the colored smoke. She gripped the edge of the table, bending over in a contorted way.
“A mark on your soul,” she said, beginning the spell.
Damn. There was only one thing that put a mark on your soul. It wouldn’t be Mal’s first.
Ismail was chanting in another language between each direction.
“A mark on your body,” she continued.
An offering of blood. Painful, but he could handle it.
Ismail’s voice flattened out. “And a mark on something pure.”
Maeve’s breath caught in her throat.
Ismail’s hands broke away from the stones. The room grew brighter. She stood to her full height and addressed Mal.
“Do you accept?”
“A life. My blood. And. . .” Started Mal.
Ismail’s brows lifted. “Another’s innocence. Dirty Magic,” said Ismail with a wicked look. “And in that order. You have seven hours to complete the spell. With each cost, you must repeat the incantation ‘hoc aliquid do’ three times. Once you have completed the cost, my Magic will take hold, and what you seek will be returned to you. Do you accept?”
Mal hesitated.
“Yes,” answered Maeve. She didn’t look at him. “He does.”
Ismail’s eyes and the smoke began to turn dark.
“Go,” she said.
They left without question or pause, pulling up the hoods to their cloaks. Silently, they made their way back up the pathway to the main road.
Mal kept walking and walking.
“We aren’t going to obscure?”
“I need to think,” said Mal.
They turned down empty back alleys and back streets. They passed shops and bakeries. Each block turned darker, shabbier, and more broken. Windows boarded up with wood and covered in bars, glass shattered along the sidewalk and shops lay empty. Maeve stayed in line behind Mal. His pace was quick.
They stopped at the opening of a tight alley way. Mal pressed his palms against the faded bricks. His head hung. Three figures from the unlit gap between buildings made their way closer.
Maeve opened her mouth to assure Mal that they’d find another way, or that she could figure out a loophole to complete the Magic costs.
