“Shit,” I say, glancing at Layden. Maybe if we call this off now, we can stop anything bad from happening.
But right then, a white mist suddenly gathers over our heads, and a beam of light shines down from above.
Layden’s whole body goes ramrod straight, and his head tilts back at an unnatural angle as he looks up.
“Layden!” I start to reach for him, but Sabra holds me back, wrapping her arms around me.
“Don’t!” she cries. “Look, it’s happening!”
“What?” I struggle to get out of her grasp, but she just clenches tighter.
“Stop it,” she says. “And don’t step out of the circle.”
Does she mean stepping out of the circle could do something even worse to Layden? I stop wrestling with her as we tip dangerously toward the outer rim of the central circle, near the whipping ring that’s spinning faster than ever around us.
And I really get a good look at Layden. Not only is his whole body stiff, head staring up at the mist, but there’s a white film now covering his eyes.
“Oh my god! What’s happening to him?”
“It’s okay,” Sabra says. “He’s just making contact with the other side.”
I glare at her, our faces only inches apart since she’s still got me in a bear hug. “What the fuck does that mean? Why is it only happening to him?”
“His runes were always directing us toward the realm his curse was from. This just means we finally found it.”
“You don’t know that for sure,” I bark. “You’re just guessing. All of this is just an experiment. I never should have let you?—”
“What?” she asks, finally releasing me. “You never should have let me, what?” She shakes her head furiously. “When are you going to get that this ismylife andmygift. Not everything is about you. I know that’s hard to get through your thick head, but I know what I’m doing. And I’m good at it. It’s not your job to protect me orletme do anything. You’re not my freaking mother.”
Is she really going to stand here arguing with me when Layden is catatonic like this? “It’s not about either of us,” I cry. “Look at him!”
Sabra does, not seeming worried at all, then she looks back at me. “I’m giving him what he asked for. He’s making contact with the realm his curse came from. I’m helping him find a cure.”
“He looks like a zombie. How is that helping him? Have you seen this happen before?”
Sabra stands steadfastly. “I trust the process.”
I look back at Layden, feeling helpless. His face is lifeless. Is the glaze over his eyes getting thicker, or was it always that white? Can I really trust Sabra to know what she’s doing? She’s been obsessed with her mother’s grimoires the past few weeks, but I’ve seen some of them before, especially the later ones. They look like nothing more than the crazed scribblings of a mad woman trying to hold onto her sanity. Entire notebooks were full of arcane symbols, sometimes drawn in spirals to the edges of the pages. Interspersed with drawings of monsters dripping with blood.
“Oh my god, you’re in love with him, aren’t you?” Sabra says.
I whip my head around to look back at her. “What? No.”
“You are,” she says, eyes wide. “You love him.”
“Stop it. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She just shakes her head. “If this works, then he’ll be able to leave here, and you can’t stand that. You’ll be alone again.”
I blink, the cruelty of her words hitting me deep in the chest. “Do you hate me so much? I never meant for you to be… trapped with me. I thought we were friends. It was Vlad that kept you and your mother imprisoned here?—”
“We both know that’s bullshit!” she screams with her whole chest. “It was you all along who did this to my family. You created Vlad! It’s always been about whatyouwanted and whatyouneeded. You’re fed by him, and he preyed on us. You didnothingto stop it.”
“What could I do?” I throw my hands out, only to be knocked back painfully by the spinning ring around us.
“Something. Anything! You’re a powerful spirit from a nether realm, but you pretend to be a weak little girl.”
“I was born as a baby into a human body! I was just a kid when I met you.”
