She knew in her bones that there was absolutely no coming back fromthisfeeling. This mix of admiration and respect, reliance and safety, desire and lust. All these things swirled inside her, making her feel light as air in his presence.
She didn’t dare admit it to herself. Their future was still so uncertain. They had a million other things to focus on, and while she was immeasurably happy that they got to finally be together, she knew they couldn’t promise each other a future—not yet. She certainly hoped that breaking the bond would change things, but they had a long way to go before then, so no.
She wouldn’t admit it to herself, not yet, but deep down, she knew exactly what the feeling growing inside her was.
Chapter Fifteen
Ena
Tywas,unfortunately,notable to join her for research the next day, or the next. Almost an entire week went by in the blink of an eye, and Ena was starting to feel increasingly anxious and frustrated that she hadn’t found any of the additional information they needed about the amulet or the binding spell.
On the day before theonatacelebration, Ena spent the entire morning poring over the witch’s journals that Ty had gotten from Petyr for the third time. Mostly, the journals were just records of potions made and spells conducted, including who those services were traded to and what was received in exchange, with an occasional brief description of the negotiation that led up to the trade. So far, the only information of value she’d found was a vague description of the amulet—the same one that Ty had already identified before he’d come to Auster to look for it.
It was located on an inventory list—a dry categorization of all the sacred objects in the Coven’s possession and their estimatedvalue. One line mentioned an amulet of great power that was being kept with “the Coven matriarch,” but there had been no way to tell which Coven it was referring to, hence why Ty had come to Auster first. Now, obviously, they knew it had been referencing Occidens, but that was old information, and Ena hadn’t been able to find anything else helpful to their cause.
She made a mental note to ask Ty more about Petyr, and how in the world the man had deduced so much about the amulet from such little information, because there was no way he could have known what the amulet was for or what the witches had done from the little Ena had read.
In the end, though, Ena decided to put aside her futile efforts researching the amulet and instead focus on their other dilemma—what to tell Cole tomorrow at theonatacelebration about their mission to figure out some way to Imbue her Gift into an object. She’d put her efforts on that issue on hold after Ty had told her not to worry about it, but still found herself wanting to contributesomething,if only to make things easier on him with Cole,so she sought Nial for some books on runes and Imbuing.
She found the old daemon puttering around the Archives, pulling books off shelves and then putting them back with seemingly no rhyme or reason.
“Excuse me, Nial?” Ena asked cautiously.
“Yes, my dear,” he said, turning towards her with a kindly smile. “What can I do for you?”
“I’m looking for more books on daemonic runes and Imbuing. Do you know where I can find some?”
“Yes, certainly, my dear,” he said. His black robes swished at his heels as he turned and shuffled to the far side of the Archives. Ena followed him as he began haphazardly pulling books off the shelves and loading them onto a cart for her. He didn’t even seem to check the titles or reference any sort of system to knowwhere the books were; it was as if he already knew what every book contained and where it was.
After loading a dozen books on the cart for her, he pushed it over to her worktable.
“Thank you,” she said, picking up the first tome and flipping it open to find depictions of runes inside. “I have to say, I’m so impressed. How is it that you know exactly where all the books are?”
He smiled kindly at her again. “It’s my Power, my dear. Mymemoria. I remember everything I’ve ever seen or heard my entire life. Absolutely everything I’ve done lives in my memory, from the time of my birth.”
Ena’s jaw nearly hit the floor. “Wow, really?” she asked in awe. “That’s amazing.”
“It can be…yes,” he said, smiling sadly. “But I won’t sugarcoat it, my dear. It can also be a burden too. Sometimes, the past is meant to be forgotten.”
Ena returned his sad smile as he turned to leave, but she was struck by how true his words were. There had certainly been times in her past where she’d wished to forget everything that had happened with Ty, but now…now she was endlessly grateful that she remembered, even if those memories did sometimes still feel painful. Those experiences had made them both who they were and, in the end, brought them back together.
Ena sat down at her table in the hidden alcove and began flipping through the books. She first wanted to understand the basics of Imbuing, so she could maybe come up with a plausible way of extrapolating its techniques for use with Wiccan Gifts. Something that would satisfy Cole without actually working—because the idea of Imbuing her Gift into an object to be used on a witch was rather horrifying.
After a few minutes of reading, she found herself struck by how complex this magic was. The runes seemed to act as areceptacle, she discovered, one that held the daemonic Power indefinitely within the object they were carved into. Different runes were required to hold different Powers, and so it was always an experiment to determine the correct combination and sequence of runes for any given Power and object.
It was similar to spellwords in that the correct phrasing and word had to be used in combination with one’s Knowing to create the type of result one wanted. And, not for the first time, she was struck by how disappointing it was that witches and daemons did not share this knowledge with one another. There was so much more to daemonic culture than Ena had ever dreamed.
Ena continued poring over the books, but soon became stumped by continued references to the “binding rune.” This was apparently a cornerstone rune in Imbuing, and a variation of it was supposed to be included on every Imbued object to bind the Power in place.
Bind the Power…could it be?
Ena flipped frantically through a rune dictionary which cataloged every rune that had been developed and successfully used to Imbue something, looking for an image of the binding rune.
Then she gasped when she saw it.
Her suspicions were confirmed; it was the symbol on the amulet she’d been looking for! The only one she didn’t know, the one she’d never seen before.
It wasn’t a one-to-one. The daemonic version was more angled, with straight, harsh lines instead of the more elegant, curved ones on the amulet, but it was undeniably, conceptually the same thing.
