I gapped it down to the sidhe. The others had dragged the bodies into the entrance, piling them up against each other. I laid Maeve down beside Blake, and Jane placed the box beside her. “As long as some of the body remains, we’ll be able to perform the spell,” Clara said, stroking the end of the box. “You can thank yourself for recovering the body, Arthur. ”
“Oh,” Corbin’s mother took in the box with wide eyes. She buried her head into her husband’s shoulders. Andrew glancedacross at me and nodded. I wasn’t sure what the nod meant, but its significance weighed over my heart.
“We’re going to have to take the lid off,” Clara said gently. Andrew flinched. His wife wailed.
“Super.” Flynn gulped.
My gaze snapped to Rowan. He stared at his feet, his lips moving as he counted something none of us could see. After a few moments, he nodded. “If it will bring Corbin back, it’s worth it.”
“I’ll do it,” Clara said kindly, pulling the box toward herself and pointing to a spot on the other side of the sidhe. “You take up that position in the circle, Rowan. Flynn, you’re over there. Arthur, stand between them. Andrew and Bree, you’re at the back. You won’t see anything, I promise. Gwen and Candice will stand beside me.”
“What about me?” Kelly piped up.
“Or Ryan?” Flynn asked.
“Can’t you do anything without your new boyfriend?” I shot back.
Clara waved her hand. “Ryan doesn’t have a magical bone in his body.”
“He changes into a fox!”
“That’s not magic. No energy transforms place. It’s just physiology, like a butterfly unfurling its wings. Ryan and Kelly will sit this ritual out. Witches only. Everyone link hands.”
I did as she asked. Rowan’s hand trembled in mine. I squeezed his fingers.Hold it together, mate. We’ve only got this chance now because you never gave up on Corbin or Maeve.
If we could bring Corbin back… if we could bring them all back… even Blake...
“Our friends are now in a place where we cannot reach them with our minds. We have to trust that they will find each other in the darkness. What we need to do is create a beacon of power tolight their way home. I need each of you to picture all the people in the underworld.” Clara sighed. “Even Isadora. Focus on the details of their physical form—what did Maeve’s eyes look like? How did Corbin’s hair fall over his eyes? How did being with Blake make you feel?”
Frustrated, I thought but didn’t say.
“You got to bring them to life in your minds, okay?"
I thought of Corbin. I remembered the first time I’d met him, when he came to speak to my lawyer on my behalf. His hair hadn’t been quite as long then. I think he’d been growing it because he liked mine. A curl fell over his left eye, and he had to keep tucking it behind his ear as he spoke. He mentioned his age – a year younger than me – but the way he held himself he seemed much older.
The first week I lived at Briarwood was… odd. Corbin had no idea how to live with someone like me. He always had his nose in a book and it made me feel stupid and I got frustrated a lot and burned things. We tiptoed around each other until one day I incinerated an old book of his and we gave each other a bollocking and then we got drunk and everything was cool.
Then I thought of Blake, his stupid smirk and his black hair that never seemed to have a strand out of place. I thought of his newfound fondness for curry, and that flicker of emotion in the corners of his mouth when we’d shaken hands, or when he watched Maeve while she wasn’t looking.
And Maeve… how could I ever forget what her eyes looked like? Deep hazel flecked with gold, sparkling with intelligence and mischief and kindness. Her short hair bounced on her head. Her lips wide with laughter or curled around the end of my cock.
With her free hand, Clara flipped back the lid of Corbin’s box. Even from as far back as I stood, I could make out blackened shapes wrapped in plastic. Corbin was in pieces. Heat flared into my fingers.This isn’t going to work.
“Save your fire for the candles, Arthur,” Clara said sharply. I glanced down. My pants were on fire. Shite. I sat down in the grass, stifling the flames between my arse cheeks and the dirt. Beside me, Flynn burst out laughing.
“Boys, please, if we could focus.” Andrew frowned. Fire flared in my fingers again, that he dared tell me what to do when he was the one who abandoned Corbin and refused to speak to him after Keegan’s death, he was the one who let Corbin go on believing his brother’s suicide was his fault?—
Get a hold of yourself.If I derailed this ritual, we’d lose our chance to get Corbin back, and Maeve and the others might remain trapped down there with Daigh...
I glanced down at the bandages wrapped around my forearm, recalling the cut beneath them that split through the Norse rune tattoo Corbin had translated for me. A line of neat sutures kept the wound closed like I was some kind of Frankenstein’s monster – a beast made of pieces of the dead.
“Sorry,” I muttered, standing up again.
Clara lowered the tongs into Corbin’s box and placed the stone on top. She scattered the smaller stones on the other bodies, placing one with each. She stood white taper candles around the bodies and added some other stones. “Arthur, light the candles.”
Grateful for a task that could siphon off some of the energy pulsing in my veins, I waved my hand and the candles flickered to life.
"Repeat the chant along with me," Clara said. "As you do, picture a cone of white light rising from Corbin’s chest and encompassing all the bodies. This cone will help them find their spirits find their way back inside their bodies and undo the mortification that’s already taken place.”
