Love will have its sacrifices. No sacrifice without blood.
—Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu,Carmilla
Atticus is goneonce again. It’s in his eyes. That shift, like a cloud passing over the sun. His face changes, and somehow doesn’t change at all.
“No!” Dorian cries. He sees it, too.
Adelina tries to get up, but she can’t. Atticus’s body is chained to the floor, his hands and feet and head aligning with the points of the pentagram. Adelina tries to break out. She pulls hard on the chains, but they hold firm. She lets out a wild yell, and her gaze turns to us. The hatred in her eyes makes me and Dorian step back.
“How do we get her out of him?” Dorian asks. “What do we do?”
I can barely form a thought. I have no answers. All I see is my best friend, someone I love, and he’s in pain. He’s right in front of me and simultaneously a million miles away.
“I broke the skull,” Dorian says, running his hands through his hair. “It was the tether, wasn’t it? Why didn’t it work?”
“What was Atticus trying to say? He was trying to explain something, but he never got the chance to finish. He pointed to the desk,” I say.
Professor White’s books cover the table. Some are flipped open, revealing spells written in different languages. “Dorian, Professor White used magic to bring Adelina here,” I say, grabbing one and leafing through the aged pages. “She must have used an invocation spell. All I have to do is reverse it.”
“You mean—”
“An exorcism, yes. I have to banish her.”
“Do you know how to do that?” Dorian asks.
“I’ve already done it. In the library, I banished the elemental,” I say. “I did it once, I can do it again. I can try. Help me find the spell she cast. She must have touched the book when she did it.”
Dorian runs his hand over one book, then another.
“This one,” he says.
On a page written entirely in Latin, I find the spell. It’s the one that Professor White used to summon Adelina. “This will take time to complete,” I say.
“What if it doesn’t work?” Dorian asks. “Or kills him?”
I cast a worried glance at Professor White, who lies motionless on the floor as if in a trance, her chest rising and falling as her lips recite the incantation. “I don’t know.”
“Raven, it’s a risk—”
Before he can protest, I say, “Trust me. Please. I need to do this. For Atticus.”
We came to Sibylline to learn magic. And magic is power. It requires risk.
“Nil sine magno labore,”I say. “Oneiric Society to the end.”
Dorian swallows thickly, and then he nods. “Yeah, okay.” Then he repeats, “Nil sine magno labore.”
He lights the candles, and the sigil is already drawn.
A door was opened. I have to close it.
We walk into the cage together, staying just out of Adelina’s reach. Fear lodges in my throat, but I give Dorian one last glance, and he assures me with another nod. If we don’t do this now, we’ll lose Atticus forever.
Adelina pulls at the chains, baring her teeth at me. I avert my gaze, studying the words on the page, the script shifting into a language I can understand. With a shuddering breath, I raise Hecate’s wand and begin the spell. The second the reverse invocation leaves my lips, my mouth feels wrong. Like my tongue is made of lead and my teeth are made of cotton and my gums are pure iron. The wand grows heavier, and my arm shakes. I have to brace it with my other hand.
Adelina’s eyes roll into the back of her head, and she groans.
I channel all of my energy into the wand, shape the wand’s power to my will. I can’t stop. Stopping now would mean failure.
