"What kind of countermeasures?" I asked, hope flickering despite our recent setbacks.
"Something about using lunar phase rituals," he replied, unrolling the first scroll. "The bonds are weakest during the new moon when magical barriers are thin. A properly timed ritual can sever them completely."
"When's the next new moon?" Jean-Marc asked, already pulling out his phone to check.
"Three days," Mom said before he could look it up. "Which gives us time to prepare properly instead of rushing into something that could get us all killed."
"Three days might be too long," I pointed out. "Lyra's ley line corruption is spreading, and these connections are getting stronger."
"Actually, that might work in our favor," Aidon said thoughtfully. "She believes we’re focused on the ley lines. That means she will be less likely to notice what we're actually doing until it's too late to stop us."
"There's something else you should know," Mythia reported as she flew out of the house holding a large leather-bound book. "I was going through Hattie's family records, and I found something relevant."
The tiny pixie set the book next to the scrolls and opened the journal to a page covered in faded writing and detailed diagrams. "In 1743, three of Hattie's ancestors faced similar parasitic connections. It was three sisters who were being hunted by a witch who wanted to steal their bloodline magic for herself. The witch used the connection to try and obtain the Pleiades power for herself."
"How did they solve it?" I asked, leaning forward despite the way the movement made my back ache.
"They used a lunar phase ritual combined with ancestral magic," Mythia replied, looking at Hades’s scroll. "The technique involved calling on the power of their dead relatives to help break the bonds. They used their bloodline to reject it."
"That's brilliant," Vera said admiringly. "Using the target's strength against the attack itself."
"Could it work for our situation?" I asked.
"It might work," Mom said as she looked over the documents. "But we'd have to reach out to Hattie's ancestors. We've never met them and have no idea how they will feel about her giving you the power. Some of them..." She made a face that suggested she'd rather eat expired yogurt. "Some of them might not like it."
"Fantastic," I muttered. "So, our brilliant plan involves asking potentially pissed-off dead people to help us break magical baby bonds. I'm sure they'll be thrilled to get involved in our family drama."
"Oh, everything will probably go sideways," Nana said cheerfully. "When has that ever stopped us from doing something spectacularly stupid?"
"Never. Let's get to work," I said, settling into the chair that Aidon brought over for me before I could face-plant from exhaustion. "We've got a witch to stop and some ancestors to guilt-trip into helping us. And this time, we're going to beprepared for whatever fresh hell she decides to throw our way." What followed was the kind of night that made you question your life choices while simultaneously being grateful you had people crazy enough to make terrible plans with you.
CHAPTER 5
The kitchen had become ground zero shortly after the Forgotten One and wolves vanished. Documents covered every surface like confetti after a really depressing parade. Coffee rings now stained ritual diagrams. And Nana's handwriting was bleeding across pages that probably cost more than my car payment. We'd argued about timing, consumed enough caffeine to fuel a rocket launch, and debated the finer points of ancestral politics until my brain felt like scrambled eggs.
By the time Aidon had finally carried my exhausted ass upstairs—because walking had become a theoretical concept—I was about as useful as a chocolate teapot. But did I get to sleep? Ha. What a joke.
I'd spent the remaining hours of darkness doing my best impression of a rotisserie chicken. I tossed and turned from side to side while my belly hosted a rave. Every position was wrong. Every angle was torture. Finding comfort with a magical baby bump was like trying to find a unicorn in a Walmart parking lot. It was theoretically possible, but you'd probably die waiting.
Dawn crept in through the kitchen windows with all the enthusiasm of a tax audit long after I had gone back down. Now,I was sitting there staring into a cup of tea that had gone cold sometime around the Renaissance. My reflection in the dark liquid made me wince. I was pretty sure my hair had achieved its own gravitational field.
"I've been thinking about the connections," Nina murmured, making me jump.
My daughter had appeared beside me like a caffeinated ninja. Her hair stuck up in a hundred different directions. She also had a gleam in her eyes that preceded either brilliance or the kind of disaster that made national news.
"At five in the morning?" I croaked, grateful for company that didn't involve my spiraling thoughts. "Why aren’t you asleep?"
She slid into the chair next to me with enough energy to power a small city. "Sleep is overrated when you're having epiphanies about magical loopholes."
"Please tell me this epiphany doesn't involve more ancestral politics or ritual components that sound like a grocery list from hell."
"Actually..." Nina's grin was the kind that made me want to hide under the table. "It's worse. I couldn't sleep either. But I had an idea." She pulled out her phone and showed me a recording app. "What if we try to spy on Lyra through the parasitic bonds? Similar to you wanting to use it to attack, but reverse surveillance instead."
I blinked at her, my sleep-deprived brain taking a moment to process the suggestion. "You want me to intentionally connect with the psychotic witch who's trying to steal my babies?"
"Not exactly. I was thinking you could use mirror-sight. Use the bonds she created as a window to see what she's doing." Nina's eyes lit up with the kind of excitement that reminded me she was my daughter. "If we know what she's planning, we can stay ahead of her."
The idea had merit. Though it sounded like the magical equivalent of poking a sleeping dragon. "That's actually not terrible. But what if she detects me? What if it makes the connections stronger?"
