Casimya raised an eyebrow. “The ritual requires her as the blood link. You cannot participate in the magic itself.”
“I am staying beside her.”
Casimya looked at him for a long moment. Mal stared back, immovable. Finally, she sighed.
“Very well. But outside the circle. Do not break the boundary.”
She positioned me in the center of the largest circle, easily ten feet across, and Mal settled himself just outside it, close enough that we could link hands across the boundary. His palm was warm against mine.
“Be strong,” Casimya said as she prepared her materials. Herbs, crystals, a silver blade, a bowl. “This may take hours. Hold your focus through the drain.”
“I will.”
She took my free hand and made a small cut on my palm with the silver blade. I winced but didn’t pull away. Blood dripped into the bowl at my feet, dark red against bronze.
The magic began to build at once. I could feel it in the air, electric. The candle flames flickered and grew taller. Pressure built against my skin.
Casimya started chanting in a language I didn’t recognize. Old, powerful words. The pressure increased with each syllable.
The spell pulled at me, not painful, but insistent. Like invisible hands tugging at my energy, using it to search across dimensions.
Then, in the middle of the building magic, a small portal opened about three feet to my left. Shimmering and unstable, clearly created by someone still learning.
A piece of paper fell through.
Mal caught it before it hit the ground, and despite the serious ritual happening around us, his face softened with affection.
“I miss you,” he read quietly. “Love Killian. That is supposed to be a heart.”
I looked at the crude drawing on the paper. Stick figures of our family and a blob that might have been a heart or might havebeen a potato. With Killian’s artistic skills, it was impossible to tell.
Despite the magic already pulling at me, I smiled.
“He’s such a cutie. Gets that from you.”
Mal scribbled a response and sent it back through the small portal. “We miss you too, pup. Be good for Grandma.”
The portal snapped shut with a small pop.
Casimya continued chanting, unbothered. She’d probably seen weirder things in her centuries of practicing magic. A four-year-old sending love notes through portals during a blood ritual barely registered.
Hours passed in a blur of candlelight and smoke. The spell used my energy like fuel, burning through my reserves as it searched across dimensions. Through realms I couldn’t name. Looking for one specific magical signature among millions.
My bones ached. My vision blurred at the edges. Sweat dripped down my temples.
More notes from Killian appeared periodically, breaking through the monotony. One was just a drawing of flowers. Another had“when are you done?”written in Sorcha’s careful handwriting, a note next to it saying Killian had dictated the words and wanted Grandma to write it.
Mal read each one to me softly, his voice a lifeline. He wrote brief responses,“Soon”and“Love you” and“Be patient,”and sentthem back. Each note brought a flicker of warmth to my chest even as I felt myself fading.
I was pale now, I knew. Shaking. The spell was taking everything I had and reaching for more.
Casimya’s chanting reached a crescendo. The candles all flared at once, flames jumping. The magic surged through me like lightning.
“I have her!” Casimya shouted. “Tyreen. She is alive!”
“Where?” I gasped out, my voice barely a whisper.
“In Lytopia. Noctherion woods. Deep in the interior, heavily warded and hidden.”
