“Space.” Grayson set Sofia carefully on the bed. He gently tried to position her, but the muscle spasms were gaining strength and lasting longer. He turned to Cass. “Stay with her. I’ll need to grab my bag from the car.”
“I can?—”
He shook his head, already turning to leave. “It’s locked in a compartment.”
Grayson ran out, digging his keys out of his pocket. He hit the driveway and popped the trunk. Fortunately he hadn’t parked out on the street, so it was just a matter of moments to throw up the trunk, undo the rune that locked the compartment where he kept his backup kit, grab it, slam the trunk closed, and run back in.
In the scant minutes he’d been gone, Cass had managed to clear the room, but Rhea, Elias, Swanson, and Russ were all clustered in the hall by the door. Grayson shouldered his way through and, once inside, closed the door in their astonished faces and locked it. He joined Cass and set his kit near the foot of the bed and out of the way of Sofia’s twitching legs. Someone started pounding on the door, but they both ignored it.
Cass’s voice shook as she said, “It’s getting worse, Gray.”
The shortening of his name felt good, but he didn’t have time to dwell on that because she was right. Soft whimpers were coming from the unconscious Sofia as the tremors teetered on seizures. Whatever was happening was moving quickly. He tore off his suit coat and tossed it onto a nearby chair.
“We need to start with a nullification spell, just until we know what we’re dealing with.” He dug through his bag, grabbed a salt-infused piece of chalk, and held it out to Cass. “I need you to draw a protection circle.”
She took it from him. “We need to move the bed out so I can close it.”
“I’ll pull, you push.”
He moved to the foot of the bed while she set the chalk on the nightstand and grabbed the edge of the headboard. Luckily, the bed wasn’t heavy, but it still scraped against the tile with a few worrisome creaks and groans that sounded like wood splitting. When they had a couple of feet between the headboard and the wall, Cass got to work on the circle.
The pounding at the door stopped, only to be replaced by muffled voices. Grayson and Cass ignored all of it as they worked together to set up a basic protection circle. Once the candle, crystal, antique athame, and herbs were in place, he pulled out a prepped purification packet that was the basis for the nullification spell and moved into the circle.
He waited until she straightened on the other side, chalk gripped in her hand. “Are you clear of the circle?”
“Yes.”
He sent a flare of magic into the activation rune on the packet. With a flash of burnished copper, the spell activated, wrapping around Sofia like a blanket. Tension sang through him as he waited. In moments, her muscle spasms started to ease and her whimpers faded, both good signs. If nothing else, the combination of the nullification spell and the protection circle would buy him time to figure out what was happening.
The pounding at the door started up again, and Cass glared at the door. “Go away!” It went quiet. She placed the chalk on the nightstand. “What now?”
He set the packet aside and picked up a second piece of chalk. “Now you stay there and let me work.”
She looked at her sister and whispered, “Just hurry.”
He didn’t bother with reassurances, not when he didn’t know what he was dealing with. Instead, he drew in a centering breath, gathered his magic, and sent it through the chalk lines. Magic rose, sweeping through the circle, curling around Sofia, and rushing back to him. His instincts whispered that something was off. Heeding them, he crouched and added a couple of runes to the floor. There was a shift in the magical flow, a tightening as the circle and spell blended into a unified purpose, protecting Sofia. He grasped the magic that made him a Key, and his perception of the world shifted.
He studied Sofia, who, in his mind’s eye, was now a flowing weave of pastels. Her magical fabric showed signs of repairs, not quite to the extent of Cass’s but close. Not unexpected, considering that they shared certain family traumas. He took his time, noting troublesome knots here and there plus a few spots where her fabric appeared frayed. There was a handful of shadowed threads with random knots that he needed to examine further, but right at the moment, his attention was solely on the ring. It was clearly bespelled because it was currently doing its best to hold back a swarm of ghostly ribbons that flickered from opaque to transparent even as he watched. Whatever the magic’s intention was, the thin threads of power hued in a soft rose that delicately threaded through the pastel weave of Sofia’s inherent magic kept them at bay. Its subtle flow dipped into fissures and filled in the gaps left behind by the parasitic cluster that kept trying to wrap around the ring’s power.
He studied the ebb and flow, trying to pinpoint why it seemed so familiar. When recognition hit, it was quickly chased by a hot rush of anger. Russ. The dick was trying to manipulate the woman he claimed to love, but somehow, the ring was denying his magic an anchor.
What an asshole.
Determined to eliminate at least one threat to Sofia, Grayson gathered his power to put the manipulation mage in his place, but before he could act, a few strands made it past the rose-hued guardian and connected with the bright heart of the ring. Tendrils quickly wrapped around the pulsating heart of the ring as if trying to squeeze it into another shape. Grayson’s breath caught as he braced to move, but the tendrils abruptly stilled and withered into nothing.
Iris’s message replayed in his head. To Sofia, I leave my emerald ring from my beloved Dorian as a reminder that love is unconditional and forever. Puzzle pieces fell into place. Sofia’s sudden second thoughts on her engagement and the ring’s magical protective behavior were a manifestation of Iris’s love for her granddaughter, bound into a protection amulet.
Grayson eased back. Too often, messing with such primally powered magic could make things worse, so for the moment, he’d leave Iris’s gift to deal with Russ. He was starting to pull his power back, when there was a shift in Sofia’s magic. It wasn’t much, just a flicker on the edge of his perception. Like a brush of dark fingers whispering over the lighter strands, the movement caused the pastels to undulate in a jerky motion as they tried to avoid the touch. The insidious fingers were relentless, continually trying to find a path to absorb the surrounding magic and blend in.
Narrowing his concentration, Grayson let his magic drop into the crouch of a stalking predator as he waited for it happen again. It didn’t take long. Those darker threads were having a hell of time matching Sofia’s magic, mainly because their darkness kept bleeding through. The weave was subtle, but what was more disturbing was the fact that there were no telltale signs to indicate a recognizable signature.
Unless the darkness is the signature.
Uneasy, he crept closer, trying to unravel the complex elements that made up the threads. No way in hell was this Russ’s work. It was too complex. The longer he studied it, the more it disturbed him. Not only did it appear to be fraying Sofia’s magic, but the power fueling this hex shouldn’t have even existed. It was like blending a thread of silk and steel into mercury—an impossibility.
Without knowing what exactly he was up against, Grayson didn’t dare attempt to unravel the hex, but he couldn’t leave Sofia like this. What he needed was time. He held his position as he ran through various options then settled on keeping it simple. He layered a stasis spell and anchored it to the nullification spell. Relief trickled in when the dance of the darker threads slowed considerably. With that threat temporarily held at bay, he focused on unraveling Russ’s influence by boosting the ring’s protections and further disintegrating the Auctori’s hold. After burning away the last gray knot, he reinforced Sofia’s worn-down shield so Russ couldn’t get to her again. He did one final check to make sure he hadn’t missed anything else before he pulled his magic back. The world resettled around him as he blinked his vision clear. There was a mild ache at the back of his head, which was typical after work like this.
Cass rose from a nearby chair. “Is she cursed?”
