“Got it,” I shout out, not sure what I’ve even got, but my body and the knife seem to be moving of their own accord, and Rogan backs up while I cut my cousin away from the harmful magic. I hear glass break behind me, and Rogan consoling Hillen, explaining that whatever potion he just broke will keep us hidden from anyone who might be watching.
Stupidly, I want to demand where the hell he’s keeping all these potions, because with the way his jeans fit, I just don’t see where they’re coming from. But I’ve almost got Tad free, and once again the fiend in my brain is being annoyingly inappropriate given what we’re dealing with.
Tad gasps as he falls away from the door and is finally able to release the key in the lock. I hold on to him, expecting him to stumble and groan until he’s back with us, but instead, he collapses on the concrete, and it’s all I can do to keep him from smashing his head as he does.
Rogan dives to help me, and we get Tad turned on his back, where I can see he’s gasping for air. “He’s choking!” I shout, but Rogan stops me when I move to try and clear Tad’s airway.
“No, it’s a residual jinx. Did your grandmother teach you how to do a cleanse?” he hurriedly asks, and my heart drops.
Shit, did she?
Tad’s mouth opens and closes like a hooked fish that’s just begging to be put back in the water. I can’t think as he starts to turn purple, and the reality that he’s dying right in front of my eyes clobbers me.
“Lennox!” Aunt Hillen screams, the sound a demand that falls on me like a ton of bricks. “Help him!” she begs, her plea so raw and broken that my vision immediately blurs as emotion overwhelms me. Rogan has to push her back with a snarled warning not to touch her son, and I feel something in me shatter.
“Lennox, did she?” Rogan demands, and the tears in my terrified eyes spill over as I look up at him.
“I don’t know, I don’t remember!”
I drop my gaze to Tad, tears dripping down my cheeks as my best friend’s struggle for air grows weaker and weaker. He’s going to die, and it’s going to be all my fault.
8
“Lennox! Look at me,” Rogan orders as panic climbs up my throat, threatening to close my airway.
My eyes snap to his, and the hard unforgiving glint I find in his gaze is exactly what I need to help me get my shit together.
“I’ll walk you through it,” he tells me, reaching under his shirt and yanking at whatever he seems to have hidden there.
A silky red pouch comes away in his hand, the straps that kept it hidden under his shirt frayed and damaged from being ripped off. He opens the pouch and pulls out a handful of loose herbs, sprinkling them around Tad, who has now stopped struggling, his body jerking with weak spasms as the jinx works to steal the last of his fight.
“Adhaint,” Rogan commands, and the herbs immediately light and then go out, leaving a ring of scented smoke in their wake.
The smell of sage hits me, and the scent helps to calm my splintering nerves as I watch Rogan sprinkle liquid on Tad.
“Give me your hands.”
I reach out immediately, placing my palms in his, and as soon as I do, I feel him activate the familiar bond and start tugging at my magic. I gasp, and he studies my face for a beat before saying, “Your turn.”
I close my eyes and open myself up entirely, desperately searching for the connection between Rogan and me, like I did with Hoot when I first checked to make sure our familiar bond was in place. I find it easily, warm and strong and coiled around what feels like my essence...my soul. Surprise flickers through me, but I dismiss it. I’m not a Soul Witch, so I could be wrong, and now isn’t the time to dive into what the hell Rogan’s magic is doing there.
I yank on the connection, and a small grunt from Rogan confirms that he felt it. I look over at him, and I don’t miss the same uneasiness in his features thatIfeel over giving someone access to something that should only be mine. It’s as though he’s tagged his name all over my insides, and all I want to do is scrub it away. I shove all my concerns and feelings on that matter aside, forcing myself to concentrate solely on saving Tad.
“Repeat after me,” Rogan directs, and then slowly he speaks an incantation. He finishes and then immediately repeats it. I listen until he starts again and then add my own voice to the cleansing words. The smoke from the loose sage thickens around us, and the smell of a warm day at the lake billows out from the liquid Rogan sprinkled all over my cousin.
I close my eyes as the incantation spills from my lips. I shove all the magic I can into my words and picture it moving over Tad, clearing away the vicious magic that’s clinging to him. I pour out my magic, begging it to save him, demanding that the powers that be make this right. Tears stream steadily down my cheeks as I release all my hope out into the world and pray that it’s enough. I chant with all that I am, terrified that I’ll open my eyes and see that it’s not working.
My hands squeeze Rogan’s as fear and despair taunt me. His grip tightens against mine, and then something strange happens. A coolness trickles over me, not the frigid uncomfortable kind that I experienced when I sealed the bones to me, it’s more like a welcome relief that’s chasing away the heat and misery. It moves through me, tickling my senses, and then suddenly it feels like I’m not the only one inhabiting my body.
Another awareness is pressed tightly against me, and it sends all my nerve endings firing with all kinds of sensations. A tingling feeling begins to build at my core, but I can’t concentrate on what the hell it is as image after image begins to flash in my mind. They move so fast that it’s hard to make them out. Sometimes I catch what I think is me as a kid, sometimes there are other children who I don’t recognize.
I catch an image of me on Christmas morning opening a toy horse set that I’d wanted for years. A boy cuddling a fat orange tabby. Me crying after my first mean girl experience in middle school. Two boys sneaking out of the house in the middle of the night to go fishing. A man screaming, his face contorted with rage. A pouch of bones that aren’t mine. My first kiss. A fist fight between the same boys who snuck out to go fishing, but they’re older now, and I can recognize Rogan in one of the teenager’s faces.
I see my dad hugging me the day he told me he was sick. Bloody hands that are heavy with despair. Me, sitting in the bathtub, staring dead-eyed at the tiled wall the day I found my dad’s note. A beautiful woman writhing in ecstasy as Rogan works himself in and out of her. My last boyfriend dropping to his knees and slowly pulling my underwear down.
Shock ricochets through me, and I try to pull away from the reel of our lives that’s flashing in front of me, but before I can do anything, I feel the magic that’s blooming in my chest intensify and grow blindingly brighter. It’s as though someone just detonated a small atom bomb behind my sternum, and a pulse of light and power explodes out of Rogan and me.
It rips all traces of punishing magic from Tad and throws my Aunt Hillen against the balcony railing when it slams into her. The windows of my apartment rattle, and the door to the empty apartment next to mine cracks up the middle. I pant as waves of emotion and sensation power through me. Confusion, need, loss, interest, frustration, it’s hard to think through everything that’s bombarding me, demanding my immediate attention.
